ARE YOU BETTER OFF MAKING AN ETHICAL DECISION?
By Russell Williams, Founder of Passkeys Foundation & Author of the Ethical Edge
It was twelve years ago, 1996. But the article appearing in The Wall Street Journal titled, For Many Executives, Ethics Appears To Be A Write-Off, penned by Dawn Blalock, offers timeless ethical commentary to the Wild, Wild Mr. Toad Ride that Americans are experiencing this October in the aftermath of the collapse of the financial markets.
Blalock cited the research of Arthur Brief, a professor at Tulane University's Freeman School of Business, who with three other researchers, created a study to determine if an individual's personal values impacted their business ethics. Dr. Brief initiated the work with a hypothesis stating, "individual values make a big difference in how they behave in the workplace."
The research findings were startling, as reported in the Journal of Business Ethics. Rather than the hypothesis being confirmed, the researchers found that "the typical business executive, in his mid 40's, who values self-respect, is very likely to commit financial fraud by understanding write-offs that cut into their company's profits."
In the end the study's authors reported that what is necessary to prevent fraud is not only a company's code of ethics, but an entire business climate that reinforces ethical behavior. But, having said this, Ray Hilgert, a management professor at the Olin School of Business at Washington University, St. Louis, boldly stated that even with such an ethical climate in America's organizations and companies... "It is very difficult to show a bottom line that you are better off making an ethical decision."
The Ethical Edge challenges Hilgert's statement as well as the research. Why? There Is a bottom line to ethical indifference. It comes in the form of a life value that every individual and all organizations practice daily, knowingly or unknowingly. It's the Paying The Price life value. It goes by other names... the No Free Lunch... What Goes Around Come Around life value. It acts with precision: every decision or action carries an exacting consequence.
The Paying The Price life value brings the Boomerang Effect to all actions, unconscious or conscious, malicious or well-intended by individuals, businesses, organizations, communities and governments. What we put out comes back! So, we better pay attention to what we send out. A case in point? America's mortgage meltdown, predicated on let's-make-it-easy-for-everybody lending practices driven by greed and hidden by individual and institutional ethical lapses, now brings the price of painful economic conditions impacting America's families, communities, Wall Street and Main Street, government, our world economy.
Paying the Price is egalitarian. It functions equally with every individual from every walk of life. It is a Red State and Blue State life value. Every act carries a price tag. With exacting clarity Paying the Price teaches that any decision which deceives, hides, conceals, shrouds, or fogs the facts will return in a smelly paper bag of a mess. Clearly, Paying the Price is the equal opportunity life value.
The professional world is a significant place to understand that choice making carries either the price of reward or penalty. As we cultivate ethical skills, appreciating that the scales of daily decision-making demand an exacting balance, we can observe ourselves constantly asking the Paying The Price question: Is the consequence of this decision one that I desire to come back to me? If yes, the decision always brings long term good to self and others because it is based on mutual respect and personal responsibility. Asking this big ethical question while eyeing the corresponding positive consequence teaches us to become ethical decision-makers daily.
Is there a bottom line ethical practice for all occasions? Absolutely! Paying The Price is the proven, perennial talisman... the bottom line... of The Ethical Edge.
Russell T. Williams
PASSKEYS FOUNDATION
Building A Nation Of Character
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