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Company ethics are reflected in the choices you make on a daily basis
True
False
Right !
While a company’s strategy displays its business ethics to the outside world, ethical behavior depends on the everyday actions of its members. Even though companies are essentially without morals, they are the places where leaders commit to respecting organizational values to create value and achieve business success. Business managers and leaders have considerable ethical responsibilities, due to both the direct impact of their decisions and their influence on the rest of staff.
Wrong !
While a company’s strategy displays its business ethics to the outside world, ethical behavior depends on the everyday actions of its members. Even though companies are essentially without morals, they are the places where leaders commit to respecting organizational values to create value and achieve business success. Business managers and leaders have considerable ethical responsibilities, due to both the direct impact of their decisions and their influence on the rest of staff.
An ethics program is necessary.
True
False
Right !
True! Companies are creating codes of conduct, ethics management programs and ethics offices at an unprecedented rate. “The assumption is that teaching ethics builds integrity, encourages responsible behavior, and generally puts moral considerations on the business agenda.” However, in their current form, even if they are absolutely necessary, these initiatives are virtually useless, as illustrated by the various studies conducted by Joseph Badaracco, Harvard ethics professor. “Corporate ethics programs, codes of conduct, mission statements, hot lines, and the like provided little help ... managers resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on the basis of personal reflection and individual values ... ” Does this mean that ethics programs should be abandoned? No, responds Badaracco. They are absolutely necessary to avoid chaos and bad decisions; instead of simple abandonment, understanding the organizational traps should be the basis of ethics education.
Wrong !
True! Companies are creating codes of conduct, ethics management programs and ethics offices at an unprecedented rate. “The assumption is that teaching ethics builds integrity, encourages responsible behavior, and generally puts moral considerations on the business agenda.” However, in their current form, even if they are absolutely necessary, these initiatives are virtually useless, as illustrated by the various studies conducted by Joseph Badaracco, Harvard ethics professor. “Corporate ethics programs, codes of conduct, mission statements, hot lines, and the like provided little help ... managers resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on the basis of personal reflection and individual values ... ” Does this mean that ethics programs should be abandoned? No, responds Badaracco. They are absolutely necessary to avoid chaos and bad decisions; instead of simple abandonment, understanding the organizational traps should be the basis of ethics education.
Disregard for the consequences of a long-term decision is a cause of non-ethical behaviors
True
False
Right !
Wrong, this is a confounding of symptom and cause. Ethics programs typically describe unethical behavior as a result of poor intentions, deficient empathy, disregard of long-term consequences, unclear thinking, or inadequate values. These are not, in effect, the root cause of unethical behavior, but symptoms of deeper problems. The main traps that cause people to act unethically are predominately external stimuli. Many of these situational traps incite powerful emotions such as anxiety, shame, sadness, and helplessness that, in turn, provoke further unethical behavior.
Wrong !
Wrong, this is a confounding of symptom and cause. Ethics programs typically describe unethical behavior as a result of poor intentions, deficient empathy, disregard of long-term consequences, unclear thinking, or inadequate values. These are not, in effect, the root cause of unethical behavior, but symptoms of deeper problems. The main traps that cause people to act unethically are predominately external stimuli. Many of these situational traps incite powerful emotions such as anxiety, shame, sadness, and helplessness that, in turn, provoke further unethical behavior.
You should be able to make decisions whose consequences are difficult to measure.
True
False
Right !
When it comes to decision making, you must banish pride, which is the worst of all advisors. It makes you act out of fear of revealing a weakness to others or causes you to make choices that will bring you prestige. With this in mind, beware of the following type of assertion: “The consequences of this decision are hard to foresee, but it is nevertheless worthwhile for the corporate image.” Beware of prestige-based goals.
Wrong !
When it comes to decision making, you must banish pride, which is the worst of all advisors. It makes you act out of fear of revealing a weakness to others or causes you to make choices that will bring you prestige. With this in mind, beware of the following type of assertion: “The consequences of this decision are hard to foresee, but it is nevertheless worthwhile for the corporate image.” Beware of prestige-based goals.
Believing in people’s “natural” tendencies makes for better decisions.
True
False
Right !
Making choices means allowing your will to emerge by putting yourself in a situation where you will be able to do what you have decided to do. Believing that people have “natural” tendencies implies that people are subject to causality and determinism and are therefore incapable of truly making choices. To decide is to choose to return to the light of collective shared values. Authors Laura Nash (Ethics Without the Sermon) and Stephen Henn (Business Ethics) have pinpointed a number of recurrent traits displayed by people who are able to do this; they include openness to their environment, a consistent concern for performance, and an ability to prioritize ethical issues.
Never say, “it’s natural”, so that nothing is thought to be unchangeable. Brecht
Never say, “it’s natural”, so that nothing is thought to be unchangeable. Brecht
Wrong !
