Ethics Conference

Sonja and I are in Cape Town tomorrow for the Unashamedly Ethical conference on Friday and Saturday. Since the release of the King 3 report on corporate governance earlier this month, there is increased pressure for Board's and Directors to report on and manage the ethical performace of their companies.

Managing ethics?

The reality is that the realm of ethics is a profoundly complex problem, a problem that escapes direct management ... added to this complexity is the problem of human nature i.e. an unethical person is unlikely to admit to being unethical if asked. For organisations to effectively manage and report on ethics performance, a different approach is required – an approach that understands the complex nature of human behaviour, beliefs and values. To this end, we are exploring an offering that adoptis a complexity-based narrative methodology:

1. Discovery: characterising the ethics landscape of the organisation
2. Intervene: designing and implementing interventions that address the ethical hotspots of the organisation and create a positive change to ethical attitudes and behaviours
3. Monitor: monitoring these interventions and sensing changes in attitude towards decisions which have a significant ethical risk

We'll be drawing on Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker™ suite of software, combining hard data with narrative data that would in assessing ethical compliance.