Conspiracy of Fools

I finished reading book by that name. It's about Enron. Or fall of Enron. The book is huge, 680 pages atleast. I was kind of daunted by the size. But then the whole book reads like a novel. It was very interesting. Ok, the story goes like this. Enron was into gas trading and pipelines. Some bright minds wanted to change the way the gas is traded. Along the way, they changed the method by which they account for things.
They wanted to show better results every quarter. So they resorted to "creative" accouting. Top management wasn't aware of the manipulation and they never tried to be aware. One not so competent , but very manipulative guy took advantage of prevailing circumstances. He gained favour of right people and started implementing his not-legal-but-money-making ideas. His superiors and board just wanted results and didn't bother about details.
And dissent voices if any were not heard or enough cared for. Salaries were high, accountability low, procedures stupid. Everybody practically did what they wanted. Build unviable power projects around the world (Including one in my country, India), try to implement same business models in water trading, try to trade bandwidth, manipulate electrcity transimission&trading in california, ....
Everybody was busy in his/her pet project, fame building, and the chief villain was making atleast few million dollars along with his homosexual lover. The accounting companies which should have objected to some stupid practices didn't do so, because they were consulting as well and didn't want to lose all that fees.
Ok, the bubble had to burst sometime. And when, the first signs of trouble came, the top management thought it was a minor irritation and business will continue to be fine. They never tried to sit down and take account of what's happening and what needs to be fixed. They were in denial.
By the time, some sincere fellows tried to save company from collapse, it was too late. If there was something called destiny for companies, it was bad for Enron. There were couple of occasions (sale of international operations and last minute planned merger with Dynergy, another similar company) failed in the last moment while looking certain all through.
There is no single person that can be blamed for the whole fiasco. Too many people were lazy and few people were greedy and almost everybody was stupid. The main villain (CFO) was made to return his money and sentenced to 10 yrs in prison. The chairman and CEO still await their fate.
How can few yrs of imprisonment be just response to the events that happened. Justice system is something, I still fail to understand. I guess, justice works by example. Reformation of individual and all is hogwash. If a 60 yr old is sentenced to life, what bloody difference does that guy's reformation will make, even if that happens.
Ok, coming back to topic on hand, things I learnt about running a business are (not necessarily from this book) are
1) Be aware of assets, liabilities and their dynamic value.
2) Cash Flow.
3) Never allow any employee to be lazy.
4) Squash first signs of greed by any employee.
5) If borrowing costs are more than Rate of returns on the capital employed, take a serious look at business.
6) Don't do business to look good to others. Just do what's good for business and if it appears good for public, it's a bonus.
7) Don't feel self important and don't get carried away by your image.(If you are CFO,CEO and such stuff)
Ok, I don't plan to be management Guru. So I will stop here. :)