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Why should Boeing and Wells Fargo executives be afforded sympathy and mercy routinely denied to people far less fortunate and whose actions have far fewer conse

Why should Boeing and Wells Fargo executives be afforded sympathy and mercy routinely denied to people far less fortunate and whose actions have far fewer consequences? Carrie Tolstedt of Wells Fargo is as close to a comic villain as you're going to get, designing a system which forced multitudes of employees into unethical actions. And even after clawbacks Tolstedt ended her career tens of millions of dollars ahead. Executives are already so coddled and protected from failure that terrible actions are rewarded and inevitable.

akerl_ 7y ago
Speaking morally, I believe in having empathy for everybody. The fact that some people don’t behave that way doesn’t cause me to act in kind towards them. That said, empathy (which is what I’m suggesting above) is not “sympathy and mercy”. I haven’t suggested at any point in this thread that we should feel sympathy or mercy for anyone at Boeing (or Wells Fargo). Speaking practically, treating execs as comic villains gets in the way of actually fixing their behavior. There are a variety of ways to force corporations to behave differently, but they all start with actually figuring out why they act this way in the first place. Otherwise we end up making the same mistake as Wells Fargo and Boeing: if we apply pressure on them to act better without clearly understanding why they’re doing what they’re doing, we’re just going to incentivize them to misbehave differently to get around the new rules.
- rectang 7y ago
  > Speaking morally, I believe in having empathy for everybody. I take you at your word. It's just hilarious that a post urging empathy for executives floats to the top while it's bootstraps for everyone else. [EDIT: in other upvoted HN posts, not necessarily yours.] > There are a variety of ways to force corporations to behave differently, but they all start with actually figuring out why they act this way in the first place. It starts with whittling down the outrageous soft power enjoyed by corporations, their owners, and their agents — and which you are contributing to by delaying, denying, and softening accountability for the most outrageous of executive actions.
  - NikolaNovak 7y ago
    Not the op, but this is a schism in attitude that I frequently face: - I believe that "understanding your enemy" ("Empathy") is absolutely positively crucial in successfully fighting your enemy - This frequently gets interpreted as "Sympathizing with your enemy", being too soft, making excuses,etc; by those who want simple action. So for example, I think we need to understand what makes a terrorist, how they come to their beliefs and motivations, and what we can do to prevent that. Others interpret that as being 'soft on terrorism', and we just need to 'bomb them into oblivion'; whereas I fear that while actual physical fighting is definitely a critical part of the overall campaign, there's a tremendous danger it'll just create more terrorists because we haven't eradicated the actual root source. To me, striving to understanding an enemy doesn't prevent direct, firm action, if that is then convincingly found to be the most effective and efficient way of fighting them. In turn, I feel understanding your enemy prevents random, ineffective, emotionally-satisfying but results-lacking action. Others, of course, will disagree. So - to the point of the article and discussion: I agree with op, if that is their intention, that you have to look at incentives; I've worked in corporate world for decades and I fully agree that you can have whatever value pledges, official goals, mission statements, and even official rules you darn well want to; and they're completely irrelevant if actual incentives, when summed out, reward a different behaviour. External and internal rules, and power, and statements, and goals, are all factors in incentives; as are the more subtle, emergent incentives. Going for a blunt approach may shift those incentives insufficiently far, or in an incorrect direction. ...My 2.4 Canadian Pennies :-D
    - akerl_ 7y ago
      100% agreement with how you put it. I believe it’s crucial to empathize with everyone. Sympathy is fully separate, and not something that I have for the relevant management staff at Boeing/WellsFargo/etc. But empathy is what allows us to understand why somebody wants to do something, which is pretty necessary if we intend to alter that behavior.
      - rectang 7y ago
        That Wells Fargo article you cite above vilifies low-level bankers as the true bad actors: > “The real crime here is that low-level retail bankers set up fake accounts in order to scam Wells Fargo out of their modest paychecks” just doesn’t work as a story of the scandal, even if there is a certain partial truth to it as a mechanical matter. Meanwhile, the upper managers who put in place the incentives that guaranteed fraud would occur by low-level bankers are only guilty of "mismanagement": > In the case of Wells Fargo, though, I suppose it’s possible that the attorney general thinks the shareholders really were the victims. They didn’t benefit from the fake accounts, and it is not crazy to say that they were harmed by Wells Fargo’s mismanagement. Carrie Tolstedt took home tens of millions of dollars for inducing fraud, but only the scapegoats who did the dirty work for her are held morally culpable. The author doesn't even notice that just like those low-level retail bankers, Tolstedt scammed shareholders out of her (enormous) paycheck. It's a perfect example of extending excessive empathy to executives while hypocritically withholding it from others. And that is exactly what's happening in this thread. Executive malfeasance gets endlessly excused away as the product of poor incentives, because in your quest to humanize executives, you succumb to the perfectly natural human foible of "to know all is to forgive all". Now, I'm not saying you're a mustache-twirling villain. But people who are unable to apply their principles when the chips are down and hold executives accountable are at the root of the problem.

