Advice on how to be ethical.

Bruce Weinstein ("The Ethics Guy" at BusinessWeek.com) offers advice on how to be ethical to the business school class of 2009.

His five nuggets of advice seem like good ones for anyone who is interested in being ethical. Two in particular jumped out at me:

1. LISTEN TO THE WHISPERS.
Frances Hesselbein, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management) and former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA, speaks of the importance of "listening to the whispers" you hear every time you're about to make a decision. She is referring not to the rumor mill but to the voice within that keeps you on the right track.

No matter what station you occupy within an organization--unpaid intern, mid-level executive, or president--you will be tempted to take the low road from time to time. Perhaps a client will ask you for a favor that goes against company policy. Maybe your boss will tell you to do something that is ethically or legally questionable. Possibly you'll be torn between covering up a mistake you've made or owning up to it. You can talk yourself into just about any decision, but if you follow Hesselbein's wise counsel, you'll make the best decision.

Cultivating an inner voice you can trust to whisper good advice to you takes some time and effort, of course. In my experience, it also benefits from the help of a community that discusses better and worse ways to treat each other -- so that you can cultivate a conscience that is striving for ethical objectivity, and distinguish its voice from that of your gut.

Another way to figure out if it's your gut or your conscience that's weighing in on the decision you're trying to make is to slow down. Taking time to be reflective will help you tell the difference between a decision driven primarily by reason and one that is largely an emotional reaction.

3. SPEAK UP.
At some point--probably more than once-- in your career, you will encounter someone at work doing something he or she shouldn't be doing. When this happens, it will be very tempting to ignore it. Don't. If you discover shady goings-on at your company, you not only have a right to speak up, you have an ethical obligation to do so. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [people] do nothing," Edmund Burke said. No one likes confrontations, but the simple act of observing wrongdoing sometimes calls upon you to do or say something, even though it would be simpler to keep quiet. If Sherron Watkins, Cynthia Cooper, and Coleen Rowley hadn't taken action where they worked, the scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and the FBI might never have been exposed.

Here again, while speaking up is good advice, figuring out the most effective way to speak up can sometimes be a challenge. We've discussed some of the unfortunate outcomes that can follow on even the most careful and responsible whistle-blowing. And we've seen that even one's mentors sometimes advise against speaking up -- even when they agree that there's something wrong going on.

Still, saying nothing when you're aware of something wrong isn't a good option. And saying or doing something doesn't necessarily mean going straight to the boss or filing formal charges.

It does mean being part of a professional community -- and taking seriously your responsibilities to keep that professional community in good order. Sometimes you can accomplish that by speaking directly to the person you see making a mistake. Sometimes you need to get people higher than you in the power structure involved. Possibly you'll face problems that you can't address directly without putting yourself in serious career jeopard -- but then, maybe the best way forward is to speak up to other members of your professional community about the structural factors that make it dangerous for people in the community to respond effectively to this kind of problem.

Weinstein's other three pieces of advice are worthwhile, too, so go have a read. And, if you feel like sharing some advice of your own about how to be ethical, lay it on us in the comments.

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Hi Janet,

I note a comment from Dr Weinstein above and if he calls back I would like to thank him for writing the piece and you, Janet for covering it in a place where I could find it.

The blog entry is most timely for me. The company my wife and I have been working for went bust a couple of weeks ago. I had trusted the CEO for more than a decade, was sometimes invited to mix socially and worked for him on and off for a large part of the last 10 years. He used to listen to that inner voice - or appeared to, now I suspect that other things may have held him back.

Facts are still flowing in on a daily basis, but about 15 workers (mostly unprotected sub-contractors), the very individuals that build his business from nothing, were taken for over $1m in back pay. The loyalty of these long time friends makes a joke of the statement in Bruce's full article

You can't be expected to keep working if your employer stops paying you

His most trusted and loyal were taken worst - with outstanding invoices split roughly into 6 and 11 months overdue. This was also accumulated over 2 or more years (paying only one monthly invoice every 2nd or 3rd month). The covenant of trust was not only broken - it was whored to this man's greed. He turned educated professionals into sweatshop workers.

Instead of building a strong business, growing steadily over the years, he chose to pocket his profits (estimated at $1m+ per year) - plus our wages. We thought we were sharing his pain, the non-paying clients and cash flow nightmares. Instead we discover the $8,000 monthly lease on his prestige car, the $10,000 per day ski trips in Dubai, the Moet, the caviar and restaurant charges for extravagant living.

He had the foresight to set up a sham company about two years ago and has been writing all existing work and any new contracts to that company, all the while building up debt in the old company (mostly to us). Our unpaid wages were even used to pay the insolvency experts that advised him how best to screw us over.

His moll is now director of the new company, but at the creditors meeting he accused me of "trying to steal his clients" - an interesting statement from a failed businessman with no clients. I was just planning to do the work I'd been booked for and to help a client left in the lurch. I saw no ethical problem cleaning up the mess left and the derivative company is just an edifice to conceal ongoing corporate crimes.

Another point Bruce makes is pertinent here. Over a 5 year period the company had a number of accountants in their employ (one tellingly only stayed for a couple of months). These were the silent witnesses. The ones that knew the true state of affairs but failed to report it. They too had that voice of honesty whispering into their hindbrains, some would have had a legal duty to report the situation but failed to do so. Criminals will always try to prosper at the expense of others, in many ways it was those "good" people that could have spoken out years ago that permit evil to flourish.

Then there are the companies that continue to do business with him, sometimes knowing full well how he operates. But it is a time of change and even banks and multi-national IT giants can be dragged down and carved up when deemed to no longer benefit the community.

The creditors plan to make this guy someone's prison bitch.

By Peter McKellar (not verified) on 22 May 2009 #permalink