Today is August 1 and the Houston Astros have put a July record of 3-27 in the rearview mirror. Can the Astros change this culture of losing? Hopefully by dumping the few true major leaguers that the team had and repopulating the team from its AAA affiliate will lead to better record in August. At least that appears to be management’s plan.

I thought about the Astros plight in context of the questions of whether a company can change its culture of compliance. It is often said that it all starts with ‘tone at the top’ and if the top executive of the company is not committed to running an ethical company, that company has zero chance of doing so. However, there are examples of company chief executives who have such ideals and who make them a part of their company’s DNA. Not only are there examples of such executives but there are examples of such companies which are doing well even in today’s world economy. A case in point that was written about in the July 30 edition of the Financial Times (FT) in the Monday Interview column through an interview with the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Statoil, Helge Lund.