[circling]
I ATTENDED a revolting event recently, featuring a man named Walt Pavlo, fresh out of prison, who defrauded MCI/Worldcom out of millions of dollars. He shared his ?Confessions of an Embezzler? on stage at a large Minneapolis downtown hotel for an audience of prominent business people.
I thought, why am I listening to him? Why is a leading Twin Cities accounting firm hosting him? Why is Minnesota Public Radio giving him lengthy air time on its show? Why is he promoting his book at this event and at others around the country?
If the idea was to present a cautionary tale to business owners, it didn?t really work. His scheme was so wacky that it didn?t serve as a warning, unless the warning was: “Watch out at your company for a hotshot salesman who gets in touch with a sidekick at a different division and poses as a European investment group bailing out a troubled customer who writes monthly checks to an offshore bank account while the salesman generates fake invoices.?
The perfect crime it wasn?t, but it was perfectly depressing.
As I drove away from the event, I listened to a discussion on the radio about the doping scandal in sports, with that day?s infamous poster person being Marion Jones, a woman whom I had cheered for wildly in her spectacular appearance at the Olympics.
Everybody?s doing it in sports, caller after caller said on the radio show. That?s what Pavlo had said, too, about what he was told at MCI: Everybody cheats in business.
The back-to-back discussions really brought me down. But other people whose stories I heard in the weeks that followed restored my confidence.
I heard Bill George, formerly CEO of Medtronic Inc., eviscerating the CEO of Countrywide Financial for cashing millions in stock options as shareholders took the fall and subprime mortgage customers lost their homes. He urged entrepreneurs at a ClubWOW event to start their companies with solid values from day one.
I heard Dee Thibodeau, co-CEO of the IT consulting firm Charter Solutions, accepting an award at a WomenVenture event that drew 2,000 people. She talked about her mission to help women be successful, and exhorted others to do the same, ?one woman at a time.?
I heard Tom Salonek, CEO of Intertech Inc., tell at an Upsize event about the foundation that he and his wife have started, to help families with terminally ill children. He says he wants to create something that lives beyond the success of his own company or his own family.
So many good people put the lie to the idea that ?everybody does it.? So many good people in local business can restore anyone?s optimism, and counteract the bad stories that are such a turnoff.
Who said it best? Perhaps Marilyn Dahl, a 41-year-veteran banker at Wells Fargo, as she also accepted an award at the WomenVenture event. She?s the classic straight-shooter, remarkable especially for someone who?s such a bigwig. She urged each person in the audience to stay true to his or her own values.
?Remember, what goes around comes around,? Dahl said. ?Only the size of the circle varies.?
? Beth Ewen
editor and co-founder
Upsize Minnesota
bewen@upsizemag.com
