Peter Roy – författare

“There are a thousand acts of duplicity and dishonesty every day, some large and some small, some of which undoubtedly take place in your workplace. The question for all of us is, ‘Are we going to resist or just play along the path of least resistance?’ The first hard choice a person of integrity must make is to choose to live, both personally and professionally, in a way that embodies integrity. The power of this book comes from the real-life, in-the-workplace experiences that these executives have been so generously willing to share. None had easy choices, but that’s the point: Integrity is not about easy choices, it’s about the courage to make the right choices.”—From The Book of Hard ChoicesAll of us like to think that, in any given situation, we’d act with integrity and do the right thing. But what happens when we get to work each morning? Do the same rules we follow in our personal lives apply to our work lives? The lines between right and wrong become blurred when we must weigh our obligations to our employer against our own ideas about what is right and wrong. Should altruism trump profit, even to the detriment of the organization? When should you step in to protect an employee and when should the employee be left to take the heat? If the CEO is up to some unethical accounting, should you always risk your job—and the company’s reputation—to sound the alarm?These are the hard choices, the dilemmas that put your integrity to the test and require you to look beyond organizational policy and industry precedents to find an answer that reflects your personal sense of justice. The Book of Hard Choices goes to the heart of these difficult decisions. James Autry and Peter Roy, experienced executives themselves, interviewed numerous leaders about the tough decisions they’ve made on the job. They spoke with people like former Starbucks president Howard Behar, Iowa Cubs owner Michael Gartner, and Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa as well as entrepreneurs, military officials, members of the clergy, and a whole host of leaders. The authors dig into the thinking process these people went through, as well as the emotional strain, the self-doubt, and the fear of a wrong decision’s impact on their business, family, or coworkers. Not everyone in this book made the right choice, but all of them were forced to examine their values and make decisions in complicated circumstances. The result is hard-won wisdom on how to navigate the ethical gray-areas of work life—from daily challenges to possible career ending choices—and make the best possible decisions in the most difficult situations.

It was an inauspicious start. Born in late December 1939 in a room above a fish and chip shop in Chatham High Street  life continued with just one constant for the next twenty years for Peter Roy – moving home.His father found it impossible to hold a job for any length of time and as accommodation was always part of running the shop, they were frequently on the move: Chatham, Sutton, Carshalton, Askern, Peckham, East Ham and Plaistow.Remembering thirteen schools in all with some big gaps in between. Somehow enough examinations were passed to obtain an apprenticeship to an accountant. That was the equivalent of time travelling back to Dickensian London. After two years at starvation wages, Peter threw in the towel, turned mother’s picture to the wall and walked away.After a couple of dead end jobs, he was picked up by an audit firm in Holborn and worked there for several years, finishing his training on an informal basis. But after seven years he sat in the wrong chair at a client audit and was forced to quit by the firm’s general manager after a mega shouting match, turning this into the opportunity to provided space and time to complete his examinations. Then for the next thirty years, I mainly worked in the world of advertising and entertainment where I discovered many excellent people but too many sad and downright badasses to test one’s mettle.