Accountability Archives - Page 6 of 8

Notice of Late Filing

An American public company that cannot file its annual report on time files a notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission, known as Form NT 10-K. A timely notice gives an automatic grace period of 15 days for the annual report, and five days for a quarterly report.

The warning helps, but it does not remove the cost. The business-school professors Eli Bartov of NYU and Yaniv Konchitchki of Berkeley found that stock prices fall after these notices. Investors “do not accept at face value management assertions about the expected filing date.”

Deadline Talk

Is Friday realistic? What’s a realistic timeline? — The deadline is open to discussion before it is set.

Heads-up: this is going to slip. — A warning that the date will be missed, given before it is missed.

Can I get an extension? — A request for more time.

By end of day. By close of business Friday. — The deadline, stated to the hour.

Down to the wire. At the eleventh hour. Pull an all-nighter. — The work is finished at the last moment.

Gutless Leadership

In 2016 it became public that Wells Fargo employees had opened about 1.5 million unauthorized bank accounts and 565,000 credit cards in customers’ names. The bank paid a $185 million settlement and fired 5,300 employees.

On September 20 Senator Elizabeth Warren confronted CEO John Stumpf at a Senate hearing. “Instead, your definition of ‘accountable’ is to push the blame to your low-level employees.” She called it “gutless leadership.”

That’s My Fault, Totally

In Super Bowl XLIX the Seattle Seahawks trailed New England 28-24 with 26 seconds left, at the New England 1-yard line. Seattle chose to pass. Malcolm Butler intercepted, and the game was effectively over.

The head coach, Pete Carroll, said afterward: “I told those guys, ‘That’s my fault, totally.'” His offensive coordinator, Darrell Bevell, said of the receiver: “He could have done a better job of staying strong on the ball.”

Defeat Is an Orphan

In April 1961 the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba failed. On April 21 John F. Kennedy told reporters: “There’s an old saying that victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan.” He added that he was the responsible officer of the government.

Gallup then found his approval at 83%, up from 78% before the invasion. The saying was not his. A version appears in the 1942 diary of the Italian diplomat Count Galeazzo Ciano, who called it something that happens “as always.”

In Case of Failure

On June 5, 1944, the day before D-Day, General Dwight Eisenhower wrote a note to release if the landings failed. “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. … If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

He crossed out “This particular operation” and wrote “My decision to attack” in its place. He misdated the note July 5. It is kept at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas.

Mistakes Were Made

William Safire called it “a passive-evasive way of acknowledging error while distancing the speaker from responsibility for it.” Ulysses S. Grant used a version in 1876. Nixon’s press secretary Ron Ziegler used it in 1973, Reagan in his 1987 State of the Union, Bill Clinton in 1997 and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in 2007.

The political scientist William Schneider named the grammar the “past exonerative” tense. An NPR headline called the phrase “the king of non-apologies.”