Patrick Kuhse
Patrick Kuhse is the last person you'd expect to give a lecture on business ethics. As a deputy bond trader for Oklahoma's $9 billion general fund during the early 1990s, Kuhse arranged kickbacks for his superiors in the state Treasurer's office. In return, he received an increase in his commissions which, over time, netted him $3.89 million more than he would normally earn, according to court estimates.
But today, business ethics are Kuhse's specialty.
After a story about the scandal appeared on ABC's Nightline on Thanksgiving weekend 1993, Kuhse fled with his family to Costa Rica to avoid an imminent indictment. After several years of dodging INTERPOL agents in the jungle, Kuhse finally turned himself in to U.S. authorities when he ran out of money. In addition to four years in federal prison, the court sentenced him to more than 200 hours of community service, which he filled by doing talks on business ethics. Banned from ever seeking employment in the securities industry again, Kuhse now works the lecture circuit full time, touring to Harvard, Stanford and other top business schools, using his fees to slowly pay off the money he owes the state of Oklahoma.
Despite the irony in Kuhse's newfound career, his talks are popular with business audiences. They center on what Kuhse calls the "Eight Slippery Steps to Unethical Behavior" – errors in judgment he engaged throughout his career as a stockbroker, his crimes at the Oklahoma Treasurer's office, his flight from the law, and his ultimate arrest and punishment. By learning to recognize these erroneous patterns in our own thinking, Kuhse says, we can steer ourselves away from unethical acts before we fall prey to them.
Most people who engage in corruption, Kuhse says, begin with a sense of entitlement – a belief that they do not need to play by society's rules. After they do things that they know are wrong, they rationalize them, convincing themselves that they were right in the first place. Kuhse thus warns listeners against engaging in "situational ethics" – doing what one wants, then formulating ethical arguments to justify those actions later, rather than living by a fixed ethical code.
In addition to becoming unmoored morally, people who engage in corruption also tend to lose touch with reality, according to Kuhse. In a thought pattern Kuhse calls "super optimism," they irrationally assume that they will never get caught – that they are untouchable. This psychological phenomenon often leads offenders to get sloppy, hastening their downfall.
