Why good people do bad things: Temptations, ethical risks and resulting flags

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Why good people do bad things Temptations,
ethical risks and resulting flags

• Prof. Mollie Painter-Morland
• Acting Director Institute for Business an
  Professional Ethics, Chicago, USA
• Associate Director Center for Business and
  Professional Ethics, University of Pretoria,
  South Africa

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Outline

• Risk from an ethical perspective
• The roots of ethics failures
• Organisational ethical risk
• Focus on organisational culture as major area of
  risk
• Red flags

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Ethics

• Balancing

THE GOOD
OTHERS
ME
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Where does it go wrong?

• Ethical risk entails
• Loss of self Agency questions
• Loss of concern for others
• Faulty perceptions of the good

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Loss of self Agency questions

• Who am I? What informed who I am and what I
  believe?
• Where am I? Role conflicts, time pressures,
  authority of others
• Those aspects that influence me most are those I
  am not aware of

Life in organisations has a profound influence
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Loss of concern for others

• Rationalizations of self-interest/ egoism
• Kla-pot/ complaint-syndrome
• Paralysis I cant make a difference
• Passing the buck
• Minimalist rule-obedience/ Lack of moral
  imagination

Life in organisations has a profound influence
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Faulty conceptions of the good

• The Good based on values
• Values enduring beliefs about preferable states
  of existence
• Values what we consider valuable, worthy of
  pursuit

Life in organisations has a profound influence
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Organisational ethical risk
Institutional factors
General organisational culture
Individual factors
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Monitoring ethical risks
Document assessment Analyses of control
environment HR policies
Institutional factors
Surveys Focus groups Document assessment
Individual factors
General organisational culture
Vetting Integrity testing Whistle-blowing
reports Personnel files
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Rotten apples? Or rotten barrels?

• Individuals
• Psychometric tests to determine white-collar
  criminal traits
• Greed
• Ambition
• Need
• Sudden life-style changes

• Institutional factors
• Mixed messages about acceptable behavior
• Performance management systems
• Double standards
• Arbitrary decisions
• Gaps in policy environments
• Red-tape

Culture
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What is organisational culture?

• Organisational culture the shared values of the
  organisation
• Its accepted system of meaning or assumptions
• How we think, feel, perceive in an organisation

• Organisational climate The visible expression of
  the organisational culture

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Organisational culture

• Culture the way we do things around here , i.e.
  how we perceive, think, feel
• How we do things based on our beliefs about is
  valuable, i.e. our shared values
• Values creates a shared sense of what is
  meaningful, important, necessary
• Compliance safeguards certain values, but cant
  contain what remains unspoken
• BUT, in most cases, much what we believe goes
  unsaid and unwritten

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Typical climate assessments and its problems

• Surveys/ climate studies
• Information may be function-specific
• Compliance checklists
• Focus groups

• Survey fatigue
• Problem of job-specific jargon and tools
• Difficult to measure perceptions
• Expensive and time-consuming

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Elements of culture

• Values beliefs about what is valuable
• Practices types of social interaction,
  ceremonies
• Artefacts things that are valued

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Challenges we face

• Tacit knowledge hard to measure
• Observation of behaviour necessary
• Physical environment equally important

• Values
• Practices
• Artifacts

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New ideasSeeing the problem

• HOW?
• Narrative assessments
• Jokes Many a true word spoken in jest
• What do we spend money on?
• What do we reward and how?
• Who are our heroes?
• How do we do things around here?

• WHAT
• Culture shared values
• Values what we care about, what is valuable
  both physical and symbolic objects
• Virtues values that became behavioral habits

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Categories of red flags

• People
• Financial pressures
• Life-style changes
• Strange work behavior
• Processes
• Sketchy documentation
• Trying to rush decisions or cut corners
• Rationalizations of the way we do things around
  here

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What does cultural analysis add?

• People
• Jokes reveal peoples fears and anxiety
• Values artifacts may reveal life-style changes
• Who are the heroes of the department?

• Processes
• A culture of cutting corners becomes apparent
• Rationalizations of the way we do things around
  here reveal risk areas

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Implications

• Go beyond compliance check-lists
• LISTEN to what is SAID From water cooler
  conversation, memos, to strategy discussions
• LOOK at what is DONE Do budgets, staff
  remuneration, and the physical environment
  reflect what the organisation cares about?
• REFLECT Think about which stories should be
  repeated as the way we do things around here

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Opportunities

• Take the risk of interpreting, guessing,
  anticipating gt even disagreement is valuable
• Tap into what people really care about Getting
  everyone to ask the WHY? question more why are
  we doing this, why is it important?
• Work across various functional areas leverage
  the cross-functional information to get funds and
  capacity

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In conclusion

• To read/ see/ hear ethical risk is hard
  work
• Skills in listening, observing, analyzing tacit
  messages and finding ways to measure it would be
  important
• Focus on organisational culture becomes an
  opportunity to redefine professional ethics
• LONG LIVE LIVING VALUES!

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Questions or comments?

• If something comes up later
• mpainter_at_depaul.edu