| What is the price of your company's good name? |
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 Ethics = |
I am an ethicist, i.e., one who studies ethics. Ethics is defined as: "the principles of right conduct". I have been a Moral Leadership Officer in Civil Air Patrol. In addition to CAP training, I've received instruction in ethics [classroom and on-the-job] from corporate America, church, politics, and the school of hard knocks. I have distilled the useful from the fruitless and packaged the results into a non-sectarian presentation suitable for the training rooms of corporate America. I would like to present it to your organization.
What comes to mind when you hear the name "Enron"? How many others can you think of to add to this Hall Of Shame? Too many? How much of your, or your parent's retirement nest egg has been scrambled by scandal after scandal? Too much? What went wrong? My little formula provides a big clue. 'Conscience' means "with knowledge" -- we each posses one and are without excuse when we do something "with knowledge". |
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Today's corporate crooks were yesterday's "grunt" employees. Those with business and financial degrees surely took Ethics 101 while earning that degree. They punched-in at the time clock. They said, "Yes, Sir.", "No, Sir.", "Right away, Sir." They worked long hours for low pay. As they ascended the corporate ladder, their pay increased, they began to lead tasks and projects. They became authorized to spend money and to tell others what to do and when to do it. And, all the while, they got to sit thru their company's ethics briefings.
It has become painfully obvious that all this ethics training has not been effective. In fact, it seems to have been counter-productive. Let's examine the problem and develop a solution. We shall find that the solution -- individual conscience and responsibility -- has been a part of this great nation from the landing of The Mayflower.
As stated in the opening paragraph, Ethics is defined as: "the principles of right conduct". In years past, most Americans -- whether they were a "Bible Thumper" or a "Sunday Morning Christian" -- learned these principles from the pulpit each Sunday morning. This is no longer the case: statistics indicate that barely 1 in 5 Americans regularly attends church. In church you learn that there is right and there is wrong, and that you are responsible for knowing the difference and for the choices you make. You also learn that the choices you make are not made in a vacuum, that the resulting good or evil may spread far and wide.
What about those other 4 out of 5 people surveyed who said, "I don't regularly attend church on Sundays"? What "principles of right conduct" are they learning from wherever it is that they're learning them? Do terms like "moral relevance" or "situational ethics" ring a bell? They should. We're all living with the results of a generation that's been operating under them.
The dominance of these philosophies in modern, post-Christian America has led to what I term the "socialization of ethics". The preeminence of the individual has been replaced by the village. We're told in school as kids, and on TV and in ethics training as adults to be on the lookout for and to report suspicious activity. Not that we shouldn't keep our eyes open -- we should, seeing as how we're currently at war. But, if we'd return the individual to its proper place within society, we'd return to letting each individual's conscience keep him honest instead of it being deadened while he schemes new ways to beat the system. Then, we'd be able to spend less time looking out for unethical activities among our peers and more time looking out for the activities of those who hate us.
We're also told that there is no such thing as absolute truth and that "right" and "wrong" depend upon the situation in which we find ourselves. Individual conscience has been allowed to atrophy, and this has led to a widespread "to hell with everyone else" attitude carried by people with over-inflated egos. Drive down any city street or freeway at the posted speed and see how lonely it gets. How many drivers signal before turning? A red light now means that three more cars may pass thru the intersection. Rather than heed the guidance provided by their conscience, people devise new ways of beating the system to get their "fair share", calling it "creative accounting" -- instead of lying, cheating, and stealing.
People and politicians all across this country rail against the trial lawyers. Sure, there are some greedy crumbs among them -- same as everywhere else. Consider the case of the lady who spilled the coffee she bought from MacDonalds all over herself and won $29 million in the resulting lawsuit. If her state's driver's manual is at all similar to Minnesota's (where I grew up) or Texas' (where I now live), it contained warnings against eating or drinking and against placing anything between your legs while driving because this impairs your ability to drive safely. Assuming she had a valid driver's license -- from which one can infer that she knew the information contained in the state's driver's manual, then one can also infer that she knew that she did wrong by driving with hot coffee between her legs. Yet, she contended that it was somehow MacDonalds' fault that she got burned when it spilled. If she was not one of the biggest crumbs among us, she would not have made a legal case out of her bad behavior. No trial lawyer would've been contacted and no just as ill-conscienced jury would've made that outrageous award. Assuming that MacDonalds did serve their coffee too hot, that legal case should've been brought by someone who was not burned as the result of doing something wrong, e.g., by a passenger in a car who got burned by the hot coffee.
Back in the late 90's, I was called for jury duty in a case where a woman claimed medical malpractice after some experimental treatment didn't have the desired result. She didn't contend that she didn't know the treatment was experimental, but wanted to be compensated for its deleterious effects. DUH! Experimental means that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The doctors don't know -- that's why they call it "experimenting". That's why animal rights folks get so upset when a lab monkey "volunteers" for an experiment. If she had a conscience, she would not have tempted the consciences of trial lawyers until she found one of like mind to take up her case.
A lady recently won a mega-million dollar lawsuit against a tobacco company for "making her sick" with their products. The Surgeon General's warnings aside, if she didn't cough and choke with that first puff, then I strongly suspect that she's not a member of the Human race. Assuming she had the same reaction as I and everyone else who's ever snatched a drag on a Cancer Stick, her next thought was, "This stuff is nasty!" If she had a conscience, she would not have tried to shift the blame for her own stupidity.
While we're on the subject of lawyers and lawsuits, let me address this in greater detail. Over the past decade, the volume of daytime TV commercials by layers who "defend the rights of the small guy" has increased to the point where they're now spilling over into prime time. Make no bones about it, greed is a part of the Human condition and many of these folks are show-casing their greed. But, as the previous examples have demonstrated, they would not be offering their services if there was not a market for them. Without equally greedy and corrupt clients, they would have no cases to file. They have seen that a market exists and have simply tapped into it. That such a market exists in the first place and that someone would buy into it is a sad commentary on how far our society has fallen.
Consider one more example -- this time based on the "old school" of thought: Back in 1987 I decided to have an after-market cruise control installed on my minivan. My road-test showed that it didn't work at all and I took it back to the shop. They fixed it and I road-tested it again to find that it wouldn't disengage in a hydro-planing (loss of traction) situation -- tested by putting the gear in neutral while going down the road. Upon inspection, I discovered that the spark plug pick-up (which detects engine over-rev signaling loss of traction) was not installed. Being that the shop was part of a large, national chain, I could easily have "forgotten" that I knew it was faulty, ran the van into a bridge pylon, called my favorite trial lawyer, and retired into a life of luxury. The thought of doing so did cross my mind -- but only to the extent that I stormed into the shop, called for the manager and in a loud voice explained how continued shoddy workmanship might well result in them being sued if the next guy has the same level of mechanical knowledge but less scruples than myself. Yeah, they did wrong, but two wrongs do not make a right...
Please fill-in the following form to schedule Effective Ethics Training for your organization (all fields required). Indicate when you'd like me to provide training, and the approximate number of trainees. If you're not ready to schedule, but have need of further information, please so indicate.
- The terrible two's
- The Bad Seed
- Fun with a spoon
- Heads down!
- The visually-challenged
- Our "eye" problem
- Criminal mischief
- Hall Of Shame
- The musically-challenged
- Singin' in that ol' three-tone scale
- Just deserts
- You be the judge...
- More fun with a spoon
- Heads up!
- Random acts of Righteousness
- Hall Of Fame
- Even more fun with a spoon
- You've got company...
- Stop, Look, & Listen
- You have the power. You gotta do it 'cuz no one else can!
