Sense on Cents

High school kids do stupid things all the time. With little appreciation of the risks involved, stupid pranks or immature behavior can often have serious consequences. Hopefully by the time the high schooler heads off to college, the days of immaturity are in the rear view mirror. What is the lesson many high schoolers learn? Actions have consequences.

This lesson is certainly not restricted to those in high school. That said, how is it that a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, in this case Hewlett-Packard’s Mark Hurd, can engage in behaviors that lend themselves to those of high school sophomores?

There are real lessons in this professional soap opera for all of us. What do those lessons include? The Wall Street Journal addresses them in writing, Mark Hurd Neglected to Follow H-P Code,  

Hewlett-Packard Co.’s standards of business conduct suggest that employees pose themselves a simple test to decide whether an action is appropriate: “Before I make a decision, I consider how it would look in a news story,” the document states. (more…)