By Tom Bradley

I had a nightmare last night. I dreamed that I was on the board of JP Morgan. It was no fun.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, JPM is a huge multinational bank. For decades, it was revered as one of the leading institutions in the world, but it’s now in high profile talks with regulators and governments over the fines it will pay for illegal activity. The latest package being negotiated totals $13 billion (yes, $13 billion) and there are estimates that when it’s all finished, the bank will have paid out over $30 billion in settlements and fines (yes, $30 billion). It’s become evident that the bank’s culture and ethics are rotten to the core.

My nightmare revolved around not wanting to get up in the morning. As a JPM board member, I was dreading getting dressed and heading out the door, only to be asked questions by the Wall Street Journal, the boys at the club, the MBA class I’m teaching and even my 14 year old son (maybe I need to read more Freud?). I was sick and tired of the same questions day after day.

“Why haven’t you got rid of the CEO that presided over this debacle? You’ve paid him hundreds of millions of dollars to lead a storied institution into the abyss.

Is he really the one to scrape out the rot and rebuild trust?

And, what is it that you and other board members actually do when you meet?”

Indeed, what is it the directors of JP Morgan do? I hope they’re sleeping as poorly as I am.