“They’re on to us, ” said former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling to some top executives shortly after Enron was harpooned by a May 2001 analyst report. Kevin Hannon, one of the former Enron executives who heard the comment this week testified that he thought Skilling’s comment meant investors were “starting to understand how Enron made money.”

     As the Enron trial continues to unfold, the prosecution will point to Skilling’s comment as evidence of knowledge and intent to misrepresent Enron’s true financial picture. The defense, on the other hand, has already tried to characterize the smoking gun as mere sarcasm. Of course, the subsequent collapse of Enron makes the sarcasm all the more inappropriate – and that is precisely the problem with such “humor” in the workplace.

Humor that comes at someone else’s expense stops being funny when the disenfranchised party’s rights get trammeled and their dissatisfaction ricochets into a law suit. At that point humorous financial transparency turns into allegations of fraud, teasing turns into allegations of sexual harassment, and stereotyping turns into allegations of illegal discrimination.

Without legal literacy it is hard to know where the fun stops and legal liability begins until it’s too late. Good intentions and ethics are not enough.

I’m not suggesting that the workplace become a humorless void, but I am suggesting that following the 12 Rules for Avoiding Smoking Guns, including rule #2 (Keep it Respectful, Courteous, and Constructive) will go a long way towards keeping you out of the witness chair hot seat and your resume in tact.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Business Blind Spots, Costs, Knowledge Management, Rule of Law, Smoking Guns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.