#EthicsMatter – Putting Ethics to Work for You
It is both a fact, and a paradox, that ethics remains so often hidden in plain sight. Yet, as the driver of culture within all organisations it, more than any amount of regulation, is the factor which most influences how we behave. Global Alliance’s focus on ethics as the underpinning of truth and trust is a significant initiative which draws attention to what is, in many other spheres of industry, too often ignored.
Ethics in business is always active and should never be passed, like some metaphorical hot potato, to whomever the buck might allegedly stop with. At its source, the ethics buck stops with each and every one of us. As a principle of how we work, ethics in action must be seen to reflect the characteristic modes of behaviour in our organisations which are both dynamic and open to measurement. And because of this, when it comes to reputational management merely reactive responses to regulation should be recognised as negative and potentially highly damaging.
Nothing has revealed the truth of this fact more than the topic of organisational culture during this turbulent time of pandemic, as companies’ cultures are being shown up to be either fit for purpose or woefully inadequate. Of course, what culture most fundamentally exposes is our ways of working and, our ways of working is precisely what ethics is all about.
The mention of metaphor leads to thoughts of comparison and the ubiquitous presence in today’s world of manual handling training, and how it has been effectively used to promote businesses values around the heading of health and safety. Ethics training is now exactly where manual handling training was forty years ago, and must move up several gears if it is to be made truly relevant. The problem remains however that responsibility (a core detached value) for ethics has fallen between two stools – compliance departments, on the one hand, whose focus is too legal and a plethora of other departments, including HR, whose focus is insufficiently grounded in ethics.
The unhappy consequence of all this is that organisations are left floundering as they try to effectively communicate not simply what their values are but, far more importantly, why they have chosen those particular sets of values to define who they are and what they do. What Public Relations and Communications Management experts must emphasise to clients is the need for them to avoid the dangerous temptation of cherry picking value terms (integrity, respect, trust, honesty etc). For PR professionals it is essential to help leaders demonstrate how specifically these terms are being managed in order to influence behaviour. Without the utilisation of core ethical processes, such as an Ethics Review, value statements and codes of ethics will remain ineffectual.
Genuinely forward thinking companies must come to recognise that just as they would never ask their sales manager to carry out a financial audit, so they should not request their HR manager to monitor, measure and communicate their ethical standards. And nor should they attempt to abdicate that role to regulators; it is not the regulator’s responsibility to fashion culture, that is the job of leaders and, to do this, they must engage with professional ethicists.
Leaders must be attuned to the reality that ethics drives culture, something which can be profoundly positive when managed well or deeply destructive when managed poorly (if at all). It should not be forgotten, ethical issues only become ethical when the intentions behind them, their results and the values (individual, corporate or societal) they reflect are considered. Facts alone do not decide whether something is right or wrong. For this reason pioneering leaders within the highly competitive world of PR and Communications Management who innovate profitably must rollout the key processes of: Performing an Ethics Review; Creating a Unique Organisational Ethics Pyramid (making explicit their purpose) and ensuring Ethics Measurability Matrixes are deployed.
Treating people as individuals, laying bare how values such as duty, responsibility and professional care are actioned while shifting ethical emphasis in line with new understandings and experiential knowledge are each pathways to enhancing trust. The corollary of this is, untruths become abhorrent to those working within such a climate and finding solutions to ethical ambiguities is understood as a collaborative exercise built on genuine dialogue. The result is progressive cultures of doing the right thing are made up of strategic ethical and affect terms, e.g. wellbeing, balance and constructive communication.
Culture can, and should, be moulded in such a way that it allows for capacity building around the heading of ethics skills and processes. Organisational development at this critical time of Covid-19 means having the right culture in place following the right training, so as to safeguard the proper and meaningful navigation of complex challenges in a manner which is comprehensible, achievable and succinctly communicable.
The uniqueness of carrying out an Ethics Review, for example, is that the five stages which go to make it up result in an elevation of trust and the concretizing of accountability while strengthening parallel practices in the spheres of HR, Protective Disclosure, Governance and Compliance. The importance therefore of appreciating that ethical standards are mutable is as essential as understanding their dynamic nature, for just as individual and societal values change over time, so too should corporate values. Yet, too often this fact is missed as companies simply reactively respond to the up-dated regulations imposed on them, thereby ignoring the distinct competitive advantage to be gained by distinguishing themselves within the ethics space.
When it comes to handling information in the present unprecedented reality of Covid-19 garnering data in the round is the most practical bulwark against the pollution of fake news. Deep-seated concerns regarding the accuracy of information has spread over the last 12 months with as much alacrity as the virus itself. Consequently, managing misinformation alongside protecting reputational capital is, for professional communicators, more crucial than ever and should take the form of acquiring requisite knowledge to guide organisations through clear decision making while safeguarding integrity. Highlighting the demonstrable ethical processes which are exploited in order to achieve this is a vital, though often overlooked, dimension to managing ethics.
As a young profession, one whose impact on financial results is not always credited or made explicit, the Public Relations & Communication Management message of putting ethics to work for you is compelling, novel and impactful.
Kevin Sludds is a Professor of Philosophy and Ethics with 25 years experience of teaching, training and consulting. He established the company Ethics Consultancy & Training International (ECTi) in 2011 and has worked with private and public companies in Europe, Africa and India. Kevin has contributed to the development of Irish Government strategies in the area of Ethics and is an Associate of the Irish Management Institute.
Any thoughts or opinions expressed are that of the author and not of Global Alliance.
