Chapter 3 The Environment and 

Corporate Culture 103

Just before lunch, Miquel’s boss had handed him a this kind of thing might happen again. Using this confiden-
stack of private strategic documents from their closest tial information would certainly give him and his company
competitor. It was a CI gold mine—product plans, pricing a competitive advantage, but Miquel wasn’t sure that he
strategies, partnership agreements, and other documents, wanted to work for a firm that would stoop to such tactics.
most of them clearly marked “proprietary and confidential.”
When Miquel asked where the documents came from, his
What Would You Do?
boss told him with a touch of pride that he had taken them
right off the competing firm’s server. “I got into a private 1. Go ahead and use the documents to the company’s
section of their intranet and downloaded everything that benefit, but make clear to your boss that you don’t want
looked interesting,” he said. Later, realizing that Miquel was him passing confidential information to you in the
suspicious, the boss would say only that he had obtained future. If he threatens to fire you, threaten to leak the
2
“electronic access” via a colleague and had not personally news to the press.

ENVIRONMENT
broken any passwords. Maybe not, Miquel thought to him- 2. Confront your boss privately and let him know that
self, but this situation wouldn’t pass the 60 Minutes test. If you’re uncomfortable with how the documents were
word of this acquisition of a competitor’s confidential data obtained and what possession of them says about the
ever got out to the press, the company’s reputation would company’s culture. In addition to the question of the
be ruined. legality of using the information, point out that it is a
Miquel didn’t feel good about using these materials. He public relations nightmare waiting to happen.
spent the afternoon searching for answers to his dilemma,
but found no clear company policies or regulations that 3. Talk to the company’s legal counsel and contact the
offered any guidance. His sense of fair play told him that Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals for
using the information was unethical, if not downright ille- guidance. Then, with their opinions and facts to back
gal. What bothered him even more was the knowledge that you up, go to your boss.

Ch3 Apply Your Skills: Case for Critical Analysis

Not Measuring Up “The results from last year to this year show overall im-
“I must admit, I’m completely baffled by these scoring provement,” Wheeling said. “But for the second year, Cam’s
results for Cam Leslie,” Carole Wheeling said as she and survey results are disappointing. In fact, there appears to be
company CEO Ronald Zeitland scrolled through the latest a little slippage in some areas.”
employee surveys for middle management. Zeitland leaned back in his chair, paused, and looked at
For the second year, RTZ Corporation used Wheel- the survey results on the screen.
ing’s consulting firm to survey and score managers. An “I don’t really understand it,” Wheeling remarked. “I’ve
increasingly younger workforce, changing consumer tastes, talked to Cam. He seems like a nice guy—a hard worker,
and technology changes in the industry had caused Zeit- intelligent, dedicated. He pushes his crew, but he’s not a
land to look more closely at culture and employee satisfac- control freak.”
tion. The goal of this process was to provide feedback in “He actually implemented several of the suggestions
order to assure continuous improvement across a variety from last year’s survey,” Zeitland said. “From all reports
of criteria. The surveys could be used to highlight areas for and my own observations, Cam has more presence in the
improvement by showing manager and company strengths department and has increased the number of meetings. He
and weaknesses, anticipating potential problem areas, pro- appears to have at least attempted to open up communica-
viding a barometer for individual job performance, and as tions. I’m sure he will be as baffled as we are by these new
a road map for transforming the culture as the company results because he has put forth effort.”
expanded. “Employees mentioned some of these improvements,
From the outset, Zeitland insisted on employee hon- but it’s not altering the scores. Could it merely be a reflec-
esty in scoring managers and providing additional com- tion of his personality?” Wheeling asked.
ments for the surveys. “We can’t change what we don’t “Well, we have all kinds of personalities throughout
know,” Zeitland instructed employees in meetings two management. He’s very knowledgeable and very task-
years ago. “This is your opportunity to speak up. We’re not oriented. I admit he has a way of relating to people that can
looking for gripe sessions. We’re looking for constructive be a little standoffish, but I don’t think it’s always necessary
analysis and grading for what we do and how we do it. This to be slapping everyone on the back and buying them beers
method assures that everyone is heard. Every survey carries at the local pub in order to be liked and respected and . . .”
equal weight. Changes are coming to this organization. We “. . . in order to get high scores?” Wheeling finished his
want to make those changes as easy and equally beneficial sentence. “Still, the low percentage of ‘favorable’ scores in re-
as possible for everyone.” lation to ‘unfavorable’ and even ‘neutral’. . .” her voice trailed
Now, two years into the process, the culture was show- off momentarily. “That’s the one that gets me. There are so
ing signs of changing and improving. many ‘neutral’ scores. That’s really strange. Don’t they have

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