JP Morgan Chase 2010 Annual Report Download - page 21

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Herearetheprinciplesweabidebyin
dealing with our mistakes:
Senior management should actively be on the
lookout for problems
At all times, senior management must be
vigilant about errors made across the firm
– we ask lots of questions, read customer
complaints, and make sure our own people
are allowed to question our products and
services. Generally, we all know how we
would want to be treated, and management
should strive to treat our customers this way.
This particularly applies to long-standing
practices. Just because something always has
been done a certain way does not mean that
it is still right.
We need to acknowledge mistakes to ourselves
Wecannotxproblemsifwedenythem.
Acknowledging an error, however, isn’t
enough.Weneedtogureoutwhyit
happened.Wasitisolatedorembeddedin
oneofoursystems?Wasittheresultofpoor
trainingofourpeople?Or,perhaps,inour
desire to keep up with the competition, did
we start doing things with which we were
uncomfortable?
There is one error, in particular, from our
recent past that I would like to highlight: the
mistakes we made in servicing mortgages
heldbyU.S.militaryfamilies.Ourrmhas
a great history of honoring our military and
veterans, and the errors we made on these
loans, including foreclosures, were a painful
aberrationfromthattrackrecord.Wedeeply
regret this, we have apologized to our mili-
tary customers and their families, and we
have tried to rectify these mistakes as best
we can. I want to reiterate that apology here
and now.
Werecentlyhaveannouncedanewprogram
for the military and veteran community that
includes many initiatives, from recruiting
veterans into our firm, with our corporate
partners, to providing enhanced products
and services for the military and their fami-
lies. As a company, we aim to serve members
of our armed services with the respect and
special benefits they deserve because we
recognize the sacrifice and hardships they
bear to protect our nation and our freedoms.
We should acknowledge our mistakes to our
customers
Customers know that any company can
makemistakes.Whattheyhateiswhenthe
company denies it. If we make a mistake
with a customer, we should acknowledge it
and take the proper remedial action.
When we find mistakes, we should fully disclose
them to those who should know
Whenwemakemistakes,weself-report
them, as appropriate, to our regulators and to
our Board of Directors as appropriate.
We also take appropriate and timely action with
those involved
This can mean fixing an error-prone
system, retraining our people, or modi-
fyingproductsorservices.Unfortunately,
this sometimes means firing an individual
or replacing management, but only if such
action is warranted due to bad behavior or
real incompetence.