Ethics in the Workplace

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Ethics in the Workplace

• Rick Milter
• Institute for Applied and Professional
  EthicsOhio University

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Ethics Compliance vs. Commitment

• Motivation comes not from compliance but from
  commitment.
• Commitment, like motivation, comes from within.
• Skillful leadership and informed employment
  practices can establish a climate to nurture such
  commitment.

Wanda Lee, international Journal of Coaching in
Organizations, 2004
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Practices that Build Culture

• Selecting the right people
• Orienting them to your organization strategy and
  culture
• Developing business literacy that integrates the
  ethics perspective
• Organizational communication
• Situational leadership
• Performance management
• Training and development
• Reward systems

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Right v. Right

• It is right to honor a woman's right to make
  decisions affecting her body--and right to
  protect the lives of the unborn.
• It is right to provide our children with the
  finest public schools available--and right to
  prevent the constant upward ratcheting of state
  and local taxes.
• It is right to extend equal social services to
  everyone regardless of race or ethnic origin--and
  right to pay special attention to those whose
  cultural backgrounds may have deprived them of
  past opportunities.

How Good People Make Tough Choices Resolving the
Dilemmas of Ethical Living by Rushworth M.
Kidder
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Right v. Right

• Truth v. Loyalty
• Individual v. Community
• Short-term v. Long-term
• Justice v. Mercy

How Good People Make Tough Choices Resolving the
Dilemmas of Ethical Living by Rushworth M.
Kidder
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Principles for Decision Making

• Ends-based Thinking
• Greatest good for greatest number
• Rule-based Thinking
• Everyone should act this way
• Care-based Thinking
• Do unto others as you would like them to do unto
  you

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Case 1

• At a university hospital, the head chaplain was
  searching for an assistant chaplain. The
  assistant would share the patient visitation
  responsibilities and teach in the Pastoral Care
  Certificate Program. The search committee found
  that by far the best candidate in the pool was
  Smith. Smith was bright, empathetic, and a fine
  teacher. He had an abundance of all the
  qualities needed. Unfortunately, Smiths girth
  also exhibited abundance. He was very fat and
  did wheeze when walking any distance. For this
  reason, the head chaplain refused to further
  consider him.

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Case 1 Follow-up

• About three years ago, the chaplain lost about
  40 pounds, which he has kept off through diet and
  exercise and he is very proud of this
  accomplishment. He admits that he used to feel
  uncomfortable when visiting patients who were
  cachectic due to their disease.

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Case 2

• At a well known university, the administration
  was putting forward some new rules -- rules which
  seemed as though they might have a negative
  effect on some graduate students. A graduate
  student, Matilda, wrote a letter to the editor of
  the local newspaper decrying the new rules. The
  day after the letter appeared, Matildas husband,
  who worked in the office of one of the
  administrators, was called on the carpet and told
  that the letter was offensive and that Matilda
  had shown poor judgment in writing it.

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Case 2 Follow-up

• Matilda and her husband filed a grievance
  claiming that the administrator was trying to
  intimidate Matilda and her husband. At the same
  time, they claimed, the administrator had created
  a hostile workplace. In her defense, the
  administrator said, "I was not part of the group
  that put forward the rules in question. In fact,
  my office has nothing to do with it at all. So, I
  was not being personally defensive. I just
  wanted to point out that it was never a good
  thing to go public with anything but good news
  about the university."

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Case 3

• Tension in the office is a good thing. So is
  competition. That is my office management
  philosophy. In my office, I try to set one
  person against the other. I do this, not because
  I am a malicious person, but rather because I
  think competition insures productivity. This
  means that I try to keep my people at a personal
  distance from each other because I dont want
  them to like each other, since this interferes
  with creating tension.

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Case 3 Follow-up

• This office manager gets high evaluations
  because he is so good at implementing his
  philosophy that no one person realized what has
  been going on. Each thinks "I am the only true
  favorite of the boss." But when Smith, Jones,
  and Robinson finally decide to speak to each
  other, they realize what has been going on. They
  complain to their boss' boss. She says "But look
  at your office's productivity and look at your
  individual merit raises they are much higher
  than average compared to all other units."

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Case 4

• Jones is a brilliant and very hard worker but a
  bit on the testy side. He does not suffer fools
  gladly. At raise time, he finds his raise below
  that of others. He complains and is told that he
  is just not a good team player people find that
  he makes the workplace unpleasant.

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Case 4 Follow-up

• Jones challenges his lower than average merit
  raise claiming that "being a team player" is not
  mentioned anywhere in his job description or in
  the goals, objectives, or mission statement of
  the office.

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Guidelines for Managing Ethics in the Workplace

• Recognize that managing ethics is a process.
• The bottom line of an ethics program is
  accomplishing preferred behaviors in the
  workplace.
• The best way to handle ethical dilemmas is to
  avoid their occurrence in the first place.

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Guidelines for Managing Ethics in the Workplace

• Make ethics decisions in groups, and make
  decisions public, as appropriate.
• Integrate ethics management with other management
  practices.
• Use cross-functional teams when developing and
  implementing the ethics management program.

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Guidelines for Managing Ethics in the Workplace

• Value forgiveness.
• Note that trying to operate ethically and making
  a few mistakes is better than not trying at all.
• From Complete Guide to Ethics Management An
  Ethics Toolkit for Managers -- Carter McNamara
• http//www.managementhelp.org/ethics/ethxgde.htm

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Future Focus for Ethical Leaders

• The dogmas of the quiet past will not work in the
  turbulent future. As our cause is new, so must
  we think and act anew.-- Abraham Lincoln 1860
• I dont skate to where the puck is, I skate to
  where the puck is going to be. Wayne Gretsky
  1988
• Why dont they change the speed limits? --
  Sybren Gijselaers 2002

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For more information contact

• Kathleen Evans-Romaine (ethics_at_ohio.edu)
• ohio.edu/ethics
• office 740 593 9802