Making choices means allowing your will to emerge by putting yourself in a situation where you will be able to do what you have decided to do. Believing that people have “natural” tendencies implies that people are subject to causality and determinism and are therefore incapable of truly making choices. To decide is to choose to return to the light of collective shared values. Authors Laura Nash (Ethics Without the Sermon) and Stephen Henn (Business Ethics) have pinpointed a number of recurrent traits displayed by people who are able to do this; they include openness to their environment, a consistent concern for performance, and an ability to prioritize ethical issues.
Never say, “it’s natural”, so that nothing is thought to be unchangeable. Brecht
Never say, “it’s natural”, so that nothing is thought to be unchangeable. Brecht
Good decision-making calls on moral more than logical thinking.
True
False
Right !
To become a manager capable of making genuine choices, call upon your sense of morals more than on logical or scientific thinking. Because science postulates that all effects have causes, so it is fundamentally deterministic. An overly scientific thinker would say that the decisions we make are effects, so they consequently must have causes that have determined them (and that escape our control). A moral thinker bases responsibility on free will.
The greatest of all undertakings is that of choosing a side. Vauvenargues
Source: Manager en toutes lettres by François Aélion (Eyrolles, 1995).
The greatest of all undertakings is that of choosing a side. Vauvenargues
Source: Manager en toutes lettres by François Aélion (Eyrolles, 1995).
Wrong !
To become a manager capable of making genuine choices, call upon your sense of morals more than on logical or scientific thinking. Because science postulates that all effects have causes, so it is fundamentally deterministic. An overly scientific thinker would say that the decisions we make are effects, so they consequently must have causes that have determined them (and that escape our control). A moral thinker bases responsibility on free will.
The greatest of all undertakings is that of choosing a side. Vauvenargues
Source: Manager en toutes lettres by François Aélion (Eyrolles, 1995).
The greatest of all undertakings is that of choosing a side. Vauvenargues
Source: Manager en toutes lettres by François Aélion (Eyrolles, 1995).
Deciding means discriminating.
True
False
Right !
Ethical leaders do not implement responsible practices only because they have to, but because they believe they contribute to business performance. Above and beyond their awareness that ethical behavior helps build a good reputation and attract investors and customers, such leaders know that it also has a significant impact on employee performance. To be efficient, choose that which will satisfy you most easily or will bring you the most with the least investment. Indeed, that is the definition of efficiency, the science of maximum effects. Its opposite, inefficiency, appears in the perfectionism of the person who, wanting to succeed in everything, never wants to set priorities. Choosing is thus tantamount to accepting imperfection, and it is often a matter of retaining the least undesirable solution. But doing so takes discernment and even discrimination. And if reasoning is not enough to generate success, be sure to call upon your more intuitive or instinctive side.
Source: Manager en toutes lettres by François Aélion (Eyrolles, 1995).
Source: Manager en toutes lettres by François Aélion (Eyrolles, 1995).
Wrong !
Ethical leaders do not implement responsible practices only because they have to, but because they believe they contribute to business performance. Above and beyond their awareness that ethical behavior helps build a good reputation and attract investors and customers, such leaders know that it also has a significant impact on employee performance. To be efficient, choose that which will satisfy you most easily or will bring you the most with the least investment. Indeed, that is the definition of efficiency, the science of maximum effects. Its opposite, inefficiency, appears in the perfectionism of the person who, wanting to succeed in everything, never wants to set priorities. Choosing is thus tantamount to accepting imperfection, and it is often a matter of retaining the least undesirable solution. But doing so takes discernment and even discrimination. And if reasoning is not enough to generate success, be sure to call upon your more intuitive or instinctive side.
Source: Manager en toutes lettres by François Aélion (Eyrolles, 1995).
Source: Manager en toutes lettres by François Aélion (Eyrolles, 1995).
The smallest decisions often count the most.
True
False
Right !
author, Laura Nash, advises formally analyzing your choices and their consequences: “Leaders need a formal, easily comprehensible, and realistic process for evaluating the ethics of their choices.” The smallest things often count the most. According to Heather Loisel, VP of global marketing operations at SAP, ethics are not reflected in major strategic positions but rather in everyday choices and actions. Change schemes or strategy updates offer leaders many occasions to convey their sense of responsibility and show that ethical behavior is not tantamount to a lack of concern for quarterly results or an excessive focus on well-being. It is a matter of remaining faithful to a few core values, such as impartiality, rationality, consistency or equity.
Wrong !
author, Laura Nash, advises formally analyzing your choices and their consequences: “Leaders need a formal, easily comprehensible, and realistic process for evaluating the ethics of their choices.” The smallest things often count the most. According to Heather Loisel, VP of global marketing operations at SAP, ethics are not reflected in major strategic positions but rather in everyday choices and actions. Change schemes or strategy updates offer leaders many occasions to convey their sense of responsibility and show that ethical behavior is not tantamount to a lack of concern for quarterly results or an excessive focus on well-being. It is a matter of remaining faithful to a few core values, such as impartiality, rationality, consistency or equity.
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