The Smartest Guys In The Room Analysis

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I viewed the documentary written by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, “The Smartest Guys in the Room”. This documentary helped me to gain a better understanding of one of the biggest scandals in the history of the United States. In this paper I will examine some main points of interest in relation to the scandal concerning the Enron Corporation. The documentary began with Peter Coyote narrating about the suicide of one Enron’s former top administrators, Cliff Baxter. Jeff Skilling, another former top administrator of Enron had a close personal relationship with Cliff Baxter. Skilling had alleged in a roundabout way that as far as he knows, Baxter killed himself due to the significant struggles of Enron. He also did not have the self-assurance …show more content…

This displayed the image that Enron was well worth putting resources into. Many shareholders were tricked for quite a while into the assumption that their stock numbers were high due to the con artists from Enron’s top administrators. Lay diverted with deception to convince his group of onlookers into pushing forward. He also created the impression that their numbers would always be bigger. Lay displayed methods such as utilizing his outgoing character by talking with certainty and passion during his mass meetings. That was when he realized that witnessing something first hand would be the only way to accept something that is difficult to believe. He also communicated to them that Enron had merely been impacted the worst by means of the impacts from the economy due to their 30-billion-dollar obligation.
Their stock brokers knew that Enron had been gaining profits at the expense of others. They never felt contempt with their actions due to fact that the orders to follow through came from top authoritative figures. The effects from the information gained from examining the conduct of Enron’s top administrators were considered to be unendingly helpful. The Enron Scandal could be well-thought-out as the perfect example of how not to run an association in an ethical manor (Elkind, Gibney,

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