THE TASK FOR THE FIRST COLLABORATIVE WRITING PROJECT (CWP1).

There is a traditional method in Philosophy called the Via Negativa. The first step is to examine an issue by stripping from it all of its "negative" aspects. The next step is to affirm all of its "positive" aspects. For example, if a theologian wants to give a description of God, the first step would be a denial of being a material substance. The second step would be the assertion of some positive aspect(s) of God such as self-subsistance, love, etc.

Your SECOND task as CWP2 will be to do the positive step in describing the attributes of Leadership --- this will occupy the second half of the course. For your FIRST task, you will do the negative step. There is no better way to do the negative analysis than to examine a very bad example of Leadership. Few examples are worse than Enron. In the box below you will find a number of links to the Enron story, including some legal documents. There is a good deal of material here and it can be supplemented by reading the book, The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind (2003) and/or viewing the DVD, Enron: The Smartest Buys in the Room (2005). You can focus on Ken Lay or Jeff Skilling or both as your examples in your analysis. CLICK HERE for a brief outline that should help you organize your Via Negativa.

THE TASK FOR THE SECOND COLLABORATIVE WRITING PROJECT (CWP2).

Your company is beginning the process of selecting a new President, who will lead the company past some of the "ethical issues" that have plagued the company in the past. Now that you have gone through the via negativa exercise, you are prepared to do the via positiva  phase of the process of setting the context for the selection of a new President. The Board now wants to establish a task force (several actually) to see if a sound profile of Moral Leadership can be established. The Board knows that you have taken this course in  THE ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LEADERSHIP so the members expect that you can give a carefully argued TEAM presentation and analysis. They do not want the presentations and analyses to be too long (they are executives and don't have a whole lot of time to read long tracts) --- about 2500 words would be quite sufficient. CLICK HERE for some suggestions for approaching this task.

Your company is a strong believer in teamwork so the Board wants you to work as TEAMS  in putting together your report. Unfortunately, your other tasks and travels make it impossible for your teams to get together in a room for any length of time so you have to do most of your work over the Internet. Fortunately, QuickPlace offers you the ideal tool to develop TEAM analyses and presentations. You will notice that this project combines the features of a threaded discussion and the task of writing. The threaded discussion that leads up to the actual writing should contain at least 5 contributions from each member of the team. The merits of the report will be judged on the team discussion and the reflection of that discussion in the final report. The contributions should be CONTENT oriented in addition to any contributions that may be addressing the manner in which the work has been divided or how the report will be assembled. The contributions to this discussion should be made on an on-going basis. You should not wait until the end of the discussion period to make your contribution. Waiting until the end is not fair to the other members of the team and will jeopardize the success to the project.

The Board wants three reports; one from each of the teams. They want three reports to check one team against another. And then they want to recompose the teams for the second report. The teams will be composed by a random process.

For your SECOND task, imagine that you have been asked by the Board of Directors, who is planning to hire a new President for your company --- which has been having some "ethical" issues in its leadership --- to determine the factors that the new President should possess in order to give genuine Moral Leadership to the corporation. They want to establish a task force (several actually) to see if there can be some design initiated for identifying this person. They know that you have taken this course in  THE ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LEADERSHIP so they expect that you can give a carefully argued TEAM presentation and analysis. They do not want the presentations and analyses to be too long (they are executives and don't have a whole lot of time to read long tracts) --- about 2500 words would be quite sufficient.

RESOURCES FOR "THE ERRORS OF MORAL LEADERSHIP IN ENRON"

"How Enron Bosses Created a Culture of Pushing Limits" from The Wall Street Journal, 8/26/02. (3 pages).     Report of Special Investigative Committee of Board of Directors of Enron, 02/01/2002.    "Suing Enron" from The Wall Street Journal, 10/02/03.    "California Sues Enron" from The Wall Street Journal, 6/2/04.    "Enron Tapes" from The Wall Street Journal, 6/2/04    "Lay is Indicted" from The Wall Street Journal, 7/8/04.    US v. Lay , Full Text of Indictment, 7/7/04.    "Lay's Indictment Excerpts" from The Wall Street Journal, 7/8/04.    SEC Amended Complaint against Kenneth Lay, et.al. , 7/8/04.    "Lay's Response to Indictment" from The Wall Street Journal, 7/8/04.    "Kenneth Lay's Biography" from The Wall Street Journal, 7/9/04.    "Enron's Code of Ethics," 2000.    "Enron's Legal Defense" from The Wall Street Journal, 01/20/06.    "Fall of Enron" from The Houston Chronicle Special Report. Look under category "Business." 2006.    "Skilling's Testimony I" from The Wall Street Journal, 04/11/06.    "Skilling's Testimony II" from The Wall Street Journal, 04/11/06.    "Enron's Lay's Shaky Performance" from The Wall Street Journal, 05/01/06.    "Enron's Lay Defends Practices" from The Wall Street Journal, 05/03/06.    "Enron Closing Arguments" from The Wall Street Journal, 05/16/06.    "Enron's Defense Attacks "Fictional" Case' from The Wall Street Journal, 05/17/06.    "Enron Waiting for Verdict" from The Wall Street Journal, 05/20/06.    "Enron's Legacy" from The Wall Street Journal, 05/20/06.    "Enron's Lay, Skilling Conviction from The Wall Street Journal, 05/26/06.    "Enron's Conviction Opinion WSJ from The Wall Street Journal, 05/26/06.