akerl_ 7y ago

Speaking morally, I believe in having empathy for everybody. The fact that some people don’t behave that way doesn’t cause me to act in kind towards them. That said, empathy (which is what I’m suggesting above) is not “sympathy and mercy”. I haven’t suggested at any point in this thread that we should feel sympathy or mercy for anyone at Boeing (or Wells Fargo). Speaking practically, treating execs as comic villains gets in the way of actually fixing their behavior. There are a variety of ways to force corporations to behave differently, but they all start with actually figuring out why they act this way in the first place. Otherwise we end up making the same mistake as Wells Fargo and Boeing: if we apply pressure on them to act better without clearly understanding why they’re doing what they’re doing, we’re just going to incentivize them to misbehave differently to get around the new rules.

rectang 7y ago
> Speaking morally, I believe in having empathy for everybody. I take you at your word. It's just hilarious that a post urging empathy for executives floats to the top while it's bootstraps for everyone else. [EDIT: in other upvoted HN posts, not necessarily yours.] > There are a variety of ways to force corporations to behave differently, but they all start with actually figuring out why they act this way in the first place. It starts with whittling down the outrageous soft power enjoyed by corporations, their owners, and their agents — and which you are contributing to by delaying, denying, and softening accountability for the most outrageous of executive actions.
- NikolaNovak 7y ago
  Not the op, but this is a schism in attitude that I frequently face: - I believe that "understanding your enemy" ("Empathy") is absolutely positively crucial in successfully fighting your enemy - This frequently gets interpreted as "Sympathizing with your enemy", being too soft, making excuses,etc; by those who want simple action. So for example, I think we need to understand what makes a terrorist, how they come to their beliefs and motivations, and what we can do to prevent that. Others interpret that as being 'soft on terrorism', and we just need to 'bomb them into oblivion'; whereas I fear that while actual physical fighting is definitely a critical part of the overall campaign, there's a tremendous danger it'll just create more terrorists because we haven't eradicated the actual root source. To me, striving to understanding an enemy doesn't prevent direct, firm action, if that is then convincingly found to be the most effective and efficient way of fighting them. In turn, I feel understanding your enemy prevents random, ineffective, emotionally-satisfying but results-lacking action. Others, of course, will disagree. So - to the point of the article and discussion: I agree with op, if that is their intention, that you have to look at incentives; I've worked in corporate world for decades and I fully agree that you can have whatever value pledges, official goals, mission statements, and even official rules you darn well want to; and they're completely irrelevant if actual incentives, when summed out, reward a different behaviour. External and internal rules, and power, and statements, and goals, are all factors in incentives; as are the more subtle, emergent incentives. Going for a blunt approach may shift those incentives insufficiently far, or in an incorrect direction. ...My 2.4 Canadian Pennies :-D
  - akerl_ 7y ago
    100% agreement with how you put it. I believe it’s crucial to empathize with everyone. Sympathy is fully separate, and not something that I have for the relevant management staff at Boeing/WellsFargo/etc. But empathy is what allows us to understand why somebody wants to do something, which is pretty necessary if we intend to alter that behavior.
    - rectang 7y ago
      That Wells Fargo article you cite above vilifies low-level bankers as the true bad actors: > “The real crime here is that low-level retail bankers set up fake accounts in order to scam Wells Fargo out of their modest paychecks” just doesn’t work as a story of the scandal, even if there is a certain partial truth to it as a mechanical matter. Meanwhile, the upper managers who put in place the incentives that guaranteed fraud would occur by low-level bankers are only guilty of "mismanagement": > In the case of Wells Fargo, though, I suppose it’s possible that the attorney general thinks the shareholders really were the victims. They didn’t benefit from the fake accounts, and it is not crazy to say that they were harmed by Wells Fargo’s mismanagement. Carrie Tolstedt took home tens of millions of dollars for inducing fraud, but only the scapegoats who did the dirty work for her are held morally culpable. The author doesn't even notice that just like those low-level retail bankers, Tolstedt scammed shareholders out of her (enormous) paycheck. It's a perfect example of extending excessive empathy to executives while hypocritically withholding it from others. And that is exactly what's happening in this thread. Executive malfeasance gets endlessly excused away as the product of poor incentives, because in your quest to humanize executives, you succumb to the perfectly natural human foible of "to know all is to forgive all". Now, I'm not saying you're a mustache-twirling villain. But people who are unable to apply their principles when the chips are down and hold executives accountable are at the root of the problem.