Don Nickles Quotes

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

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

Shareholder meetings are not usually the occasion for utter candor - or for that matter, arch sarcasm - by chief executives.

The future of any corporation is as good as the value system of the leaders and followers in the organization.

Businesspeople get a little bit of bad press sometimes. There are a lot of normal and ethical people.

History has shown that one cannot legislate a culture of integrity. And yet, one of the paramount responsibilities and challenges of corporate leadership is to ensure such a culture.

Corporate leaders surely have their problems, I believe that most CEOs are doing their best to hew to the ethical line. The problem is that that line has gotten blurred and that our moral standard seems to be "if everybody else is doing it, it's okay". That's not good enough for me.

Companies and leaders are role models - not just with the business community - but in the broader world.

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.

We've got some well-run corporations by some well-intended people who do it right.

I happen to represent Enron here in Houston. We have many good corporate citizens here in Houston. Enron happened to have been one.

I don't feel I'm at liberty to speak about the actions of any one CEO. That's not fair; given CEOs have duties to their shareholders.

There are bad people and there are bad corporations. Just as there are good people and good corporations. That might seem too black and white, but what can I tell ya?

Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no compromise when it comes to ethics, and there are no easy shortcuts to success. Ethics need to be carefully sown into the fabric of their companies.

I think good companies can navigate being public and doing the right things for their customers.

'Power Play' is a morality tale for our post-Enron world and - not incidentally - wildly entertaining. Nothing wrong with that.

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.

Killing Intel, I, I just had to resign from the Apple Board.

A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.

I'm less concerned about whether being a good corporate citizen burnishes a company's reputation. That's just an added benefit. I believe it's a responsibility, and there is no negotiating on responsibilities.

I'm a cynic about corporate democracy and boards.

There's been a sea change in our focus on corporate ethics. We've made more progress in the last three years than the previous 30.

If you run a corporation, your job is to maximize the return on investment for your investors. Good for you. But by the same token, we have to remember that corporations have no compassion. That's why legislation and regulations are necessary.

The question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.

We have to raise the bar on corporate governance. Shareholders want ethical behavior and honesty.