ethics

Last night I wrote about a fictional ethical dilemma that panned out in a drama TV series. Today, while driving in the car and listening to talk radio, I came across a current, real-life scenario that challenges how we view ethics in practice. Again, if we are to understand the ethical landscape within our organisations we need ways in which we can monitor the perceptions, values and attitudes that staff have towards ethics.

Today's ethical dilemma comes from a recent shooting of a group of illegal miners at the Aurora Gold Mine ...

In the wake of numerous price collusion cases brought to the Competition Commission in South Africa, the profile of ethics in organisations has become a focal point for policy makers and leaders alike. Since 1994 the King Committee has been developing guidelines for corporate governance in South Africa. The King 3 Report is the latest installment from the Committee that places a great emphasis on ethics. Our concern is that leaders will apply the prescripts of King 3 in a regimental fashion that will do very little in actually transforming the ethics culture of an organisation. We believe that understanding the ethics landscape of your organisation should be a key factor in leaders minds.

As we think about a narrative-based approach to ethics management, we are certain that characterising the ethics landscape of an organisation will be a complex task. Ethically dubious situations, deals and arrangements will do their utmost to remain hidden. It is because of this that we propose monitoring the attitudes staff have towards ethics as a way in which leaders can identify the ethics hotspots in their organisations. This would be done by providing staff with an ethical dilemma and asking them to provide us with some information regarding their attitudes towards that dilemma.

Here's an example of an ethical dilemma I came across while watching TV the other night ...

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:

One of the dominant stories we have in South African business is that of fraud and corruption. The corruption story pervades every aspect of our business dealings, relationships and value added (or not added) to clients. I'm intrigued as to how the strongholds that a dominant story like this begin to break. My background as a narrative therapist suggests that the breaking free of an unhelpful dominant story only begins to happen when ...