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In a Globe and Mail article today the journalists write”The RCMP have implicated a Canadian tech executive in an alleged bribery and bid-rigging scheme that involves prominent public figures in India at a time when outrage over corruption has paralyzed its Parliament. “
Canadian accused of bribing cabinet minister in India is a test case for Canada’s foreign anti-corruption law
February 2nd, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in CorruptionLeave a Reply
Behavioral Ethics: Toward a Deeper Understanding of Moral Judgment and Dishonesty
February 1st, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics
Download the PDF. What makes even good people cross ethical boundaries? Society demands that business and professional schools address ethics, but the results have been disappointing. This paper argues that a behavioral approach to ethics is essential because it leads to understanding and explaining moral and immoral behavior in systematic ways.
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Compassion, Forgiveness, Gratitude Are Keys To Winning Business Race
January 30th, 2012 by admin | 2 Comments | Filed in Ethical Development, Leadership, Organizational Ethics
The title says it all. A very insightful article by Jim Noertz who is a compliance director at Bausch and Lomb, and has global responsibility for developing, evaluating and supporting the company’s compliance and ethics programs.
2 Responses to “Compassion, Forgiveness, Gratitude Are Keys To Winning Business Race”
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Sticking to values activates ‘ethics’ part of brain
January 27th, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Ethical Development
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
Washington, OLR, Sticking to values even in the face of temptations, including money, activates an area of the brain tied with rules-based, ethical thought processes. Simply told, decision-making over ‘sacred values’ prompts our brains to act in a specific way, says an Emory University neuro-imaging study.
”Our experiment found that the realm of the sacred – whether it’s a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics – is a distinct cognitive process,” says Gregory Berns, director of the Centre for Neuropolicy at Emory University who led the study, the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society reports.
Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record the brain responses of a group of adults during key phases of an experiment, according to an Emory statement.
Participants could earn as much as $100 per statement by simply agreeing to sign a document stating the opposite of what they believed. They could choose to opt out of the auction for statements they valued highly.
The brain imaging data showed a strong correlation between sacred values and activation of the neural (brain cells) systems linked with evaluating rights and wrongs (left temporoparietal junction) and semantic rule retrieval (left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), but not with systems tied with reward.
Participants who reported more active affiliations with organisations, namely churches, sports teams, musical groups and environmental clubs had stronger brain activity in the same brain regions that correlated to sacred values.
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כל־האדם Hebrew Bible Ethics and the Book of Ruth
January 27th, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Moral Philosophy
“Posted in Ethics, Ruth by Joseph Kelly on January 26, 2012
The major scholarly works belonging to the “Old Testament Ethics” genre tend to create ethical constructs or systematic proposals for reading the Hebrew Bible with the goal being contemporary application. These constructs/proposals necessarily impose their modern aims and assumptions on the text, for better or for worse. These works are properly classified as prescriptive in nature”. More here.
More here
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The Economics of Corruption
January 27th, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Corruption
“The study of corruption has one glaring problem: the difficulty obtaining data upon which to base conclusions. Shawn A. Cole and Anh Tran add to the research literature of corruption by analyzing actual internal records of firms that paid bribes in an Asian developing country. The work, they report, provides “new estimates of corruption and study its relationship with organizational ownership.” Their book chapter, “Evidence from the Firm: A New Approach to Understanding Corruption”, will be included in the forthcoming second volume of International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption.”
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Reuters Investigates Ethics in economics? Who cares?
January 25th, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, Organizational Ethics
Back in December, a Reuters investigation examined the ties between economists who testify to Congress on financial regulation and big financial institutions.
A Reuters review of 96 testimonies given by 82 academics to the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee between late 2008 and early 2010 — as lawmakers debated the biggest overhaul of financial regulation since the 1930s — found no clear standard for disclosure.
In fact, roughly a third did not reveal their financial affiliations in their testimonies, based on a comparison of the text of their testimonies available on the Congressional committees’ websites with their resumes available online.
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Top Risks and Ethical Decisions 2012 with Ian Bremmer
January 17th, 2012 by admin | 2 Comments | Filed in Democracy
“What are the biggest political risks in 2012, and the associated ethical decisions? Political risk guru Ian Bremmer discusses his annual list, and his conclusions may surprise you.”
