Tomorrow is another day

One of the greatest difficulties a CEO can face is inheriting a company with a morally flawed model, a model which requires chicanery and exploitation to derive a signficant proportion of its profits.

It is well nigh impossible when things seem to be successful for the CEO to change the business model to one which no longer has the dishonest profitable thread running through it. Colleagues will not be persuaded as it affects their bonuses nor will the majority of the shareholders .

It is only when outside forces, what the Japanese call gai-atsu( foreign pressure), become strong enough that change can take place. Such was the case of the insurance broking industry when Eliot Spitzer confronted them over undisclosed commissions, such is the case of the banks with the unravelling of their subprime mortgage investments as the credit crunch unpicks their trust.

Even more pertinently Lincoln's election as US President and his refusal to sanction slavery put the entire Southern States economy, responsible for 57% of exports from the USA, into a position where the business model could only be preserved through secession. The economy based on slavery has been incomparably the most expensive in human lives and wealth to eradicate.