By W.G. Jurgensen
From The Columbus Dispatch

July 12, 2002

U.S. Conference of Mayors partner and Nationwide CEO W. C. Jurgensen addresses the importance of business and personal integrity in sustaining long-term success in corporate America.

Until recently, late-night television hosts often began with a joke about some famous athlete or politician being in trouble with the law. Now the jokes are about business scandals — Enron, WorldCom and others.

Sadly, what is happening in American business today is no laughing matter. It has tragic consequences for the nation's economy, millions of trusting investors and hundreds of thousands of corporate employees and retirees.

In a recent commencement address to Master of Business Administration graduates at Ohio State University, I noted that while more enforcement acts and regulations are likely, the mess in corporate America won't be truly cleaned up until there is a renewed focus by business leaders on promoting the highest of ethical standards. This is because no one can legislate honesty and personal integrity. And, not everything that is legal is the right thing to do.

This is not only a problem in the business world but in society in general. Too many people live on the edge of the rules or stretch them beyond acceptable limits, both personally and professionally.

We must ask ourselves as parents, as citizens, as business leaders, are we holding our children, our colleagues and, most important, ourselves accountable for personal integrity? And how much care are we taking in establishing boundaries between the creativity and ingenuity that fuel progress, and the gamesmanship that fosters misdeeds?

We must remember that our institutions mirror broader social behaviors and beliefs. Integrity in business, government, education — and even our religious institutions — tends to be no better than the standards each of us, as individuals, uphold.

With this in mind, I challenged this year's MBA graduates — our next generation of business executives — to think of values as a critical and integral part of a good business plan. And I encouraged them to develop a set of personal values they will follow throughout their careers.

Based on nearly 30 years of experience, I have found that this is the only way to achieve and sustain long-term success Recent events have shown that straying from the rules can immediately and permanently ruin a corporate reputation or an individual's good name.

Schools of business should reinforce the importance of ethics by insisting that the study of values be incorporated into the core academic curriculum. And in our companies, we must provide more coaching to future business leaders about the importance of operating well within ethical boundaries.

I recently attended a Business Roundtable in Washington, where President Bush expressed his concern over the numerous business scandals.

I applaud the president for setting the right moral tone and am heartened by the leadership he and federal legislators are demonstrating to improve our nation's business regulatory oversight. The work of our political leaders, however, will be insufficient without a simultaneous emphasis on values within our companies and other institutions.

For instance, in the coming months chief executive officers of major companies are likely to be asked, under oath, to certify the financial statements of their businesses. Unfortunately, no CEO can be 100 percent certain that the numbers he or she reviews are correct, because those numbers inevitably depend on the quality of the representations and actions of so many other business colleagues. CEOs can and should ask touch questions about the numbers, but the best way to promote their accuracy is to foster a business climate in which honesty and integrity are core values of the entire work force.

All of our institutions need to nurture environments in which everyone has an incentive to play well within the rules. And each of us must be personally accountable.

Perhaps Nationwide's founding father, Murray Lincoln, said it best, "People have within their own hands, the tools to fashion their own destiny."

Each of us, living ethically and accountably, can make a difference.