2 Responses to “Top Risks and Ethical Decisions 2012 with Ian Bremmer”
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Accually, this the right advice in accounting topics. Just wanna say thank you and good job.
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Thanks for keeping us informed… there certainly is more coming in 2012 regarding these risks.
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“Stress” Taking a Heavy Toll on Compliance and Ethics Professionals
January 14th, 2012 by admin | 2 Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, Organizational Ethics, Trust
“On-the-job stress leading to sleepless nights and thoughts of quitting work
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — At a time when the public’s attention is focused on the need for greater corporate integrity, the majority of compliance and ethics professionals report that they often wake during the middle of the night with job-related worries and they have considered quitting their jobs due to the stress. This disturbing data was revealed in a recent survey conducted in October and November of 2011 by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and the Health Care Compliance Association.
Overall, 58% of survey respondents reported that they often wake up during the middle of the night worrying about job-related stress and 60% report having considered leaving their job in the last 12 months due to job-related stress.
Compliance and ethics professionals also report that keeping up with new and changing laws and regulations, preventing compliance and ethics violations, and remediating compliance and ethics violations are the greatest contributors to on-the-job stress.
“Six out of ten people waking up in the middle of the night from job related stress is unacceptable for any profession. The Compliance profession’s purpose is to prevent and detect the problems that have occurred in organizations such as Enron, Tyco, and Penn State University. There are reasons those who came before the Compliance profession stopped short of fixing these problems. Fixing these problems is very difficult and stressful. SCCE and HCCA will work to help their 10,000 members deal with this stress. We have dedicated a day and a half strategic planning session in January 2011 to this issue and this issue alone. However, we can only do so much. Compliance professionals, who are asked to do this difficult job, need support from leadership, reasonable authority, and independence. If society wants to us deal with these issues—so difficult that others have chosen to look the other way—then society should make an effort to support this profession,” said SCCE and HCCA Chief Executive Officer Roy Snell.
Most compliance and ethics professionals report that adversarial relationships with their colleagues, adds to job-related stress. Fifty-eight percent of respondents felt they are in an adversarial situation or isolated from colleagues in other departments. Compliance and ethics professionals positively rated their relationship with the legal department; 54% gave it a “5″ rating while another 26% gave it a “4″ rating. However, the relationship with the sales, marketing, and manufacturing departments was clearly the poorest with 14% rating it a “5″ and only 24% rating it a “4″.”
2 Responses to ““Stress” Taking a Heavy Toll on Compliance and Ethics Professionals”
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‘Six out of ten people waking up in the middle of the night from job related stress is unacceptable for any profession’ so true! But then, unfortunately, not all can have the luxury of plainly looking for another job and move on. Others prefer to get stuck at the job they hate because they had to take their children to good school, provide for family, etc.
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Perhaps the real issue here is what are corporates doing? Compliance is a support function and it exists to make sure we are doing the right things the right way. If half the people here experience adversarial situations, it means that there are conflicting objectives. In this case, compliance is no longer a support function and becomes a corporate hurdle.
We need to be clear on what we want for compliance to function properly
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Survey Forecasts ‘Looming Ethics Downturn’ in Corporate America
January 7th, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics
As Business Ethics magazine notes”Those are the primary conclusions of the seventh National Business Ethics Survey (NBES) conducted by the Ethics Resource Center, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization. The bi-annual report is based on telephone and web responses from 4,683 employees of for-profit organizations during September 2011.”
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Why CSR’s Future Matters to Your Company
January 7th, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in CSR
Susan McPherson on a blog in the Harvard business review writes“More and more, companies are building long-term commitments to corporate social responsibility. In 2012 the rise in consumer activism and mobility, the Occupy movement, 24-hour accountability (thanks to social media), and global resource depletion will force every enterprise, large and small, to make CSR a focal point…”
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The Joy of Quiet By PICO IYER
January 3rd, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Social Media
A wonderful reflection by Pico Iyer “ABOUT a year ago, I flew to Singapore to join the writer Malcolm Gladwell, the fashion designer Marc Ecko and the graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister in addressing a group of advertising people on “Marketing to the Child of Tomorrow.” Soon after I arrived, the chief executive of the agency that had invited us took me aside. What he was most interested in, he began — I braced myself for mention of some next-generation stealth campaign — was stillness. …”
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Knowledge@Wharton Business Ethics Research Article Business vs. Ethics: The India Tradeoff?
