Conference 7.286::digital

>    Bob also stated that he will be forming an 'Office of Ethics' which
>    will be headed by a senior VP.
 
	My first reaction to this was "just what we don't need - an other VP."
	My second reaction was "what a logical place to put a senior VP who
	one wants to move out of a line position." 

			Alfred

    Has the VP of Ethics Reform been named? Is there an office to contact
    yet?

    ...and what will the new VP's job actually consist of?  Speculation
    welcome, facts preferred.

    Well, it's good to hear that Ethics will be centralized now.  It's such
    a nuisance when Ethics are scattered throughout the Company ...  ;^)
    
    Steve

    
    
    Wonder what prompted an Office of Ethics???  Does that apply to 
    how we treat each other or only the customer???
    

    >>...and what will the new VP's job actually consist of? 
    
         First on the agenda:: A week in Cancun.
         Second on the agenda:: Sleeze a salary increase.
         Third on the agenda:: A week in St. Thomas
         Forth on the agenda:: Stop by the office for a quick visit
                                before heading to Florida for some golf.
         Fifth on the Agenda:: While lying on the beach in sunny Florida
                                think up more ways to screw the company.
                       

>
>    ...and what will the new VP's job actually consist of?  Speculation
>    welcome, facts preferred.

	1) Form an Ethics Task Force which will appoint:
	2) a Blue Ribbon Ethics Committee.

	3) Study the Ethics Problem, and publish a 2-year plan

	4) Mail monthly status reports of meetings, members' names,
	   plans, and pointers to White Papers.

	5) Staff an office, buy computers, desks, etc.

	6) Travel to various DEC sites, giving talks on "Ethics in the
	   90s", "Ethics: The New Paradigm" and "The Ethics Vision."
	   Note these sites will be in or near resort areas...never a
	   trip to Newark, Kansas City, Bismarck, or Dallas.

	7) Consume $ 4.5 million each year after the 3rd year, and
	   be fully entrenched....

	Watch that bottom line plunge !  Roller coasters have never
	been so much fun !

	Steve H

       
       
       Can someone defien "Ethics" for me? I know the definition, but 
       why do we need a whole office for it?
       
       					->Jay

    
    
    
    Digital works by marginalising responsibilities. Want quality? Appoint
    someone to be in charge - so no-one else worries. Want ethics? Appoint
    a VP - so no-one else worries about it.
    
    Pathetic.

    
    Office of Ethics.....
    
    hummmm, is this where the new "open door" leads???f
    
    

If we get a VP of Ethics before we get a VP of Sales, you know this company 
is in deep do-do.

    Was anyone in any doubt?

    why not appoint a VP in charge of "customer focus"? i work with
    customers everyday. I get damn little (read that to mean NOTHING) in
    the way of support in those efforts from management. yes. i get a
    worstation, a cube, etc. but how about a little direct involvement. it
    doesn't exist. we give a lot of lip service to the thing called
    "customer focus". until we get more active involvement by folks who
    aren't at the bottom of the org chart, that's all it will be. lip
    service. and that won't save us.
    
    gene.

re: .3

>    ...and what will the new VP's job actually consist of?  Speculation
>    welcome, facts preferred.

OK, this is pure speculation, since you said you'd welcome it.

A new president takes over a firm that has long been under the leadership
of its founder.  He has all the books opened to him.  What he finds there
makes him ask some hard questions.  Various people come forward to say
that trusted lieutenants of the ancien regime perpetrated some unethical
acts either unknown to or tolerated by the previous administration.  The
new president appoints his own "special prosecutor".

Tasks?  Confirm who the guilty parties are and kick butt.  Also tell us
what we need to do to prevent anything really slick from happening again.

This is a "BP-as-hardass" vs. a "BP-falls-prey-to-psychobabble" scenario.

								paul

    
    	In case anyone wants the source of my info, it is in VTX
    	under Worldwide News. It was also in Friday's Boston Globe.
    
    	Frankly I tend to agree with the ideas expressed in .14.
    	I also think that breaking up the business into separate
    	business units is a step in the right direction.
    
