The Awakening

An innovative governance initiative sparked uncomfortable discussions throughout Raytheon Co.

Employees talked about a treasury manager who repeatedly pilfered the company's petty cash box. Others recalled the case of a gregarious employee -- the last person in the company anyone would have suspected of wrongdoing -- who lived above his means not because of an inheritance, as he claimed, but because of the $500,000 he filched from company coffers.

Fortunately, those schemes took place at other companies.

The storytelling exercise represented an important educational and awareness-raising component of an antifraud initiative at Raytheon. The internal audit function spearheaded the highly collaborative effort, which began last summer and is expected to wrap up sometime this summer.