Ethical decisions

How can businesses stop ethical lapses?

A company’s culture is a direct reflection of the ethical behavior of that organization. Begin by observing what your organization does when no one appears to be looking. You have to indirectly assess your culture, because if you ask people directly, they are less likely to be honest. They are going to give you the answer they think you want, not the answer they would normally give.

Then, if necessary, take steps to change the culture to make sure it is consistent with your organization’s objectives. This is the critical mistake about business ethics owners and managers typically make — they fail to ensure that ethics and objectives run parallel to each other. Once you’ve addressed ethics/objectives alignment, then the business owner has to be sure to model the behavior. People have to see it reinforced. It’s one thing to tell people they need to behave ethically. But if they don’t see it being reinforced at all levels, it simply falls through the cracks as unimportant or inconsistent with ‘true’ expectations.

Managers have to make an exceptional effort to make sure they are modeling how they want employees to behave. People will absorb whatever actions they see others take. If the actions are toxic to the organization, they will adopt that pattern as well.

How can people learn to make better ethical decisions?

As a manager, it’s important to realize that so much of ethical behavior is simply being aware of how your organization makes decisions. Because we’re bombarded with a tremendous amount of information each day, we develop mental shortcuts as a stress reliever. However, when using these shortcuts, we’re not necessarily aware of when something exceptional may be happening. Then, a number of ethical lapses begin that can silently build in intensity.

I encourage my students to become more aware of their environment and make a conscious effort to be aware of everything around them. They come back amazed. That’s the first step, because when you are aware of surroundings, behaviors and decisions, you’re more conscious about the things you do on a regular basis. Periodically asking yourself why you do something breaks that routine you’ve settled into. Think about what you may have ignored in that process. In a business environment when you are dealing with transactions on a daily basis, it’s very easy to overlook things.

The second step is introducing ethical frameworks. There is no such thing as a right answer, or good ethics or bad ethics.

There’s no definitive truth for every situation, but they find that business ethics is about picking a model and remaining consistent to that model. If you’re consistent, then you can sleep at night without worrying about the decisions you made, or what is going to be on the front page of The New York Times tomorrow about your organization.