    	John
    

    
    
    "Round up the usual suspects"..............

    Digital's philosophy regarding ethics became a nostalgia item like
    "modules * systems * computers" as a signature of Digital's businesses.

    Digital paid the largest fine ever paid to the Department of Commerce,
    and there were numerous other ethical lapses through the years.

    But the greatest ethical lapses have come from the erosion of customer
    loyalty and trust.  Other companies have had a gap in product
    competitiveness and have overcome it by building a bond that
    transcended the product du jour.  Digital failed to do so.

    How do we get separate business units without the dreaded stovepipes?
    
    Bob

    
    We consult the Ethics VP of course.

Re .18:

>    How do we get separate business units without the dreaded stovepipes?

You succeed by none of the businesses being willing to pay for the stovepipes.
You fail by corporate-level management "taxing" the businesses to pay for the
stovepipes they don't want anyhow.
				/AHM

    
    I suspect that .14 may have something.  Remember the flap about
    the expense procedures violations?  How about the comments in this
    notesfile about the wrong people being laid off?  It could be
    that Palmer wanted to make a strong statement about the importance
    of a decent value system.
    
    Also, don't dismiss the PR value of such a move.  One of the hottest
    topics in the B-schools these days is ethics training.  Not to mention
    the ethical issues involved in technology (e.g., information privacy).
    
    Glenn

    When Ken left, did he take all the ethics with him, forcing Bob to
    start over via a new VP?
    
    And on the subject of the "birdcage theory", there is a point where you
    have so many perches installed, that the birds are unable to move when
    someone rattles the cage.  That, I believe is the point at which the
    one large cage is replaced by many (um, 8-10?) smaller cages - each
    with fewer perches, fewer birds, etc.  Hopefully, these all get hung
    from different hooks, so that rattling one will not rattle them all.

    We have a lot of parrots on the perches, they can imitate other birds,
    but they don't understand what they are singing.  (Especially when they
    talk about ethics).
    
    Dick

	Last I heard, we currently employ 203 people who are 
	called Vice President.  This works out to 534 employees
	per VP.

	I wonder if anyone has actually calculated what it
	costs to maintain each VP ?

	Salary, benefits, perks, travel, office, staff, computers
	and on and on.

	Care to bet we're talking an average $ 1 million / year
	per VP in costs ?

	Steve H

    
       ...you may be certain that when big companies get around to creating an
       Office of Ethics, that's the only place you're certain to find it...
    
    	;) 
    
    	john

	One loose definition of "ethics" is "doing the right thing".
	In this context, refer to .4:

>    Well, it's good to hear that Ethics will be centralized now.  It's such
>    a nuisance when Ethics are scattered throughout the Company ...  ;^)

	/Tom

    
    My 2 cents (.02)
    
    
        I would think that all V.P.'s would be a VP of Ethics, in a 
    coporation or other personal experiences; creating such an office
    makes it appear that there is a problem!!
    
    just my $.02
    

re: .17
>    But the greatest ethical lapses have come from the erosion of customer
>    loyalty and trust.  
    
    
    What about the erosion of employee morale over the last 5-10 years due
    to the 'ethics' of some of the manglers? Just read a few of these notes
    and look at the cynicism/sarcasm dripping from them. DEC didn't use to
    be like that! And I worry that we'll not ever be able to get rid of the
    stain of dis-trust. Restoring trust is as hard as putting Humpty Dumpty
    back together again.
    
    Marie
    

    What about the "missing" industries?  For example, we used to have a
    Government industry business.  It was not included in BP's statement. 
    Can we assume he meant every word he didn't say?
    
    dave_P

    To establish an Office of Ethics and create a VP of Ethics is proof
    that Digital, internally and externally has an ethical problem.

RE:               <<< Note 2205.30 by MAAIDS::RWARRENFELTZ >>>

>>    To establish an Office of Ethics and create a VP of Ethics is proof
>>    that Digital, internally and externally has an ethical problem.