January 3rd, 2012 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics
“As Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, observed, “If you choose not to participate in [corruption], you leave behind a fair amount of business.”
Much has been written about the benefits of doing business in India — low input costs, easy access to labor and a massive consumer base. Less has been said about the ability of companies in India to thrive by bending rules, greasing palms and broadening ethical boundaries. At a time when the issue of corruption threatens the stability of the Indian government and scandals unearthed in sectors from sports to telecommunications total tens of billions of dollars, it is becoming increasingly critical for multinational managers to ask whether business
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Developing Mindful Leaders
December 31st, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Decision Making, Ethics training, Leadership
This article asks and answers the question” what if cultivating a successful inner life was front and center on the leadership agenda?”As they note ““Management education must be designed to create a heightened and enlightened ‘consciousness.Management training has traditionally focused on helping leaders develop a particular portfolio of cognitive skills: left-brain thinking, deductive reasoning, analytical problem solving, and solutions engineering. Tomorrow’s managers will require new skills, among them reflective or double-loop learning, systems-based thinking, creative problem solving, and values-driven thinking. Business schools and companies must redesign training programs to help executives develop such skills and reorient management systems to encourage their application.”
So how would we recognize mindful leaders from an ethics perspective?
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Boards of Directors and Compliance: 4 Areas of Inquiry by Thomas Fox
December 27th, 2011 by admin | 2 Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, Leadership, Organizational Ethics
“In an article in the December 2011 issue of Compliance Week magazine entitled “Board Checklist: What Every Director Should Know,” author Jaclyn Jaeger reported on a panel discussion at the Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2011 Annual Meeting, held in October. The discussion was centered on four core areas upon which directors should focus their attention: (1) structure, (2) culture, (3) areas of risk and (4) forecasts.”
2 Responses to “Boards of Directors and Compliance: 4 Areas of Inquiry by Thomas Fox”
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(1) structure, (2) culture, (3) areas of risk and (4) forecasts
So many thing to which to pay pay attention -
Hutchens seems to base her approach largely on the idea that risk is negative, when this isn’t the case, and it may be neutral or positive
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A Code of Ethics for Mediation – a Brazilian experience
December 25th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, Organizational Ethics
In Brazil nowadays there are three Codes of Ethics devoted to Mediation. “The first one, published in 1997, was drawn up by CONIMA – The National Council of Mediation and Arbitration Institutions – an organization that is made up of entities dedicated to the teaching and practice of Mediation. The second one, published in 2010 by the National Council of Justice – CNJ, along with Resolution #125 of November, 2010. This Resolution determined the practice of Mediation as a Public Policy all over the Court Houses in the country, establishing at the same time guidelines for the qualification of mediators. The third one came afterwards, published in August 18th, 2011 by FONAME – The National Forum of Mediation an organization that also encompasses institutions devoted to the teaching and the practice of Mediation in the country.”
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Some Ethical Dimensions to Robotics
December 20th, 2011 by admin | 2 Comments | Filed in CSR, Ethical Development, Leadership, Organizational Ethics
2 Responses to “Some Ethical Dimensions to Robotics”
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This is a great subject to talk about. I think it\’s impossible to have a bond with a robot when the robot doesn\’t have any emotion. You can only create a bond when there is emotion involved.
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Calling for a new moral contract for the Canadian Federal Public Service
December 11th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Democracy, Public Sector/Government, Trust
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The Next Frontier of Museum Ethics
December 7th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Organizational Ethics
Interesting polling happening on the future of museums. “Here at CFM, we’re wrapping up Round Three of Forecasting the Future of Museum Ethics. The survey closes Dec. 9 (there’s a link below if you still haven’t participated) and I can hardly wait to compile the input from our Oracles and the public.
Most of the issues that have surfaced during the forecasting exercise are echoes of ongoing arguments from a hundred year or more of the museum literature. I’d lay money that John Cotton Dana (d. 1929) was blogging, I mean writing, about the obligation of museums to be economically accessible to the public; the ethics of making collections accessible; and the perils of conflict of interest when it comes to donors, sponsors and members of the governing authority. Maybe these will play out in new ways in coming decades, but we probably know the arguments and the players already.
