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Subject: 
Re: Art Debate Was: [Re: Swearing?]
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Wed, 26 Jan 2000 20:53:48 GMT
Viewed: 
2400 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
James Brown wrote in message ...
How do you justify person X being responsible for person Y's actions?
Boiled down, that's exactly what you are claiming here.

To put it another way, you are saying that lacking evidence to the
contrary, the CEO of any given corporation is guilty of any crimes commited
by anyone in that organization.  That places the burden of proof in the wrong
direction - Guilt is assumed, and people have to prove their innocence.  How
does that jive with "people are essentially good"?

First off, the CEO is only responsible for the activities of his employees
which are reasonably related to their job. If one of your employees is
beating his wife at home, the CEO is not responsible.

I didn't mention that aspect, I took it as a given.  Sorry.

If the employee just left a company party drunk, the CEO is probably
responsible (this will hinge on how the company was involved in promoting the
party, a bunch of guys who exchange e-mails at work to go out to a bar after
work doesn't count, if the secretary invites you to the boss's house, I would
say that is a work related function).

Yoiks!  So if I go to my boss' house, tanked to the gills but very good at
hiding it, he's responsible when I kill someone on the way home?

Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong, but this is how it comes across:  "If
we can't actually find out who's fault this is, we'll blame that guy."

If the CEO is not responsible for EVERYTHING done by the company, what the
heck is he responsible for?

Anything he can be proven to have a hand in.

Now in many cases, the employee will be able to be held fully responsible,
and there won't be much for the CEO to worry about.

Also the EXTENT to which the CEO is held responsible will depend on
circumstances. We aren't going to be charging the CEO with murder just
because an employee blew his stack and shot someone in the office. But if it
turns out the company didn't do it's usual background check, or the company
ignored several obvious warning signals, or anything else which hints that
the company should have been able to prevent the murder, then the company
(and ultimately the CEO) is going to face the possibility of a civil
judgement (and if the situation was extreme, possibly even a criminal
judgement).

And again, I don't have a problem with people getting charged with things they
are SHOWN to be responsible for.  What I hear people saying is (in relation to
the above) "we have investigating this employee snapping, and can find no
single discernable cause, therefore, it's the CEO's fault."

Perhaps it would be easier if we dealt with some scenarios. Why don't you
lay out a scenario which you feel you can justify why the CEO should not be
responsible (and you believe after reading the above, that I will unjustly
hold the CEO responsible), and lets see if we agree with you. You might even
try several. Note that you will need to give a fair amount of detail (try
not to assume too much - note that in my examples above, I  have probably
assumed too much, so feel free to debate those scenarios also).

I put together some case studies, but in the interests of not offending Cnews,
I'll start a new thread with them.

James
http://www.shades-of-night.com/lego/



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Art Debate Was: [Re: Swearing?]
 
James Brown wrote in message ... (...) are (...) Boiled (...) contrary, (...) in (...) direction - (...) First off, the CEO is only responsible for the activities of his employees which are reasonably related to their job. If one of your employees (...) (25 years ago, 26-Jan-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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