It has been an interesting week producing two different events that made me stop and examine the state of our business organizations. The first event was the publication of an opinion piece by a professor from Columbia University who expressed the view that the standard practice of mandating that all MBA students take a stand alone ethics course was a waste of time for both the students and the professors. Instead ethics needs to weave through every course. The second event is the unfolding drama surrounding the underhanded methods that were used to acquire the "facts" for news items by an over eager News World Corporation.
As if to enhance the questions rising out of these two events, I was driving back to the office from completing some errands when I happened to drive by a local church. In front of the church was a sign which announced that the title of Sunday's sermon was "The Ability to lie is a liability."
In this global marketplace we are confronted with organizations trying to compete with the rest of the world for delivery of their products and services. The corporate culture will dictate how and when the organization delivers its message to the market. The problem is that we can take two different paths. One will send the message that we are sincere in the promises we make or the other message says we will promise the world but deliver way short on delivery.
Take a moment and think back through your work career. I guarantee that we have all been involved at one time or another where we have been exposed to the kid of situations we are discussing. As an example let me tell you about a situation I found myself in decades ago but is still relevant today.
Family friends were predominantly C-level officers of major business organizations. I was at the time the VP of an executive recruiting firm ad had been given the authority to talk with one of the C-Level officers about working with the staff that was not being promoted to partner but rather released.The stipulation was that the recruiting firm would not steal staff away from the clients place of work. We agreed and wet back to the office and held a firm wide meeting where we stated the terms of the agreement. Within 30 minutes one of the recruiters did exactly what we said we would not do. When I approached the Division President about the situation, the response was that if I had any business ethics I did not belong working for the firm. What kind of message were we delivering to the market?
Human resources is the guardian of the corporate culture. We are the ones that can impress on management and rank and file that we understand the pressures on the corporation to be successful but the pressures do not permit making statements that are inherently false just to get the sale. We do not permit making decisions for the organization which are ethically, morally and legally indefensible. We are the ones that need to show the organization that there are liabilities from taking actions that are plain wrong.
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