But the forecast looks at one issue that may actually be new—or at least so different in degree as to be different in kind as well: the challenge of curatorial authority vs. crowdsourced input/community curation/participatory design.”
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What Impedes Oil and Gas Companies’ Transparency?
December 6th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, Corruption 
This article examines what determines oil and gas companies’ transparency in reporting on business activities in host countries where they operate. It founnd that the index of transparency across host countries is lower the more corrupt the host country, the higher the number of nationalizations in that host country in the past, and the fewer the number of oil and gas companies operating in the host country.
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Ethics Matter: A Conversation with Jeffrey Sachs
December 5th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Democracy, Human Rights, Moral Philosophy, Sustainability
The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs sits down with Jeffry Sachs and discusses why he believes that “at the root of America’s economic crisis lies a moral crisis” and why he is charting a course to what he calls “a more mindful society”.
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Inspiring Loyalty by Asking, “What If?” Counterfactual thinking strengthens commitments to people and organizations
December 5th, 2011 by admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Decision Making
“What if” is a powerful and emotional question. People often fantasize about how they would handle a tough situation if they got a second chance. At the other extreme, individuals may undergo a life change when someone they care about survives a near-calamity. They ponder, What if he or she had died?
Such counterfactual reflection, as it is called, can elicit intense feelings. People who imagine an alternative history of their company—a concept known as “counterfactual reflection”—tend to feel a greater commitment to their organization, which previous research has shown can affect job turnover, performance, and satisfaction. But the power of counterfactual thinking goes far beyond that. Research by Adam D. Galinsky, a professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of management, Brayden King, an associate professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, Hal Ersner-Herschfield, an assistant professor of marketing at New York University, and Laura Kray, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, plumbed the depths of counterfactual thinking to see how it influences commitment to people, organizations, and even one’s country.”
One Response to “Inspiring Loyalty by Asking, “What If?” Counterfactual thinking strengthens commitments to people and organizations”
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Since when did dreaming about change receive such a narrow definition as counterfactual thinking? Surely all creative thinking and change management deals with some element of change? Does such an academic approach really help us take action towards or make for a better world?
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The Ethics of Honey
December 4th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, CSR, Sustainability
“We’ve been reading the news about the tainted honey from China being foisted on American markets from lack of oversight–and when you come right down to it–a lack of ethics, putting profit before people. But there are other unethical beekeeping practices of which you might not be aware.”
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‘Beyond Religion’: The Dalai Lama’s Secular Ethics
December 3rd, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Ethical Development, Moral Philosophy
This article is excerpted from “Beyond Religion” by the Dalai Lama.
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Islamic business ethics
November 27th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics
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Creating Humble Economists: A Code of Ethics for Economists
November 26th, 2011 by admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Codes
An interesting perspective on creating a Code of Ethics for Economists
One Response to “Creating Humble Economists: A Code of Ethics for Economists”
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A code of ethics for normative economists behaviour the author suggests by adapting the code for engineers? I think not. Why not principles from a code for business or lawyers, or some other profession? Same answer, but the wrong question. Why not borrow from a moral code for individuals?: we’re already over-credentialized and professionalized.
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On Authenticity: How the Truth can Restore Faith in Politics and Government
November 25th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Democracy, Public Sector/Government, Trust
I suggest you read the transcript from this year’s Gordon Osbaldeston Lecture given by Allan Gregg Gregg’s thesis can be summed up as civil society (elected officials, public servants, and citizens) need to be more authentic.His lecture “On Authenticity: How the Truth can Restore Faith in Politics and Government” provides a perspective on the relationship between authenticity and trust. Gregg posited that if our political leaders were to act authentically and speak truthfully, Canadians would be more inclined to trust them regardless of whether or not they agreed with their politics.
