Summary:
Literally dozens of books,
and many more essays, have been published about
the Enron collapse. In fact, Enron has become
the most described event in the history of business.
Book
3 will take the best of those efforts, add
a new layer of documentation and insight, and
present the entire Enron saga in an essential,
nuts-and-bolts form. This is not a tell-all
book
but what-is-really-important book. It is a
company history in the Harvard Business School
style,
and it is also a human interest story of how
men can reach so high yet fall so far.
To date,
the Enron oeuvre has focused on the company’s
life just before the bankruptcy—or
from 1997 through 2001. There is limited description
of Enron’s rise and maturation between
1984 and 1996 outside of one episode (an oil
trading scandal back in 1986). There is also
little character development of such key figures
as Richard Kinder, Jeff Skilling, and, of course,
Ken Lay.
Book 3 details the long
sequence of events that make the Enron debacle
understandable. Key
insights
from important speeches by Ken Lay, copies
of which reside exclusively with the author,
will
be used to this end.
The book does not
stop with Enron’s
fall, however. There is a chapter on the
intellectual, political, and industry reaction
to Enron’s
bankruptcy. There is a chapter on the Enron
trials with particular detail about Ken Lay—his
emotional state, his trial strategy and its
execution, and his sudden death (from heart
disease, which
he kept secret).
The whole story will
reveal Lay’s life
as one of the greatest rags-to-riches-to-rags
sagas in U.S. history—a true American
tragedy.
Of particular importance,
I will provide the answer to what I have called
the Ken
Lay Paradox,
which I define as follows:
| How
can a man so seemingly intelligent, well-educated,
and experienced; religious, moral, and
law abiding; kind, civic, and philanthropic—with
long training as a top corporate manager—preside
over the greatest business fraud and debacle
in corporate history? |
I am able
to answer this only by combining
my many years of studying the man with
a sound philosophical
framework that gets to the why behind
the why of Ken Lay.
The final chapter
will go over the lessons of the whole Enron
affair, which has
important implications
for best business practices, corporate
governance, and public policy.
Of all
the Enron books, Smartest Guys in
the Room (McLean and
Elkind) is the best,
containing
riveting information of what was
really going on inside the company. But that
book, lacking
a worldview, can only “let the
stories speak for themselves.” Also,
the book missed some systemic deceit
(which provides, in my opinion,
a “smoking gun” on Jeff
Skilling in particular). Finally, the
book will cover
the trials and complete demise of Ken
Lay as well as events through 2008.
Preliminary Table
of Contents:
Prologue
Part
I: Enron Corp
Chapter 1: The New Houston Natural Gas
(1984/85)
Chapter 2: HNG/InterNorth (1985/86)
Chapter 3: Challenge and Crisis (1986–87)
Chapter 4: Recovery (1988–89)
Chapter 5: Natural Gas Major (1990–96)
Chapter 6: Manipulation and Collapse (1997–2001)
Part
II: Aftermath & Future
Chapter 7: Reaction and Adjustment
Chapter 8: Trials & Tribulations
Chapter 9: The Lessons of History
Appendices |
