Corporations Need An Ethics Transformation — Introduction
Business can’t do well AND do good without better behavior: Here’s how.
In 1990, I was asked by senior executives to falsify monthly sales performance data. Do what you had to do now to meet objectives, no exceptions; clean it up after the reporting deadline. This was the first episode in my professional life I had ever been requested to lie. New to the company and industry, I did what I was told. Of course, I knew it was wrong, yet rationalized the request and my obligatory response, an abject breach of corporate ethics, because no one would get hurt. I lost little sleep. And fudged the numbers for the next twelve months.
That was the start. Coincidentally that same year, my accountant offered a borderline-illegal way to avoid paying nearly 12 percent less on my Federal tax return. “Is there a greater or less than 50% chance I’ll get audited if I do this?” I asked. “No way you’ll get audited, less than 50% by a long-shot.” Done. Another crack in my ethical core.
Three years later a girl I was dating broke up with me while calling from her new boyfriend’s house. Shocked that she even admitted this, I felt betrayed for sure. But it was the raw wrong-ness that affected me deeply, not so much of what she did but how she did it. Was I a better person than her? Would I ever do anything so hurtful to someone? Nope. Yep. Two years later I had not one but three one-night stands and never called either girl afterwards. Yes, I used protection.
Introduction
I’ve done unethical things throughout my life, as have most of us. No felonies. I don’t belong in jail. Nor have I irreparably hurt anyone, to the extent I’m aware. But from time to time I do cut corners, treat people badly, or cross some other ethical boundary that, had I actually had an ethical compass, would probably re-think and not do.
So why am I revealing these embarrassing and distressing episodes of ethical collapse; is this a mid-life crisis confessional? It isn’t.
I’ve had enough. Not just with my own bad behavior. This post is a manifesto of sorts, a call-to-action not just for me but for something much larger. I’ve had enough of our win-at-all-costs, Darwinian ends-justify-the-means way of life, and the inhuman and inhumane outcomes these philosophies create.
I’ve had enough of the companies I work for and with not being held accountable for bad behavior. I’ve had enough of witnessing, nearly every day, the complete abdication of moral responsibility in corporate America. I’ve had enough of business leaders not being held accountable for their actions. I’ve had enough of the profit-at-all-costs mentality that drives otherwise good people to do bad things…and in many cases, get rewarded for it.
And I’m frustrated at listening to corporate leaders confess that the values they say their organizations live by are, in reality, completely disconnected from how they actually do business.
I’ve had enough. My hope is that you feel the same way. There has to be, and is, a better way. Before figuring that out, we have to first take a hard look at the scope of the problem.
Modern Business Is Overwhelmed
The post-WWII global economic order is reeling under gargantuan, potentially existential waves that no single country, political system, social policy, economic regime, or business initiative can solve alone — 1. climate change, and the requisite need to move on from fossil fuels; 2. increasing wealth inequality, its concomitant strain on natural resources, and the inability of legacy economic, cultural, and political institutions to humanely reduce the disparity between haves- and have-nots; 3. rapidly advancing technological progress (e.g., AI) and the dearth of political and economic policy coordination required to harness opportunities for good or prevent misuse and abuse for bad.
The systems we require for sustaining our lives increasingly rely upon algorithms to function. Governance, energy grids, food distribution, supply chains, healthcare, fuel, global banking, and much else are becoming increasingly automated in ways that impact all of us. Yet, the people who are developing the automation, machine learning, and the data collection and analysis that currently drive much of this automation do not represent all of us, and are not considering all of our needs equally. In the process, there is a risk that we will become further dependent on systems that don’t represent us. Furthermore, there is an increasing likelihood that we must forfeit our agency in order for these complex automated systems to function. This could leave most of us serving the needs of these algorithms, rather than the other way around. We are in deep.
Most of us do not have an equal voice or representation in this new world order. Leading the way instead are scientists and engineers who don’t seem to understand how to represent how we live as individuals or in groups — the main ways we live, work, cooperate, and exist together — nor how to incorporate into their models our ethnic, cultural, gender, age, geographic or economic diversity, either. The result is that AI will benefit some of us far more than others, depending upon who we are, our gender and ethnic identities, how much income or power we have, where we are in the world, and what we want to do.
Here’s a fascinating visualization of suspect AI activity and actual breaches just in 2018 alone:
Look closely at the way business is done historically––how companies and organizations have behaved–– and it’s easy to conclude that today corporate America has an ethics problem that is more dangerous than competition from China, cybercrime, rising debt to equity ratios, or the downfall of Western political and economic trade regimes:
The problem is buried in the DNA of every organization, inside their people, processes, culture, and strategies at every level — it’s the inability to behave consistently well. As the shift to doing well AND doing good becomes more prevalent, consumers are increasingly turning their backs on bad and rewarding good behavior. Organizations that disregard these shifts do so at their peril; the call-to-action is for every employee and stakeholder to adhere to a higher standard of behavioral ethics. Figuring out how requires a transformational approach and roadmap.
This Introduction puts it on the table––change behavior or risk the organization’s survival in a new world where it’s impossible to hide from bad behavior and people have less and less tolerance for it. This series is designed to help business leaders see a path to better behavior and true purpose. In Parts I, II, and III that follow, I lay out the elements of an Ethics Transformation roadmap, including a series of models organizations can leverage to move faster and in a collaborative––and right way––to doing better while doing well.
Part I–– Current Ethics Landscape
This post reviews the core problems surrounding corporate ethics and briefly outlines what the world looks like today
Part II––A Better Way Forward
This post outlines and explains the emerging shifts in today’s business landscape that point to an entirely new one that can only be achieved with an Ethics Transformation
Part III — ETS: The “How” Roadmap
This post introduces the 5-Steps + Models contained in the Ethics Transformation System (ETS): how it works and the outcomes––value–– it can bring to your organization. Subsequent posts will flesh out how each of the ETS Models work in detail and will illustrate their specific use cases, outcomes, and value propositions. Here’s a snapshot to get you started:
Here, again, are the posts in the Ethics Transformation series:
Part I — Current Ethics Landscape