     ...OR...it is at least proof that somebody is concerned with 
     ethical issues at DIGITAL

                                      Greg

>     ...OR...it is at least proof that somebody is concerned with 
>     ethical issues at DIGITAL

In its heyday Digital was concerned with ethics and did so naturally without
any special organization or VP.

Today it seems we have to establish the function specifically by name
and appointment to achieve our formerly default ethical behaviour. This
creation has appearance of being 'reactionary', or 'damage control'.

Lee

    Greg:
    
    If, in our normal business and professional dealings, we dealt
    ethically with people in a second nature kind of fashion then we
    wouldn't have any need of this Office of Ethics or a VP thereof.
    
    By establishing the office and the title, this is a quiet admission
    that something may be amiss.

RE:               <<< Note 2205.33 by MAAIDS::RWARRENFELTZ >>>

    >If, in our normal business and professional dealings, we dealt
    >ethically with people in a second nature kind of fashion then we
    >wouldn't have any need of this Office of Ethics or a VP thereof.
    
     What do you mean by "we", the majority of Digital employees, or
     ALL of us (as a lump)?  Since humans do not tend to function as 
     a unified collective, I assume you mean the majority.

     The Office of Ethics appears to be more of a show of commitment to 
     the matter, than an admission of guilt.  Even if the majority of us 
     DO behave in an ethical manner, it is worthwhile to show a corporate 
     commitment to the issue.

    >By establishing the office and the title, this is a quiet admission
    >that something may be amiss.

     That is not necessarily true.

                                      Greg

.34>  The Office of Ethics appears to be more of a show of commitment to 
.34>  the matter, than an admission of guilt.  Even if the majority of us 
.34>  DO behave in an ethical manner, it is worthwhile to show a corporate 
.34>  commitment to the issue.

By this logic then DEC has not shown the commitment to ethics in the past that
it now appears to be showing, i.e. today things are better than in the past.

I will use your verbage: "...appears to be more of a show...". How very
telling. We are allowing appearances to satisfy us rather than reality... and
I'll give you a good example:

     Ask any 15 or 20 year DEC employee if, in years past, DEC had
     teamwork- you will probably get a resounding 'YES'! Ask them if they
     had any formal training on 'Team Building' or 'Team Goals' the will
     probably say 'NO'.
     
     Today we have more formal courses, seminars, memos, posters, etc. on
     teamwork than ever before, therefore we should have a level of
     teamwork that is higher than it has ever been in DEC, right?
     

"A healthy man needs no crutch to walk".

Lee

    
        Will the Ethics VP be hiring all the principle engineers?
    
    Peter

	re .36:

>        Will the Ethics VP be hiring all the principle engineers?

	RATS!!!! You got in before me...

	You'd be surprised how many of them there are, too. Obviously
	the ability to spell isn't a qualification.

	/Tom

    Aha! An opportunity to indulge my pet peeve... spelling.  It
    amazes me how many memos from senior level people as well as
    reg'lar folks I see which contain gross spelling errors.  It
    seems unprofessional to me.  Like, nobody has time to run a
    spell checker?

    Now, back to your regular programming...  I gotta go look
    something up.

    
    Re: .37
    
    > Will the Ethics VP be hiring all the principle engineers?
    
    >> You'd be surprised how many of them there are, too.  Obviously
    >> the ability to spell isn't a qualification.
    
    Take a second look.  There's no mistake.  It's a joke hiding there.
    
    Steve
    

    .35
    
    Thank you, my sentiments exactly!  :-)

From the moment I heard about an "Office of Ethics" with a VP to run it,
I assumed that the purpose of the office was to attack and resolve ethics
problems that folks at lower levels cannot handle.  E.g., personnel can
deal with a case of a lower level employee doing something wrong, but
who takes care of it if a personnel manager does something wrong?  Or
a VP?  It takes another VP -- and one with both a passionate commitment
to integrity and Bob Palmer's absolute trust -- to fix those cases.

Anyway, that's what I assumed the Office of Ethics was established to do.
Now I'm not so sure.  See note 2474 for a discussion of how and whether
the Office of Ethics is helping employees who feel unethically treated.

	Larry Seiler