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This paper focuses on how trust—a key cultural factor—affects firms’ decision-making
November 23rd, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, Decision Making, Organizational Ethics, Trust
“Economists have been paying increasing attention to the role that culture plays in a firm’s overall performance. This paper focuses on how trust—a key cultural factor—affects firms’ decision-making process, size, and productivity. Research was conducted by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, Rafaella Sadun of the Harvard Business School, and John Van Reenen of the London School of Economics. Key concepts include:
If a firm is headquartered in a country where trust is prevalent (such as Sweden), it is much more likely to decentralize its decision making than if it is headquartered in a country in which trust is rarer (such as India). In short, higher trust leads to more decentralization.
Trust also enables a firm to hire a large number of plant managers, because the CEO will feel comfortable delegating decisions to their direct reports without spending too much time on supervision. Thus, higher trust increases firm size.
Higher trust increases the marginal value of information technology’s effect on productivity.”
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The decision to “blow the whistle” involves complex interactions of worker’s ethical obligations to the public, employer and to himself.
November 20th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, Case Studies, Corruption, Organizational Ethics
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Public funds wasted on mining ‘counsellor’ Watchdog only valuable if it protects Canada’s reputation, betters industry
November 16th, 2011 by admin | 6 Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, CSR, Public Sector/Government
6 Responses to “Public funds wasted on mining ‘counsellor’ Watchdog only valuable if it protects Canada’s reputation, betters industry”
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Public funds should be used wisely and transparency is very important so the public can see where the money is actually being used on.
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To enhance accountability and transparency, there are many models for an effective functioning, independent integrity officer and investigator in the public service. This particular Office and officer was clearly flawed and perhaps that’s related to why and how the position was created in the first place.
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One important thing is the government should sort out all the corrupted official.
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I agree,President Noynoy is currently sorting that out.Many official resigned because of that.
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COMMENTARY: Good Ethics Really is Good Business -Michael Josephson
November 16th, 2011 by admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Business Ethics, Organizational Ethics
“Recently, the Wharton School of Business published a book called Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose, making the strongest case I’ve seen that good ethics really is good business.”Sample the book here
One Response to “COMMENTARY: Good Ethics Really is Good Business -Michael Josephson”
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What Paterno Teaches Us About Ethics
November 11th, 2011 by admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Case Studies, Ethical Development, Organizational Ethics, Trust
A Forbes article considers the lessons to be learned from this sad episode
One Response to “What Paterno Teaches Us About Ethics”
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The Penn State scandal turns the spotlight on the relationship between sports, money and family morality. A head coach who tries to serve only two of these areas of interest will come under the gun literally from dads, uncles, brothers and cousins.
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Journalism’s ethical and civic purpose?
November 9th, 2011 by admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Case Studies, Democracy, Organizational Ethics
One Response to “Journalism’s ethical and civic purpose?”
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Altruism may be rewarded with prestige, but seldom with leadership
November 7th, 2011 by NSteinberg | No Comments | Filed in Social Media
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Paul Zak: Trust, morality — and oxytocin
November 5th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Ethical Development
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The Dalai Lama Calls for Social Transformation Through Secular Ethics-By Sherab Woeser
October 30th, 2011 by admin | 3 Comments | Filed in CSR, Democracy
Like an experienced medical practitioner, the Tibetan spiritual leader straightaway sought to find and treat the cause of life’s difficulties.
“Lack of ethics, principle, and righteousness is the root of our problems,” the Dalai Lama said while calling corruption “a new world epidemic”.
“We all say relaxation and rest is important but with a mind filled with conflicting emotions, even on the most comfortable chair, you cannot relax,” the Dalai Lama said.
Stressing on the vital role that the training and transformation of the mind plays in facing and resolving difficulties, His Holiness called for social ethics education in schools and daily life.
“Social transformation through secular ethics education is very possible. Changing society through prayers is difficult,” the Dalai Lama said with a gentle laugh.
Referring to research works being carried out in the US, the 76-year old Nobel Peace laureate noted that the initial results of practicing mindfulness and compassion in schools have been “encouraging”.
“Research on the mind and research on how to incorporate social ethics in education,” the Dalai Lama said.
“Concerned people should investigate on how to improve mental attitude towards oneself, others and the world.”
Drawing parallels between the advancements in technology and the need for advancement of the mind, the Dalai Lama pointed out that even the most technologically advanced cameras fail to take a picture of the human mind.
“Little transformation of the mind, which we cannot see, is very important,” the Dalai Lama advised.
