With headlines about fiscal malfeasance becoming as normal as weather reports, Garten delivers a timely and well-reasoned rationale for executives to become better public citizens, and not only to improve their public image. He presents a range of public policy challenges that business leaders should be more engaged in—fiscal responsibility, accounting fraud, domestic security, world poverty—contending that these political problems have a huge impact on the private sector, and we would all be better off if CEOs helped solve them. A Business Week
columnist and dean of Yale's School of Management, Garten spends his days telling present and future CEOs how to conduct their business. There are moral undertones to his arguments, but his call for a stronger public and private partnership is practical. For example, there's no way for the government to secure the nation's infrastructure against terrorists without working closely with the private firms that own it. Although the broad range of issues prevents Garten from addressing any single one with great depth, his points are clear and well supported. He doesn't simply rail against outrageous stock options; he shows how they mislead investors and damage consumer confidence ("the Federal Reserve estimates that between 1995 and 2000, if the Standard and Poor's 500 companies had accounted for their options as an expense, their average annual earnings growth would have declined from 12 percent to 9.4 percent"). Although his prose is at times dry and academic, American business leaders would do well to follow Garten's agenda. (Nov. 4)
