The Smartest Guys Of The Room - 1189 Words

After viewing â€Å"The smartest guys in the room†, it is readily apparent that once this company stepped off the path it was doomed to self-destruction. The charismatic leadership of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling was a mitigating factor, propelling this company to epic proportions prior to its demise. The PRC and trading area, made an environment that pushed social facilitation and social learning theory to the limits. The focus of the company was to implement conceptual ideas and to garner immediate profits. The employees became disciples of Lay and Skilling and saw only results and profits, they never questioned the moral implications of their actions. Exploring Enron as it goes from infancy to final explosion, is a valuable mechanism for†¦show more content†¦The leaders were using a goal and rewards based system to encourage the maximum potential of the traders. Conceptually this was successful, however in the State of California’s power deregulation, it was an ethical abomination. The traders used every loop hole imaginable to profit, including rolling blackouts and power plant shut downs. Raising the price of power even thought there was power for everyone, only its manipulation fed the traders ego’s and Enron’s bottom line. This atmosphere of someone is always watch and evaluating you and your performance level leads to social facilitation. Everyone wants to do their absolute best when they know that the boss is watching. In this case everyone is watch always so it magnifies the results obtained from a single individual. Teamwork was seemingly not embraced but rather the concept of self-edification through wealth as the ultimate goal. Once the charismatic leadership of Skilling had promoted conformity among the employees. The nonconformist employees were essentially voted out to keep the idealized vision and toxic work place intact. Skilling had many of the attributes of a fine leader, but was devoid of integrity. This loss of personal conscience is a serious character flaw in any leader. The staff emulated Skilling in this, exhibiting little if any personal guilt for their own actions and behavior. As with the Milgram experiment,