Heeding to a request for regular visits by a Japanese in the audience, the Tibetan spiritual leader said that he was looking forward to holding wider discussions with the public and scientists in Japan.
The Dalai Lama is currently on a 10-day visit to Japan and is scheduled to visit Koyasan tomorrow to participate in the 125th founding anniversary of the Koyasan University.
3 Responses to “The Dalai Lama Calls for Social Transformation Through Secular Ethics-By Sherab Woeser”
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One of the Dalai Lama’s books (The Art of Happiness) changed my life in university so I always heed whatever he says. In this article, the importance of teaching social ethics at a young age is stressed. While I agree with this, I feel like the bigger problem with corruption is poverty. It’s a chicken and the egg arguement, isn’t it? People are often corrupt because they live in poverty and need money while corruption breeds more poverty by empowering a few at the cost of many.
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NSteinberg says:
I am not sure I agree with the equation that if you live in poverty you will necessary have a tendency to make corrupt choices
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As someone who has taught social ethics for thirty years, I think it is important but I am not convinced that teaching the subject makes us any more empathetic or responsible in our behaviours. Do we have evidence-based data to prove me wrong? Are what are we teaching — should it be ethical absolutism (one set of common beliefs for all) or moral relativism (when in Rome do what the Romans do)?
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Moral Dilemma
October 29th, 2011 by admin | 3 Comments | Filed in Decision Making
A Picture saves a 1000 words
3 Responses to “Moral Dilemma”
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Admittedly, a tough choice for many. For old hippies and flower children the choice shouldn’t be easy. Those of us that own stock should be working from the inside as shareowner activists to align our corporations with our values though organizations like the United States Proxy Exchange (http://proxyexchange.org) and through the use of voting advisory sites like http://proxydemocracy.org and http://www.moxyvote.com.
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Look’s like a false “choice” to me, as neither the Elite/1% nor the Occupier/Hippie crowd has a solution. I’d like there to be change and to be part of that change. Neither conventional political power or the boardroom seem to be venues to understand or act on socially-responsible change.
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The answer lies in the Constitution. Get the federal government out of the business of bailing out and maniupulating th private sector. Do I mean the federal goverment has no place in regulating? Of course not. But it does mean canceling things like the FED, FDIC, etc. Also, bring back the Glass Steagal act which separates mortgage banks from investment banks.
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Profiting from the Golden Rule-by Fred Reichheld
October 28th, 2011 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics
” Listen in on MBA classes and corporate conferences and you will hear a lot of talk about the need for inspiring missions, ethical behavior and transcendent purpose. And judging from the “core values” statements in most annual reports, the vast majority of business leaders want their companies to grow by enriching the lives of their customers and employees.
And yet, this can often sound like so much fluff in the real business world. Our system of financial accounting rewards quarterly profits, but struggles mightily to place a value on ethical behavior. Even accounting rules specifically dealing with reputation — goodwill and intangible assets — are subject to frequent rule changes and endless debate.
Perhaps the accountants are just overcomplicating a basic idea. Reputation is earned through the simple, age-old concept of the Golden Rule: treat others as you yourself would want to be treated. Each time you live up to the Golden Rule, your reputation is enhanced; each time you fail, it is diminished. And the mathematics of long-term financial success — revenues, profits, cash flow — square perfectly with this scorecard.
We all want to be treated with honor and respect in ways, large and small, that enrich our lives. Such experiences not only make us happy, we want to share them with people we care about. By recommending an experience, we’re signaling our trust that our friends will be treated similarly. Recommendations also signal to businesses how customers view their relationship with the company. When customers feel so well treated that they enthusiastically recommend a company to friends, they are promoters. When treated so badly they recommend avoiding the company, they are detractors. Both have direct and measurable economic consequences.
This is the concept at the heart of the Net Promoter system, which my colleague Rob Markey and I describe in our book, published last month. The Net Promoter system focuses the entire organization on generating promoters, who buy more, stay longer, refer friends and even provide useful feedback and ideas. It also helps minimize the number of costly detractors. A recent research project we conducted found that across multiple industries, the company with the leading Net Promoter score typically grew more than twice as fast as their competitors.
That should keep the accountants happy. But for companies, executives and employees, there’s also an inspirational dimension: the system provides them with a practical way to measure how consistently they treat people right. You might call it the Golden Ruler.
