Bo Schembechler Quotes

Ken Lay has, does and will continue to accept responsibility for the fall of Enron. He was the man at the controls. But failure is not a crime.

Enron - although an extreme case - is hardly the only company with a hollow set of values.

I take responsibility for what happened at Enron, both good and bad. But I cannot take responsibility for criminal conduct that I was unaware of.

In America, we no longer have an institutionalized, organized way of calling business to task - of taking them to account for what they've done - and this is especially true in the cultural realm.

Not only is self-regulation largely a fantasy, but repeated scandals across multiple industries have proved that companies are fundamentally incapable of self-regulating for the greater good.

How many big businesses don't resort to underhand means?

The time is coming when all businesses will have to be done with glass pockets.

Laws were changed and regulations repealed until an Enron can set sail without responsibility, supervision, or accountability.

I hope we’re on the road to more truth-telling to investors.

Technical problems can be remediated. A dishonest corporate culture is much harder to fix.

Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism …. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.

You're used to seeing values listed on waiting-room walls. Communication, integrity, excellence, and respect. Those were actually Enron's values.

It would be a sorry world in which corporations engaged in fraud could pull the screen of the First Amendment over any investigation of their scheme.

That is all you can ask, for a manager to be honest and tell you how things are.

Managing by values - not by profits - is a powerful process that will set your business on the path to becoming what I call a 'Fortunate 500' company.

The obligation of every ethical management is to make sure we optimize the long-term value of the company.

I don't believe it's appropriate for me or any other CEO to wade into every political dispute. That's not what we're here for.

You can't just let companies self-regulate, and I've gotta think they get that, too.

A lot of people say that I'm an activist CEO. I just think I'm a responsible leader of a business.

We capitalists? We want transparency.

As business leaders, we should not choose between profit or good; rather, we must choose to profit from good. And that requires connecting what we do with a purpose beyond profit - a reason to exist that meets our shared sense of 'doing good.'

I would rather be responsible and accountable and help to reward the public shareholders going ahead.

Holding individuals accountable for corporate wrongdoing isn't ideological; it's good law enforcement.

The Enron scandal is worthy of the highest level of scrutiny, both because of the enormity of the crimes that may have been committed and because of what the largest bankruptcy in American history has already begun to reveal about the weaknesses in our nation's corporate structures and regulatory oversight.

A press statement may be given with a very good intention, but it says nothing beyond it. If it comes from corporations they run, then it is corporate social responsibility (CSR). That's different from philanthropy. CSR is a lot of shareholders, including me.