Suppose that after they returned to the office, Mike was called to a private meeting with a senior executive from another division of the firm. During the discussion, Mike felt he was being subtly threatened with nonspecific but obviously devastating consequences to his career prospects at RWW as well as long-term damage to his professional reputation if he did not back off on his efforts to improve company-wide risk management at RWW. The other executive was adamant that the costs of improving the risk management process would hurt the firm without gaining any real improvement.
Was this executive simply expressing her disagreement with Mike’s approach, or has some ethical line been crossed? Should Mike take any overt actions based on this conversation or inform others about the perceived threats? What could Mike do that would not embarrass the other executive and still offer him some protection in this situation?