Questions:

1. How do the Enron traders perceive themselves and how did their perceptions
influence their behavior?

The Enron traders were arrogant and prideful, consumed by greed, they saw themselves as
the “the smartest guys” in any room. Their “sense of entitlement,” “unreasonable
expectations” and “lack of sensitivity to the rules of others” resulted in injury to others. They
manipulated and exploited people in their unceasing efforts to build themselves up. They saw
themselves as untouchable. We hear Enron traders laughing about "Grandma Millie," a
hypothetical victim of the rolling blackouts, and boasting about the millions they made for
Enron.

2. In your opinion, what type of perceptual disorders would have occurred in

Enron working environment?

Projection – projection is perceiving others by what they themselves are like, this usually
leads, unhealthy and unrealistic expectations. Heavy focus on performance led to negative
use of competition as a whip to herd the employees in the wrong direction. Skilling was the
company’s CEO, and he used a rank and yank system to goad the employees and managers.
The result of this system was that it always pushed the bottom 20% of the underperformers
out of the company. It made the employees compete against each other fiercely, giving rise to
an environment of total distrust inside the environment.
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3. One of trader said:

“I was never comfortable on the trading floor at Enron. And if I have questions, I didn’t ask
them because I didn’t want to know the answer. I didn’t want to confirm that what I
suspected might be true. That what I was doing was unseemly or at least unethical if not
worse"

What emotional defenses were in play in this situation?

- Denial: refusal to acknowledge an impulse-evoking fact, feeling or memory.

- Splitting: isolating different elements of experience, often to protect the good from the
bad.