 

Since the cases are so current you will have to use news magazines and newspapers for your research. I suggest Time and Newsweek and also The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. You probably all get The Wall Street Journal so you can go to WSJ.com as an easy resource. You can also take advantage of the Dow Jones Interactive website, <http://www.sba.udayton.edu/it/dji.asp>, which the School of Business Administration makes available to you. The link to the Dow Jones Interactive website is accessed form the SBA link identified above, but you will probably have to use a computer at the university to access this site.  Much good and accurate information is available from these sources. The library at this site is a particularly valuable treasure trove of references.

The first report is due Monday, October 27. The second report is due Tuesday, December 16.
 

DIRECTIONS: 1. Go to http://quickplace.udayton.edu/mba659_ulrich 2. Click on your "Team and number." [Team members are identified at the bottom of this page.] 3. Click on your "Team and Number and Activity." 4. Click on "New Post." 5. Enter a brief title in the "Post Topic" box and type your comment(s) in "Contents" box and then click "Check In". 6. To respond to another's comment, point to the "Topic" of the comment and click on "New Response." 7. If you wish to revise your comment, click on the comment "Topic" and click on "Check Out and Edit." When you have finished your editing, click on "Check In." 8. If you receive a prompt about allowing secure or nonsecure items, click on "Yes" to allow nonsecure items.

 

The above directions will work well for making comments as you begin to work with the articles.  1. When your team is ready to work on a draft, click on Draft Reports. Anyone can make a revision in a draft --- just click on the title of the draft and then "New Revision" at the top of the page, enter the revision and then click on "Check In." Click on "New Response" to offer an alternative or addition to a Draft portion that has been posted. You may want to select someone from your team to put together the final report. 2. When you have the polished version of the essay finished, click on the "Final Report" tab and follow the directions you find there. Remember that your report must be in WORD 2003 --- a .doc document, NOT a .docx document.

 

TEAM 1 ERRORS OF MORAL LEADERSHIP IN ENRON Burch, Griffith, Kumar, Soller, Swartzel 10/20: Last Day for Contributions to Discussion 10/27: Due Date for Final Report	TEAM 2 ERRORS OF MORAL LEADERSHIP IN ENRON Banks, Bauer, Hobbs, Huffman, Maurer, Varanasi, 10/20: Last Day for Contributions to Discussion 10/27: Due Date for Final Report	TEAM 3 ERRORS OF MORAL LEADERSHIP IN ENRON Coleman, Gels, Goodman, Reed, Thomas 10/20: Last Day for Contributions to Discussion 10/27: Due Date for Final Report
TEAM 4 PRESIDENTIAL MORAL LEADERSHIP Gels, Goodman, Hobbs, Maurer, Reed 12/09: Last Day for Contributions to Discussion 12/16: Due Date for Final Report	TEAM 5 PRESIDENTIAL MORAL LEADERSHIP Burch, Coleman, Griffith, Soller, Varanasi 12/09: Last Day for Contributions to Discussion 12/16: Due Date for Final Report	TEAM 6 PRESIDENTIAL MORAL LEADERSHIP Banks, Bauer, Huffman, Kuman, Swartzel, Thomas 12/09: Last Day for Contributions to Discussion 12/16: Due Date for Final Report

 

TASK: WRITE AN ESSAY OF APPROXIMATELY 2,500 WORDS. [You might want to imagine that you are writing this at the request of the Board of Directors of your company and the members of the Board do not have a lot of time to read lengthy reports.]

Teams 1, 2, and 3 will focus on the first issue, "The Errors of Moral Leadership in Enron," and Teams 4, 5, and 6 will focus on "The Qualities to be Desired in Presidential Moral Leadership."

DYNAMICS OF COLLABORATIVE WRITING

1. All members of the team should engage in the discussion. There is no magic number for contributions to the discussion, but about 5 contributions per person would be a decent number to consider. All contributions to the discussion MUST be made by October 20 for the first report and December 9 for the second report. This is necessary to give enough time for the final version to be produced.

2. The team will decide how it will go about generating a draft that will be put in the "Draft" folder. These decisions can be processed in the threaded discussion that precedes the report but the threaded discussion should NOT be limited to the dynamics of drafting the report. The threaded discussion MUST include content, i.e., it MUST address the actual ETHICAL issues of the case.

3. The team will designate  who will refine the final version or how the final version will be written and put it in the "final version" folder.

4. Notify the instructor when the final version is ready to be read.

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