"Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"

NY Film maker Alex Gibney has released a new documentary titled "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room". Part business tutorial and outrageous comedy, the movie does not lose sight of the genuine human tragedy caused by the "smart" people in Enron management. The movie is in limited release, appearing first in New York and now in Los Angeles. It is based on the book of the same name, written by Fortune magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.

Both the book and the movie highlight the Enron culture of bending or breaking whatever rules got in the way of their sense of entitlement. The contributing factors of a detached chairman, Ken Lay, a CEO, Jeff Skilling, with a penchant for hiring people who paid as little attention to rules as he did, and a CFO Andrew Fastow who was much better at hiding creating complex business schemes to hide mounting losses than he was at his fiduciary duty created a "deeply dysfunctional workplace".

Related readings:

• Company Culture, What It Is And How To Change It
• Lessons Learned From Enron, Say "No" to "Yes-men"
• CEOs are Overpaid