#EthicsMatter – Putting Ethics to Work for You
It is both a fact, and a paradox, that ethics remains so often hidden in plain sight. Yet, as the driver of culture within all organisations it, more than any amount of regulation, is the factor which most influences how we behave. Global Alliance’s focus on ethics as the underpinning of truth and trust is a significant initiative which draws attention to what is, in many other spheres of industry, too often ignored.
Ethics in business is always active and should never be passed, like some metaphorical hot potato, to whomever the buck might allegedly stop with. At its source, the ethics buck stops with each and every one of us. As a principle of how we work, ethics in action must be seen to reflect the characteristic modes of behaviour in our organisations which are both dynamic and open to measurement. And because of this, when it comes to reputational management merely reactive responses to regulation should be recognised as negative and potentially highly damaging.
Nothing has revealed the truth of this fact more than the topic of organisational culture during this turbulent time of pandemic, as companies’ cultures are being shown up to be either fit for purpose or woefully inadequate. Of course, what culture most fundamentally exposes is our ways of working and, our ways of working is precisely what ethics is all about.
The mention of metaphor leads to thoughts of comparison and the ubiquitous presence in today’s world of manual handling training, and how it has been effectively used to promote businesses values around the heading of health and safety. Ethics training is now exactly where manual handling training was forty years ago, and must move up several gears if it is to be made truly relevant. The problem remains however that responsibility (a core detached value) for ethics has fallen between two stools – compliance departments, on the one hand, whose focus is too legal and a plethora of other departments, including HR, whose focus is insufficiently grounded in ethics.
The unhappy consequence of all this is that organisations are left floundering as they try to effectively communicate not simply what their values are but, far more importantly, why they have chosen those particular sets of values to define who they are and what they do. What Public Relations and Communications Management experts must emphasise to clients is the need for them to avoid the dangerous temptation of cherry picking value terms (integrity, respect, trust, honesty etc). For PR professionals it is essential to help leaders demonstrate how specifically these terms are being managed in order to influence behaviour. Without the utilisation of core ethical processes, such as an Ethics Review, value statements and codes of ethics will remain ineffectual.
Genuinely forward thinking companies must come to recognise that just as they would never ask their sales manager to carry out a financial audit, so they should not request their HR manager to monitor, measure and communicate their ethical standards. And nor should they attempt to abdicate that role to regulators; it is not the regulator’s responsibility to fashion culture, that is the job of leaders and, to do this, they must engage with professional ethicists.
Leaders must be attuned to the reality that ethics drives culture, something which can be profoundly positive when managed well or deeply destructive when managed poorly (if at all). It should not be forgotten, ethical issues only become ethical when the intentions behind them, their results and the values (individual, corporate or societal) they reflect are considered. Facts alone do not decide whether something is right or wrong. For this reason pioneering leaders within the highly competitive world of PR and Communications Management who innovate profitably must rollout the key processes of: Performing an Ethics Review; Creating a Unique Organisational Ethics Pyramid (making explicit their purpose) and ensuring Ethics Measurability Matrixes are deployed.
Treating people as individuals, laying bare how values such as duty, responsibility and professional care are actioned while shifting ethical emphasis in line with new understandings and experiential knowledge are each pathways to enhancing trust. The corollary of this is, untruths become abhorrent to those working within such a climate and finding solutions to ethical ambiguities is understood as a collaborative exercise built on genuine dialogue. The result is progressive cultures of doing the right thing are made up of strategic ethical and affect terms, e.g. wellbeing, balance and constructive communication.
Culture can, and should, be moulded in such a way that it allows for capacity building around the heading of ethics skills and processes. Organisational development at this critical time of Covid-19 means having the right culture in place following the right training, so as to safeguard the proper and meaningful navigation of complex challenges in a manner which is comprehensible, achievable and succinctly communicable.
The uniqueness of carrying out an Ethics Review, for example, is that the five stages which go to make it up result in an elevation of trust and the concretizing of accountability while strengthening parallel practices in the spheres of HR, Protective Disclosure, Governance and Compliance. The importance therefore of appreciating that ethical standards are mutable is as essential as understanding their dynamic nature, for just as individual and societal values change over time, so too should corporate values. Yet, too often this fact is missed as companies simply reactively respond to the up-dated regulations imposed on them, thereby ignoring the distinct competitive advantage to be gained by distinguishing themselves within the ethics space.
When it comes to handling information in the present unprecedented reality of Covid-19 garnering data in the round is the most practical bulwark against the pollution of fake news. Deep-seated concerns regarding the accuracy of information has spread over the last 12 months with as much alacrity as the virus itself. Consequently, managing misinformation alongside protecting reputational capital is, for professional communicators, more crucial than ever and should take the form of acquiring requisite knowledge to guide organisations through clear decision making while safeguarding integrity. Highlighting the demonstrable ethical processes which are exploited in order to achieve this is a vital, though often overlooked, dimension to managing ethics.
As a young profession, one whose impact on financial results is not always credited or made explicit, the Public Relations & Communication Management message of putting ethics to work for you is compelling, novel and impactful.
Kevin Sludds is a Professor of Philosophy and Ethics with 25 years experience of teaching, training and consulting. He established the company Ethics Consultancy & Training International (ECTi) in 2011 and has worked with private and public companies in Europe, Africa and India. Kevin has contributed to the development of Irish Government strategies in the area of Ethics and is an Associate of the Irish Management Institute.
Any thoughts or opinions expressed are that of the author and not of Global Alliance.