Yesterday I posted Part 1 of this blog. In Part 2, this story by Marina Strauss in the Globe and Mail illustrates the blatant lack of both integrity and competence on the part of boards, which puts shareholder interests before all others. Many blame Lambert for this, and justly so; but the real culprit is the board of directors, who allowed him to ruin the lives of so many.
I have been invited to join a number of boards over the past few years and have turned them down because when I did my due diligence I found that either the board was merely a rubber stamp or they viewed the shareholders as the only stakeholder. Employees must be considered as equal stakeholders if an organization is to thrive.
Andrew Faas (former senior executive with the Weston/Loblaw/Shoppers Group; author of ‘From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire’,; and a Public Voices Fellow at Yale University).