Take No Prisoners: A No-Holds-Barred Approach to Corporate Excellence

Chapter Eighteen. Fraud

Fraud in a company works just like high blood pressure in a human being. It is not obvious and eventually kills if it is not detected and cured. It is estimated that fraud played a major part in over 50 percent of the business failures in the United States over the last decade.

In most of the businesses I have helped over the last 30 years, I have always found fraud and theft in varying degrees. The Enron and Tyco failures pointed out that there can be an atmosphere of fraudulent conduct that extends from top management down into the rank and file of a corporation. In the Enron failure, not only was the public defrauded, but many innocent Enron employees lost their life savings.

The subject that I will discuss in this chapter ...