ETHICAL EDGE - Integrity's Competitive Asset #2:
Managing Conflict with Respect
By Russell T. Williams, PASSKEYS Foundation - Inspiring Ethical Excellence
ETHICAL TREACHERY: COLLAPSED CORPORATE CULTURE
Most of us endured a Junior or Senior High athletic coach who never should have been coaching kids. Coach Bob, my high school track and field coach, was such a coach. He was a great athlete, one of the world's best. He proved that in the 1960 Summer Olympics when he won a medal.
He was a Super Nova athlete but a Black Hole Coach. Why? He lacked respect for the kids he coached. Nobody measured up to Coach Bob, so he thought. He was the best and what that meant was the teens he coached were just not good enough...they did not measure up to his standards. As a result he showed little or no respect for the teens he coached. And how did Coach Bob's lack of respect play out in the Track Meets? We were consistently a mediocre team, individually not believing we were very good at our event because Coach Bob led us to believe we just didn't have it...like he did!
Coach Bob shaped the culture of his Track Team. His was a team of treachery where individual athletes did not trust in themselves. As a result Coach Bob built a team that did not compete effectively. There was only one great athlete on the team. That athlete was Coach Bob. But, he was not allowed to run a race, jump a hurdle, pole vault or shot put.
National Business Ethics Survey
The Ethics Resource Center conducts a national survey to take the ethical pulse of American business life. The 2007 Survey had some good news commentary about ethical culture, based on some not-so-stellar statistics. The good news was: "Ethics risk diminishes dramatically when a company adopts an enterprise-wide cultural approach to business ethics." Specifically, one major Survey observation concluded, "Such an environment...builds and reinforces an ethical culture, rather than a single minded emphasis on compliance with laws, regulations, and company standards. An enterprise-wide cultural approach to business ethics creates a workplace in which ethical behavior occurs for reasons beyond deterrence and sanctioning by authority."
The Not-So-Stellar Survey facts about enterprise-wide ethical cultures?
- Fewer than 1 in 10 companies in the US has a strong enterprise-wide culture
- The number of companies with weak ethical culture is as high as before the Enron debacle
Translate this information into a simple ethical health paradigm: We know what makes for a healthy business culture. Organizational trust built on the foundation of Leadership's respect for others. When ignored, there is ethical treachery.
Signs of Ethical Collapse
Marianne Jennings is a university professor of Legal and Ethical Studies. In 2006 she authored, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse: How To Spot Moral Meltdowns In Companies...Before It's Too Late. Her book was chronicled in a summary presentation at www.12manage.com. Jenning's seven factors are:
- Pressure to maintain those numbers. All companies and organizations have goals and feel the pressure to meet the numbers. A company with a poor ethical culture, has graduated meeting those numbers into a zone of perversity. Employees in these companies start with the number they want to report and work backwards, making things fit using accounting interpretations and eventually just making it all up to reach the predetermined number.
- Fear & Silence. A type of culture wherein employees may see the issue, but they remain silent. If they do share their concerns, they are either terminated or flat lined in the organization.
- Young 'uns and a bigger-than-life CEO. Surrounding bootlickers, yes-men and others useful idiots, iconic adored CEO's.
- Weak board. Boards may be lacking experience, consisting of friends, showing conflicts of interest, not spending enough time.
- Conflicts. A distinct atmosphere of back scratching exists. Favoritism and nepotism.
- Innovation like no other. A belief that we are so brilliant and innovative that the mundane rules of corporate governance and even basic economics do not apply to us.
- Goodness in some areas atones for evil in others. The consistent perception of both managers and companies of themselves as good citizens. Philanthropic, environmentally sound and diversity-dedicated, these companies were recognized for their good deeds and contributions. Their noblessse oblige benefited many.
Jenning's seven treacherous conditions are the spokes of a busted wheel that has a common hub...unfocused, unmaintained ethical leadership. It's the Coach Bob leadership mindset....a business leader fielding a team offering little or no message of self governance to core principles for the individual. As a result the team responds with little, if any, respect for management leadership while individual team players perform with no corporate vision of the organization as a meaningful ethical player in the marketplace.
Four Components of a Strong Enterprise-Wide Cultural Approach to Business Ethics
Is it tough to change treacherous ethical conditions? Yes. Changing organizational culture is no easy task because culture is organic. Compliance, the ethical workplace companion of culture, is more linear. If compliance defines the rules of organizational behavior, culture defines the practice of the rules.
Applying the simplistic axiom of compliance and culture to Coach Bob...had he decided to change his one and only team rule from I am the best to We are each the best, he would have needed many one-on-one-you-can-do-it conversations to show that he meant what he said. That is the singular big issue of ethical leadership. Rules can be written; rules can be spoken. But for rules to have traction requires action.
The Ethics Resource Center's National Business Survey reveals what the traction must look like:
- Ethical Leadership: tone is set at the top with belief that leaders can be trusted to do the right thing. The Lesson: Ethical expectancy must be modeled from the Top if it is to be duplicated at the Bottom.
- Supervisor reinforcement: every employee in the company hierarchy sets a good example and encourages ethical behavior. The Lesson: In every organization the ethics culture coach is the boss you report to. He/She is your direct ethical culture mentor.
- Peer commitment to ethics: ethical actions of peers support employees to "do the right thing." The Lesson: I look into the mirror to see the ethical leader I am as I commit to be the go-to-guy for ethical action.
- Embedded ethical values: values promoted through informal communication's channels are complementary and consistent with a company's official values. The Lesson: Every working employee must pursue Ph.D professional awareness to practice noble action respecting others. An organization's core virtues are best demonstrated by individual employees who think and act with an ethical mind that consistently gives attention to doing the right thing to others.
The 'Other' Coach Bob: The Rest of the Story
I had a second Coach Bob in high school. He was Coach Bob, the Cross Country Coach. He was the master teacher of building an athletic team of integrity. Every teen on this team knew exactly what this Coach Bob stood for: He cared about each young person on his team. By his example, he made sure we knew that our time with him was far more about life skills than running skills. He built winning athletic teams with a philosophy of respecting others. A tale of two Coach Bobs...I am glad I got to experience the stark ethical contrasts on respect so early in life.
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