I recently had the pleasure of listening to Stephen Green's lecture at the Mansion House here in London.  The lecture was the first in a series of lectures on ‘Tomorrow’s Value’ and Stephen spoke on the link between 'values and value'.
 
As the chairman of HSBC he is in a unique position to talk on the subject given the impact of the credit crunch on society and the central role the banking sector plays in our long term prosperity.

A  headline in the FT  last week  stated  "Michael Geoghegan, Chief Executive of HSBC has threatened to resign from his job if he is not elevated to the Chairman's role, according to people familiar with the bank's succession planning."   We are now finding out a little more of the power playing by members the Board of one of our largest companies.

Something momentous is happening in the combination of events in the world today that demands serious reflection by us all. This is the admixture of Copenhagen, the U.S. Senate Climate Bill, the BP oil spill disaster, and the climate itself. We just had a perfect storm and the world is now fundamentally changed.

We live in a society based on trust and mutual respect, these values come from a deep seated spirituality rather than an enforced set of rules.

The core principle of  money  is  based on Trust and in the absence of trust we flounder . Ultimately those seeking to bend the rules or ignore this deep seated spirituality hurt not only Society at large, but also themselves. Corporate Governance therefore should be principles based rather than rules based .