Ethics is not as simple as it sounds. Just a small percentage of organisations and people take interest in promoting ethics. Also, whatever little has been done has not put to shame the offenders and led them to their doom, or out of business, or transformed the ill-mannered. This is, indeed, the basic and, perforce, the inescapable truth.
On the other hand, though, most of our ethics and vision programmes — whatever they are, in reality — have not led us to Paradise. This does not mean that one can dismiss the entire idea as fanciful, and have it dumped in the Indian Ocean.
We need to look at the issue without prejudice, because interest in ethics training has continued to rise slowly, but positively, every year. Hence, the concept needs to be X-rayed with understanding, sympathy, and steadfast realism.
This brings us to a host of inevitable questions: What can be really achieved through values and ethics programmes? Can these training concepts contribute something for the betterment of the individual, and the organisation? How does an effective values and ethics programme work? And, how can one use, or measure, some known, or unknown, index for scanning and evaluating their ‘planned’ effectiveness?
Yes, ethics, values and behaviour, which are all sum of the parts and parts of the whole, work. They also, in tandem, bring hope, respectability, and vision to the organisation.
It is quite another thing that analysts, on the other hand, observe that legislated ethics may not often work though. Self-regulation, they say, can possibly work with certain guidelines as codes of conduct — but, not always.
Reason? Any newly-acquired weapon can be ruthless. So also regulation of ethics. Ethics cannot overcome all contingencies. The only way it can be made use of in training is by way, or methods, of discussion, appreciation, acknowledgment, discovery, and development. You get the point.
This is not all. Ethics should bring a sense of belonging through a set of rules of behaviour that mirrors the sentiments and character of the company, and its workforce. This belief is simple. When we answer challenges — from our associates, stock/shareholders, governmental regulations etc., — we can change personal values, and provide a platform for discussing moral issues and questions and arrive at optimally viable choices.
Face Issues Confidently
All of us face ethical dilemmas, practically every day. As Jack Casey, author of Ethics in the Financial Marketplace, puts it: “Ethics training should teach people how to work through complex issues with those who are knowledgeable about the alternatives.”
Notes Thomas von der Embse, a renowned ethics-management guru: “For many people, ethics simply means staying out of trouble…” He explains: “Ethics has a certain amount of economic motivation because getting caught may mean losing your job.” “But, there are people,” he adds, “who have maintained a sense of conscience and an awareness of the so-called consequences of their actions. They are not campaigning for a particular issue, but for a renewed sense of conscience in the organisation. They want to be able to feel good about what they are doing, and they want to be able to sleep at night. They are the pioneers; they are also pathfinders in the field of ethics.”
Investor In People
People are, quite simply, proud to work for a company known for high ethical standards, vision and values — a company that invests in people. You.
The practice is advantageous to discover, promote, and nurture one’s corporate conscience.
To look at things differently. As one noted ethics specialist explained: “This much can be taught — a rational argument why some types of behaviours are correct, why some are not. You can show that it is unsatisfactory to steal. You can sensitise people to think through the behaviour and the consequences, but you can’t teach people not to steal. Ethics training does not provide any predictability that a person will behave in a certain manner when faced with a certain situation.”
The fact is — ethics and values training provides us hope. The hope for a better future — with a set of values, and behaviours, to emerge, and play a useful and significant role at the workplace and beyond.
Promoting Ethics
The best way to promote ethical values is by way of ideas that stimulate discussion, focus on problems of mistrust, their identification and solution. This should be based on the process of personal exploration and growth, and not through advocacy alone.
This does not, however, mean that you’d underestimate the caring of your people. In addition, you should not push employees into ethical behaviour.
They want to be decent people, doing the right things. As goes an old proverb — in each one of us there is a ‘king’ and, also a ‘queen.’ Speak to them and they will come forth.
This is it. And, practice, as you know, makes things perfect.
So, practice good ethics, values and behaviour, each day of your life. You will sure make the big difference — not just for yourself, and your company, but also to people around you.
