“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.”
Albert Einstein
Today we will be presented with numerous opportunities to speak or to remain silent.
Each opportunity will either build trust or destroy it. Being truthful, and true to yourself, is a sure way to build trust.
How would you know, you might ask?
Think of a time you were lied to.
If one of your mechanics walks into your motorcycle repair shop one day and says “What I’d really like to be doing when I work here is play the violin for the other mechanics while they work”, you don’t have to accommodate that.
But if one of your employees says that they want to be treated with dignity and respect as a human being while they work, you can’t say “Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just not part of our culture here.”
The parent who has forgotten what it’s like to be a child doesn’t understand why her kid won’t keep his room clean.
The coach who cares only about winning is frustrated by the athlete whose goal is simply to keep in shape.
The boss who doesn’t believe in friendships at work is surprised at how few people apply when he has an opening.
“Problems are not divorced from the way we think about them.”
Derek and Laura Cabrera, in Systems Thinking Made Simple
Never try to solve a problem assuming it has nothing to do with you.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Dave Ramsey, the personal finance guru.
The foundation of Dave’s advice is simple: before you invest in or spend on anything, you must be debt-free and have an emergency fund large enough to cover 3 to 6 months of living expenses. Anyone who followed this advice before the crises of 2001, 2008 or 2020 found themselves on much better footing, at least financially.
This advice is also valid for businesses. Think of a business that was recently forced to close for several months because of the pandemic, and imagine that it was debt-free and could cover payroll and other expenses for 6 months. Can you see the financial benefits for both the owner and the employees? Now imagine an entire country where small businesses are set up this way.
We readily see the moral obligation of a parent to protect the household from financial ruin. It’s time we conceive of a similar ethical obligation for employers.
We all heard the story of the 1960’s NASA janitor who saw his job as helping mankind land on the moon.
The story is intended to show that any menial job can be elevated if part of a greater enterprise, that we can find meaning in purpose.
But even a goal like landing on the moon is meaningless if not tied to a greater purpose. Going to the moon was then seen as a way to understand our origins and secure our future. I don’t know about you, but if I had to sweep floors to further that vision, I would, and I would do it well.
So the question is: what vision is your organization offering today? Is it compelling enough to create ambitious goals? Can it rally your teams around focused projects? Can every employee find meaning in the unique tasks they are asked to perform?
And above all this, are you making the world a better place?
We often have a single story of a person, a group, a community, a nation.
And there is danger in that.
Never accept a single story.
There is no such thing.
Making ethical decisions can be difficult.
The difficulty increases when you are facing a real decision.
So practice making these decisions when you don’t really have to make them. Pretend that the cashier gave you change for $20 when you handed him a $10 bill. Pretend that you overheard your aunt make a racist joke at the family gathering. Pretend that your boss turns a blind eye to your colleague’s expense fraud because your colleague is the top salesperson.
These or similar situations will happen to you. Practice them in your head. Decide now what action you will take. Note that I am not asking you to decide what the right thing to do is. You already know what to do (return the extra change, tell your aunt that her joke is inappropriate, report the fraud). The real difficulty is in deciding how to do it. It’s difficult even when it’s not for real.
So practice for the real game.
I’ll never forget a discovery I made during an international trip early in my career as an Ethics & Compliance Officer.
I was traveling with the Corporate Vice President of Global Ethics & Compliance and a few other senior leaders from our US headquarters. We were touring Asia to conduct program reviews and provide training. During a presentation, our VP referred to our company’s CEO by his first name, George, several times. Later on, a junior manager timidly approached me to ask who that “George” was. When I told him George’s last name, he still had no clue who the CEO was.
E&C teams in large organizations need to keep this in mind when creating the all-important “tone at the top”. For many employees, the top is their boss’ boss. Or perhaps their country manager. But rarely is it the Regional President or the Business Unit President, let alone the CEO. These people mean nothing to them.
I’ll grant you that things are changing with the increased use of video messages from senior leaders that are delivered to employees’ mobile devices, a trend accelerated by the current pandemic. Nevertheless, the importance of middle management being visible and vocal on the importance of E&C remains today.
What specific tools are you providing them?
More than a million people in the Rakhine state of Myanmar are unaware of the coronavirus pandemic because of an internet shutdown. To make things worse, 100,000 of them are tightly packed in camps.
Withholding information can put lives at risk. In the case of Myanmar, it is a deliberate attack by a Buddhist majority against a Muslim minority. In other non-nefarious cases, even an unintentional lack of information is likely to lead, at the very least, to poor decisions.
Are there parts of your organization that are at risk because of a lack of information? Are you being as transparent as you can? Do your direct reports, peers and bosses know everything that you know? Do you have a column in your company’s newsletter? Do you post on Slack or Teams or Yammer? Do you speak at all-hands meetings? Do you encourage your colleagues to connect with you if they have questions?
If you don’t do some of these things, make sure you ask yourself this question the next time something goes wrong: Is there something I knew that, if properly shared, could have prevented this?
We all know that treating our colleagues with respect is an essential element of a good corporate culture.
But we often forget that showing respect to the communities where we work can also send a strong message to our employees about what we truly value.
In his latest post on Forbes, Bill Higgs tells us how his company gives back to the community. An interesting practice is the “adoption” of a junior high school student every two years. Employees not only mentor the student academically through graduation, but also the student’s family by helping parents find better jobs.
This is a great framework: help yourself by helping others.
And finding ways to help others is not difficult right now.
The Ethical Leader 