That’s how Walt Bettinger, chief executive of Charles Schwab, describes his company’s Net Promoter system when recommending it to other CEOs:
“First, I ask them if they believe in the importance of the Golden Rule — that ancient moral and ethical principle that we should treat people the way we would want to be treated. They always nod emphatically and say, ‘Yes, of course.’ So then I ask them what they do to measure how consistently they and their organization are living the Golden Rule each day. Their typical response: ‘Well, it would be great if we could measure it, but there’s no practical way to do that.’ To which I reply that there most certainly is a way. In fact, at Schwab, we have been using the Net Promoter System to measure our Golden Rule compliance for more than five years, and it works brilliantly. Net Promoter is the first screen I open when I boot up my computer each morning. It lets me know for each part of our company how we are performing in living up to our core values. By making NPS a top priority, we have become a better company — not just in terms of living our core values, but also in terms of profitable growth.”
Bettinger is not alone. CEO Dan Cathy explains the winning strategy at Chick-fil-A in similar terms: “We strive to deliver something for which there is unlimited demand–being treated with honor and respect. There seems to be a very limited supply of that in today’s world.”
These CEOs have not discovered a new concept: in one form or another, the Golden Rule is a pillar of most of the world’s great religions and it also lies at the heart of secular ethics. Business ethicists Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria describe the Golden Rule as an expression of the basic human instinct to bond with others.
The challenge executives face is how to put the Golden Rule into practice, especially when the lingua franca of financial accounting pushes the business to focus on short-term profits. “[M]orals are such a central and pervasive aspect of human life that we badly need a scientific way of understanding them,” Lawrence and Nohria write.
As CEOs Bettinger and Cathy have discovered, a Net Promoter system provides one framework to do that. When properly installed and operated, it delivers financial growth. But it also shows that those MBA class discussions and annual report rhetoric aren’t just fluff. If you build a way to measure it, you’ll find that it really does pay to be good.”
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Op Ed: Suzuki’s moral relativism on ethics of oil doesn’t stand up
October 10th, 2011 by admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Business Ethics, Ethical Development, Public Sector/Government
This piece appeared in today’s Edmonton Journal.They note that it is”encouraging to see David Suzuki, the godfather of Canada’s environmental left, is finally willing to start thinking about the ethical implications of our oil sources. It would be more encouraging if he were willing to acknowledge, as almost any reasonable Canadian will, that some oil-producing countries still behave far more ethically than others.”
Anyone have a point of view they are willing to share?
One Response to “Op Ed: Suzuki’s moral relativism on ethics of oil doesn’t stand up”
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Toby Knight says:
Perhaps it’s too simplistic to describe Canadian tar sands as “ethical oil”, given that this is a non-renewable resource? We want to be weaned off the “petro-terrorism teat, especially as Saudi Arabia supports 10,000 Wahabi-teaching madrassahs annually, but is Canadian oil not without its negative implications. At a time we’re attempting mega-projects to export energy everywhere, why do consumers throughout Eastern Canada not have the option of consuming Canadian oil?
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Consequences of Compassion: An Interpretation and Defense of Buddhist Ethics. By Charles Goodman. Oxford;
September 30th, 2011 by admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Business Ethics, Ethical Development, Ethics training
In the workplace and in our daily relationships with friends,family and others, are we placing enough attention on compassion?Charles Goodman provides the lens to the discussion from a Buddhist perspective.
One Response to “Consequences of Compassion: An Interpretation and Defense of Buddhist Ethics. By Charles Goodman. Oxford;”
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If I were to pick the most relationship-enhancing important word within the workplace, would it be compassion, or caring, or empathy, or fairness, or respect? Would this vary by culture, do you think?
The detachment of stockholders from the repercussions of corporate decisions are a large issue in how corporations behave. When push comes to shove many corporate executives will do whatever is necessary to please shareholders regardless of the impact to the community.
Some Corps will bow down to the share holders others will do so in a more ethical approach. Business are here to make money. What has been lost in this Country is ethics and education. Its not the free market or capitalism its the fact that the Liberal mentality has bummed down our school system because everyone feelings will be hurt if one student doesn’t understand a lesson. Answer don’t teach.