Assignment:
1: I think performance management does work. If you define the right goals, and the objectives required to meet those goals, and then measure your employees against their progress in meeting the objectives and ultimately the goals, then it works. You need to meet regularly to track the progress and then identify areas that need improvement and possibly even modify the goals / objectives. Unfortunately, in many organizations, they do not meet regularly and end up at the end of the year "surprising" the employee with a bad rating.
2: Thinking that your secure in a position until you retire is probably not realistic in todays business world. Unlike in the past where you would be in a company until you retire, today, its based on your performance. Either you continue to perform at a very high level, or your removed. So if you want to stay in a position for a long time, you really need to perform at a higher level year over year.
3: The video hit on some good points about what it takes to be ethical in business and he was right on when he stated that technological advance is the reason more companies will need to ensure they are practicing good ethics. Because the Internet and whistle blowers have opened the doors to a plethora of ways to investigate a business, it is important that businesses be even more transparent. For instance, if a company says they are environmentally friendly and they do not use harmful materials, and a whistle blower uploads/shares public evidence that they do, they company has just lost their reputation. The most important one to me was when he stated that upper management should walk the talk or be able to model the moral behavior they expect their employees to exhibit.
4: Ethics are more than extremely important, ethics is vital. One ethics violation can give a bad reputation to a company that is almost impossible to recover from.