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The Danger of the four P's—Pay, Perks, Power and Prestige
Jon Huntman's New Book Challenges Corporate Leaders to a Higher Standard of Conduct
The saga of Jon Meade
Huntsman is the stuff
from which American
Dream legends are made:
threadbare upbringing in
Blackfoot, Idaho, where he learned a
work ethic and basic moral values to outstanding
Wharton graduate (W'59) to
patriarch of what was the nation's largest
family owned and operated business.
At the apex of that often-bumpy journey,
he found himself one of America's
wealthiest individuals and among the
nation's top 25 all-time philanthropists.
Until November 2004, he was typically
referred to as industrialist Jon M.
Huntsman, founder and chairman
of the world's largest privately owned
chemical company, Huntsman Corp.,
with operations in 41 countries and
headquarters in Salt Lake City. Since
then, he jokes, the press generally
describes him as "the father of Utah
Governor Jon Huntsman Jr."
In May, Huntsman also becomes
an author.
This winter, Wharton School
Publishing (WSP) went to press with
Huntsman's first book, Winners Never
Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as
Children (But May Have Forgotten), an
accessible prescription for returning traditional
principles to the marketplace.
It is being hailed as an over-the-counter
antibiotic for times when many seem to
have drifted from basic values of right
and wrong.
The genesis of the 200-page book
was another Huntsman work-in-progress. At the end of last summer,
Huntsman found himself nearly finished
with an autobiography, his fourth
attempt to chronicle his life.
Huntsman had submitted several
draft chapters to Wharton School
Publishing (WSP) for evaluation after it
had expressed an interest in publishing
the book. In reading excerpts, WSP
Editor and Wharton professor Jerry
Wind and WSP vice president and editor-in-chief Tim Moore were struck by
the number and variety of anecdotes
that played on the theme doing well by
doing good.
They urged Huntsman to temporarily
lay aside the autobiographical
effort in order to pen a book they
believe will resonate in today's business
arenas and classrooms—and will
be applicable for corporate CEOs
and top executives as well as mid-managers and supervisors. Huntsman
embraced the task with enthusiasm; he
was surprised at how easily the words
flowed on to paper. (Ironically, this
chemical magnate dropped high school
chemistry after two weeks. His favorite
subjects: English and math.) As the
book evolved, it became clear that the
messages in Winners Never Cheat are
relevant to a wide range of organizations
and institutions.
Winners Never Cheat went from
conceptual discussion to final proofs
in four months, during a time when
Huntsman, 67, had just pulled his
company from the cusp of disaster to its
best performance ever, was in the middle
of his son's campaign for governor,
and was arranging to take his company
public in February 2005.
"Since the turn of the century, we
have seen a total crash of business ethics,"
observes Huntsman. "Bastions
of American capitalism came tumbling
down with lightning speed. I
became convinced the timing of this
book was as important as the message.
Something needed to be said—and
quickly—about the importance of
winning while playing by the rules."
Enron and others of its ilk "brought
down the economy more than we will
ever know. The cheaters caused many
companies great pain."
As Huntsman sees it, the 1980s and
1990s were go-go business years and in
the headlong rush to make money many
overdosed on greed, forgetting the ethical
foundations of their personal lives.
Huntsman expects cynics to argue he
is oversimplifying current moral issues
in a world that has become so highly
competitive, technical, fluid and pressurized.
Counters the author: What is
so complex or situational about honesty,
keeping one's word, being decent
and gracious to others, or giving back
some of what we received?
Such basic codes of conduct were
taught by parents, relatives, teachers,
coaches, scout leaders, clerics and
friends during our formative years, regardless
of our religious background or
economic standing.
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