Pollyanna stuff. It works better.... I was particularly fortunate,
working for this company. I never had to choose in daily deci-
sions between what was the right thing to do and what was
good business.”
But according to then Korn/Ferry International CEO Richard
Ferry, Burke, Ritchey, and the others concerned with more than
the short-term bottom line are still exceptions. He said, “There
are some brilliant CEOs running American companies, execu-
tives who clearly understand what it’ll take to be competitive in
the future, but they’re caught in a bind. The only way they can
protect themselves against hostile takeovers is to get the stock
price up. Anyone who’s really thinking about the future is putting
the company—and his or her career—at risk, because investing a
fair amount of money in areas such as research and development
and new products has no immediate payoff.... Companies may
write a fancy job description. There’ll be a lot of discussion about
long-term strategy, but, in the end, they want an executive who is
going to deliver earnings.”
Burke, for one, was committed to fighting this social disease.
And Norman Lear’s description of how Burke raised the con-
sciousness of his fellow CEOs is still relevant today. Lear said:
“Jim Burke has put together some lunches where he has invited
other CEOs, and at the beginning they are all interested in
how the image of business can be improved. They aren’t will-
ing to admit readily the enormous contribution business is
making to its own poor image. And as the time passes and peo-
ple relax, you find them all aware that they need help. That
business needs help. They’re not villains—they didn’t start the
obsession with short-term thinking. They know it’s wrong, but
they’re in traps that they can’t find their way out of. They need
somebody to put a spotlight on it, so that what’s wrong will be
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