Ethics and Hidden Greed - by Rob Docters & Hans Gieskes (Paperback)

About the Book

Trust. Loyalty. Friendship. These were once the building blocks of good business relationships. Today, it's becoming increasingly difficult to know whom to trust. The authors demonstrate how to recognize the patterns employed by greedy players and provide tactics for combatting all of them.

Book Synopsis

Trust. Loyalty. Friendship. These were once the building blocks of good business relationships. Today, it's becoming increasingly difficult to know whom to trust. The authors demonstrate how to recognize the patterns employed by greedy players and provide tactics for combatting all of them.

Review Quotes

I find the argument in this book highly interesting. It may apply to the general public or find use in academic environments. This text is a seminal work in understanding the evolution of commercial greed, casting sunshine on less-than-ethical behaviors by applying the Cambridge Platonist ethical approach. Finally, it shows why unethical strategies are ultimately value debasing.

--Professor Raul L. Katz, Columbia University, New York.

Most commercial enterprises sometimes deploy greedy and unethical tactics - knowingly or unknowingly. This text is seminal work in understanding the evolution of commercial greed, its sources, root causes, and even intergenerational sources. The authors focus on the often-unethical methods, tactics, and traps deployed by commercial enterprises to seize excess rent from unsuspecting buyers. The book casts sunshine on less-than-ethical behaviors by providing examples and a clear framework. This offers buyers insight and counter-tactics to avoid being cheated. This work helps to find the path between ethical and strategically sound tactics and those that are short-term, unethical. It shows why unethical strategies are ultimately value debasing. That is true increasingly as soulless technologies such as AI and powerful tech monopolies fall into the heavy gravitational pull of greed. As a result, ethical leadership is needed more than ever.

--Daniel E. Aks, President and CEO, Undertone, Inc. and before that, Chairman and CEO, Antenna International.

The world continues to change, raising questions about ethics, which perhaps we do not even know to ask. This provocative book reminds us, especially those whose faith leads them to seek a just society, to constantly keep vigil in the emerging corporate and technological world.

--The Rev Richard Witt, Executive Director, Rural & Migrant Ministry. Former Chaplain at Vassar College. In 2022 Richard was named by the City and State of New York as one of its top 100 faith leaders.

This book ties together practical advice with ethical and organizational psychology. The authors outline how forms of greed drive behavior, and how different titles within a company have very different motivations: some are there to grow revenues, others are there to defend the company from financial and ethical misbehavior. Well worth a look for any CFO or manager who wants to uphold ethical standards.

--Julio Zamora, Chief Financial Officer, North American Development Bank.

The authors have surveyed the evolution of two important technologies: Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality, in sufficient depth to identify some of the potential ethical and criminal threats posed. The book applies traditional rules of ethics to form a weapon against (sometimes covert) unethical and criminal threats to corporate governance.--Pritish Purohit, Group Head of Information Security at NinjaVan (Singapore).

Unethical and greedy behavior can be found in the market, and within companies. I have found that many companies are not aware of all material unethical behavior by employees, until it becomes a legal liability. This book shows how to spot unethical behaviors which have evolved to be less obvious, and so harder to detect. This is requisite knowledge for attorneys-- and particularly corporate counsel. Finally, the authors have shown how classic ethics are a tool which can go beyond legal guidelines, and result in fairer, more profitable and humane practices. A must-read.--Bruce Cranner, Partner at Talley, Anthony, Hughes and Knight, Member of the Louisiana Bar, Board Member, Louisiana Association of Defense, Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel, Hearing Officer for Louisiana Board of Dentistry. Former Board Member National Foundation for Judicial Excellence.

About the Author

Rob Docters is Partner at Abbey Road, LLP, and leads their ethics practice. He is a former Senior Partner, Ernst and Young Canada, a former Lecturer in Management, Yale University School of Management, and led BCG's Asia/Pacific pricing practice, based in Singapore. He is a member of the New York Bar.

He was formerly Head of Market Innovation and Development at Bloomberg, LP, focused on the vertical markets. And previously a senior member of McKinsey and Company's Marketing and Sales practice.

As Chief Strategist and Head of Pricing at LexisNexis, he was part of the senior team credited with the turn-around of that company by the Wall Street Journal.

Operating experience includes running consulting practices at E and Y and Abbey Road, LLP, and being shadow CMO of Telcel at startup (now worth $35B), and Market Manager of a $250M/year segment at Verizon.

Hans Gieskes has been the turn-around CEO and Chairman of companies in a range of industries, such as information, publishing, data, and professional services. Hans is an active investor and M and A adviser having been involved in over 30 major M and A transactions, two of which are worth more than $1.6 billion.