Enron Documentary

This past weekend I rented the 2005 DVD documentary on the Enron debacle,
"The Smartest Guys in the Room." Anyone interested in the machinations of
major corporations going downhill likely will be enthralled by this careful
assemblage of news footage, Congressional testimony by former Enron players
Jeff Skilling and Sherron Watkins, among others, interviews with California
public utility officials and teenage-looking male Enron "energy traders,"
etc.

This documentary supports a thesis I read recently at The Motley Fool:

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Level 5 leadership
In 1996, renowned management researcher Jim Collins and his research team
took on a mammoth task. They sought out companies that had underperformed
the S&P 500 for at least 15 years, and then, at a point in time aligning
with a new CEO, went through a transition to subsequently outperform the
stock market three times over for the next 15 years. Out of 1,435 Fortune
500 companies they studied, only 11 achieved and sustained greatness. What
did all of these 11 companies have in common? Each had a "Level 5" leader at
the helm.

According to Collins, a Level 5 leader displays -- with dedication bordering
on the religious -- the paradoxical combination of deep personal humility
and intense professional will. Such managers will settle for nothing less
than an enduring great company, and they are intolerant of mediocrity and
stoic in their resolve to do whatever it takes to produce great results.
They will set up superb successors for even more greatness in future
generations, and at all times will demonstrate a compelling modesty,
shunning public attention.

"Think Small, Think Great," November 22, 2005,
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(Motley Fool's authors actually trumpet humility as a feature of effective
business leaders often, as a key word search of its site shows.)

Re: Enron Documentary

I enjoyed it too. Not much else to add.

-Sanjay