Why They Do It

This is the best book I’ve read about the human dreams and failings of white-collar criminals.

With Soltes’ direct access to headline names—like Bernie Madoff, Jeffrey Skilling, and Marc Drier—I steeped myself in his profound research on our myths about “nurture vs. nature,” whether companies are inherently “good” or “bad,” and whether criminal behavior inside companies is performed by fundamentally “bad” people. The book taught me about the psyche of embezzlers and the conditions inside companies that influence their stealing. That knowledge took me beyond my own familial myths about George Hormel’s embezzler and enhanced my understanding of why he… show more.

The previous books I recommended are theory books written by prominent psychologists, laying out different views of the many psychological forces that can lead even the best-intentioned people to make moral mistakes. This book in many ways is a validation of those books’ theories.

Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes was curious about the key question: “Why do good people do bad things?” He developed relationships with many of the high-profile, white-collar criminals of the Enron-era scandals, such as Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco and Andy Fastow of Enron.

As I read these white-collar criminals’ explanations of why they had committed… show more.