Barron Group

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Caesars Wife Tipping the Delicate Balance of
Leadership and Ethics June 9, 2006 The Maryland
Government Finance Officers Association Greg
Conderacci Good Ground Consulting LLC


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Proposed Objectives

• Discuss the difficult ethical dilemmas leaders
  face, especially those in government service
• Pick up a few ideas that you might put to good
  use before
• The call comes from the bosss office
• It gets in the newspapers
• They call for a thorough investigation
• The files are impounded
• The grand jury is convened
• Have fun!

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Groundrules

• One conversation at a time
• All participate, no one dominates
• Turn off cell phones, crackberries
• B is OK
• Yesand
• Stay on track and on time

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Trust MeThis Wont HurtMuch
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Leadership, Ethics Perspective
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What Do You See?
A stitch in in time saves nine
To be or or not to be that that is the question
Keep your eye everlastingly on on the ball
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Too Lofty a Standard?
Caesars wife must be above suspicion.
-- Julius Caesar, upon divorcing his spouse,
Pompeia Sulla
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Ethics A Working Definition

• In the context of our discussion . . .
• Ethics will refer to standards of conduct or
  principles arising from core values which
  indicate how we ought to act or decide.

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Ethical vs. Legal
Ethical Acts
Not Ethical Not Legal
Legal Acts
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Ethics 101 The Spectrum
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Ethics 101Compliance, Ethics Integrity
Compliance
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Win All You Can!
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The Implementation Payoff Matrix
TITFORTAT!
Eugene Delacroix - Prisoner of Chillon
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Johns Beautiful Mind
If there is a set of strategies for a game with
the property that no player can benefit by
changing his strategy while the other players
keep their strategies unchanged, then that set of
strategies and the corresponding payoffs
constitute a Nash equilibrium.
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A Matter of Trust- Francis Fukuyama

• As Adam Smith well understood, economic life
  is deeply imbedded in social life, and it cannot
  be understood apart from the customs, morals, and
  habits of the society in which it occurs. In
  short, it cannot be divorced from culture.
• (emphasis added) Trust p. 13
• . . . One of the most important lessons we
  can learn . . . is that a nations well-being, as
  well as its ability to compete, is conditioned on
  a single pervasive cultural characteristic the
  level of trust inherent in the society.
• (emphasis added) Trust p. 7

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Trust A Working Definition

• Trust is one partys willingness to be vulnerable
  to another party based on the confidence that the
  other party is (a) benevolent, (b) honest, (c)
  open, (d) reliable, and (e) competent.
• -- Moran Hoy (2001)

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Vulnerability

• Trust matters most in situations of
  interdependence, in which the interest of one
  party cannot be achieved without reliance upon
  another.

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Benevolence

• We lay the groundwork for trust when we have
  another persons best interests at heart. People
  trust us when they believe that we care about
  their well-being and will not harm their
  interests.

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Honesty

• This is probably the most common and fundamental
  of understandings when it comes to trust. We
  trust people who tell the truth.

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Openness

• Many people miss this facet of trust, but its a
  critical ingredient. We trust people who share
  appropriate levels of information, influence, and
  control.

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Reliability

• Its not enough to be trustworthy some of the
  time. We trust people who consistently talk the
  talk and walk the walk.

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Competence

• This is an integral part of what it takes to
  build trust. If we dont have the knowledge,
  skills, network, energy, and strength to do what
  the job requires, no one is going to believe we
  can be successful.

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A Few Simple Cases

• What are the actual and potential ethical issues?
  
• What is the right thing to do?
• What is your responsibility?
• What will you do?
• What will you do if that doesnt work?

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What is Leadership?

• Google
• Leadership 22.4 million results
• Leadership George Bush 1.2 million

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Leadership

• What is the relationship between ethics
  leadership?
• What should firms, business, and the government
  do differently in this age of accountability?

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Leaders Are Different

Source Deep Change
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Repairing Trust

• How would you repair trust that had somehow been
  breeched?

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How to Rebuild Trust That Has Been Lost?  
R-E-P-A-I-R!

• Recognize the intensity of the loss of trust its
  depth, its breadth
• Examine where the breach occurred, and where the
  damage was done  personal trust elements and/or
  organizational trust elements
• Place it (the truth) out there - Fast! 
• Acknowledge its impact on the individual, the
  group, and/or the organization at large
• Identify as precisely as possible what youll be
  doing in an attempt to rebuild trust
• Raise the bar of performance over deliver on
  your attempt to rebuild.

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Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

• Bowdoin College professor of rhetoric
• Wounded six times six horses shot out from
  under him
• In charge of the surrender at Appomattox
• Winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor
• Governor of Maine (4x)
• President of Bowdoin
• Died of his Civil War wounds 50 years later

1828 - 1914
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Little Round Top July 2, 1863
Col. Strong Vincent Hold that ground at all
hazards.
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Bayonet! Charge!
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Some Final Thoughts

• It is no longer business as usual.
• The focus on ethics, integrity independence
  must be rigorous, objective, comprehensive
  continuous.
• Hubris is dangerous - no organization is as good
  or indispensable as they think.
• What happened at Enron Andersen is not unique.
  What happened to them can happen to anyone of us
  -- or our organization

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Thank you!
Greg Conderacci Good Ground Consulting LLC A
provider to the Business Learning
Institute gc_at_goodgroundconsulting.com For more
courses like this one, please contact BLI at
888-481-3500 or www.bizlearning.net