Think

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing”                              

ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955)

I was conned recently in a local restaurant I have been going to for years. They overcharged me by a large amount and because I know them well I did not check the machine I put my PIN number into – I trusted them. Neither did I check the receipt which I put straight into my wallet. The hand written bill was correct. I did not discover the error until I got my bank statement three weeks later. I was angry with the behaviour of the staff and I was angry with myself for not noticing. Taken together with recent discoveries about the behaviour of financiers, bankers and Members of Parliament, I ended up spending considerable time thinking and reading about personal ethics in organisations.

I came to three conclusions:

• In the same way that organisations do not have values, only individual people do, there is no such thing as organisational ethics – an organisation is only as good as the behaviour of its ethically weakest member of staff
• Putting in processes to check ethical behaviour will not and has not solved the problem of individuals behaving unethically in business
• Behaving ethically at work (or anytime) requires that individuals are rational and mindful – and we are all less rational and mindful than we like to believe 

Being ethical is deeply personal. Ethical behaviour is the output of a state of mind. This is simply expressed in a flow chart:

Many organisations attempt to legislate for ethical behaviour and ‘train’ everyone on what being ethical constitutes. As with lots of other systemic training e.g. health and safety procedures, staff performance reviews and project management systems, content can be put across and knowledge tested without gaining the emotional commitment of staff. The result is processes and systems that are fallible. No matter how well someone knows the safety rules, people only truly behave safely when they are consciously aware of what they are doing and are committed. How many of us have driven home on autopilot without being aware of the journey or what we passed on route?

In terms of ethics, how many of us could answer no to all the following:

• Using the company phone to make personal calls
• Seeing you are undercharged in a shop and not pointing it out
• Rounding up the mileage on travel expenses
• Claiming for something that is not strictly business e.g. stationery for use at home
• Finding money/wallet on the street and not handing it in
• Seeing someone shoplift and not report it
• Exaggerating an insurance claim
• Copying material from the internet for your own work
• Bumping (minor) someone else’s car in a car park and not leaving a note
• Taking perfectly OK items back to a shop when they have been used and asking for a refund
• Not giving back things we have borrowed

Moral awareness and moral decision making are affected by past experience and learning. Some people are simply unaware they are facing an issue with ethical dimensions. That unawareness can be the result of errors in how people process perceptions of the world. Human beings frequently fail to see the evidence before them. We often filter reality based on what we heard most recently or something that made a deep impression on us when we were younger. We often default to believing what our own group says rather than any other group e.g. different race or company. There are many types of cognitive bias that can trip us up.

Some people only take their cues from the external environment (other people around them), called an external locus of control where they see themselves as unable to control or influence events. The culture and pressures in a work environment can exacerbate these pre-existing tendencies. Deadlines, financial constraints and strident management can set an environment where people respond by knee jerk rather than with rational thought.

Having the capacity to reflect on situations, recognise the ethical dilemmas and make coherent moral decisions are the necessary conditions for ethical behaviour. For any individual or team of people to conduct themselves in this way requires a level of self value or OKness that is equal to the value we attribute to others (I’m OK/You’re OK). If we answer yes to any of the scenarios above, what was our mindset when we behaved unethically – most likely not OK. Improving ethical behaviour can only come from increasing the self value and confidence of a workforce.

We have all (on balance of probability) behaved unethically at some point in our lives. Being able to forgive ourselves for such transgressions is essential for our mental health, perhaps with the proviso that we learn from the experiences. If we recognise post hoc in a more rational moment that we have behaved unethically, what action do we take to redress that behaviour? The quotation from Einstein at the beginning of this blog refers to people looking on and doing nothing. He was referring to the atrocities of the Second World War – however the quotation holds just as true for all the less life threatening scenarios we come across. Organisations have collapsed, lost custom or diminished in value and credibility due to the unethical conduct of a few individuals. Many of these go unrecognised, unlike ENRON or MP’s expenses. Allowing a substandard process to go forward or failing to report difficulties in delivering products are just as much ethical issues.

Whilst we are all less rational and mindful than we believe, at any one time it is unlikely every person in a team or organisation is irrational. The bottom line is whether at the times we are rational we act to redress a situation or allow the danger to grow.

Now I am thinking how I can go back to the restaurant and redress the issue effectively – or will I simply look the other way and never go there again?

 Janet