Business Ethics Battlefield

As the most controversial person in the screen printing industry, you can imagine that I have had to learn a few things the hard way. In sales and in life, perception is reality. Your competitors will often say or do anything to sway a buyer away from your product or service and in the direction of their own. If you have chosen to associate with better products than your competitors, then it becomes very difficult for those competitors to argue the merits of their products above yours. So often in this type of situation, your competitors will resort to attacking your business/personal ethics. If this is your competitors’ only ammunition in “the battle” for market-share, then by positioning your “ethical arsenal” from a superior vantage point you have already “won the war.” Below I have outlined some key concepts to keep in mind in “the business battlefield” when situations with your competition publicly challenge your ethics.

Show Responsibility for Your Actions

Put up or Shut up!

NEVER run from your past ethical breaches, we all make mistakes. Remember the cover up is always worse than the crime. It does not take long to discover exactly which “skeletons in your closet” that your competition will be using as ammunition to frighten your customers away. If there is a certain ethical mishap that seems to repeatedly kill your deals, bring it up before your competition has a chance to use it against you. Cut-throat competitors and disgruntled former coworkers can churn out a lot of damaging theories about the motives underlying your past mistakes. You must be ahead of your own ethical blunders before your reputation becomes the focus of every conversation. Take responsibility proactively and earn the client’s respect:

raise all market objections and be prepared to offer resolution by demonstration
put potential buyers at ease by controlling the sale, and know in advance that the competition is going to attack
large commitment purchases are about relationship, therefore “closing pressure” is perceived as a NEGATIVE not a positive
let the competition be the ones trying to pressure the buyer
The “Little Black Dress” Mentality

Dress for Success!

We all have different internal perceptions of ourselves, just as other people will each have a different perception of us external to our control. Feeling good about yourself is a giant step in projecting an important ethical persona. Let’s face it, knowing right from wrong is not as easy for some as it is for others. So think of your business ethics as your little black dress. You know… the one outfit you would put on if you were going out for the night with a potential suitor for life. We would all like to think of ourselves as good people; however our internal reality may not equate to the external perceptions of our coworkers, vendors, and most importantly our customers.

wear your most flattering “ethical outfit” that is still comfortable (don’t be fake)
project confidence, yet do not over-promise or under-deliver
vulnerability can be a valuable asset, never pretend to have all the answers
Your Industry Olympics Score Card

And the Russian Judge Gives You a 3.7!

Knowing your critics is important, but it is more important not to create more. Be cognizant of how you will be judged in every situation. Even the smartest of people will judge you based on your words, appearance, and timing, not necessarily on your actions or intentions. Pretend that every person you meet in business is an Olympic judge holding a series of numbered placards to declare your ethical score to the world.

Conflict of Interest

I am sure your sister is a great kisser but she is still your sister!

No matter the circumstance a conflict of interest should be avoided like a cheap suit. Breaching certain ethical barriers is like coming back from lunch with a food stain on your shirt. It looks bad and by mid-afternoon it really starts to stink! If your supplier is offering you extra work or more orders in exchange for purchasing their products, then it will not be long before those print jobs will be offered to the next potential client. If you sell machinery, then you do not barter print jobs for sales leverage. If this is one of your ideas for a sales tactic, FORGET IT! DON’T DO IT! Who wants to do business with a salesperson who could potentially steal your orders for another print shop? For that matter, if an employee from your potential client’s facility approaches you for a payout to steer the sale your way, steer clear of this sale entirely! Someone with a bent moral compass will certainly lead you in the wrong direction when it comes to your ethical business ventures. Stay above board. Keep your own moral compass pointed North so your business does not start heading South. Which brings me to my next point…

Guilt by Association

Before You Study the Menu, Choose the Right Companion!

Being compromised can be a choice. Guilt by association is still guilt in the eyes of the ethics police. Do your research and establish your own ground rules:

HOW you will conduct yourself
WHY you are in business
WHAT you stand for
WHERE you want to be
WHO you will engage
Sex, Politics, and Religion

Steer clear of these types of conversation!

Nothing like a clergy member caught with a goat and a senator (not necessarily in that order). People have diverse backgrounds (and diverse backyards for that matter). Learn that the best ethics can be vanilla and bland toast. The general rule of thumb is this… if you are “into” dogs, then don’t do it in my yard and it better not be with my dog.

Healthy Social Networking

#screenprinting #tshirt OMG, LOL, LMAO!

When it comes to marketing and promotions, internet search engines can be your best friend or your worst enemy. A negative comment, a misinterpreted forum post, an internet troll mimicking your screen name and persona… these are all seemingly small occurrences that can exponentially become magnified in a very short time frame. Social networking can be your greatest asset when battling any negativity online or otherwise. Twitter, FaceBook, Google+, YouTube, etc. can extend your circles of influence far beyond the reach of your competitors’ negativity. Stay positive and remember that you reap what you sow. Let your competitor be the one sowing seeds of negativity.

Your reputation matters!

Managing negative ethical perceptions in high pressure sales situations can be exhausting or empowering depending on how you choose to react in your particular business ethics battlefield, it is up to you, not others, to decide who wins. Do not be a victim, be a leader, and set an example.

Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines just rules and principles within a commercial context; the various moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business setting; and any special duties or obligations that apply to persons who are engaged in commerce. Generally speaking, business ethics is a normative discipline, whereby particular ethical standards are advocated and then applied.

It makes specific judgments about what is right or wrong, which is to say, it makes claims about what ought to be done or what ought not to be done. While there are some exceptions, business ethicists are usually less concerned with the foundations of ethics (meta-ethics), or with justifying the most basic ethical principles, and are more concerned with practical problems and applications, and any specific duties that might apply to business relationships.

Business ethics can be examined from various perspectives, including the perspective of the employee, the commercial enterprise, and society as a whole. Very often, situations arise in which there is conflict between one and more of the parties, such that serving the interest of one party is a detriment to the other(s). For example, a particular outcome might be good for the employee, whereas, it would be bad for the company, society, or vice versa. Some ethicists see the principal role of ethics as the harmonization and reconciliation of conflicting interests.

Ethical issues can arise when companies must comply with multiple and sometimes conflicting legal or cultural standards, as in the case of multinational companies that operate in countries with varying practices. The question arises, for example, ought a company obey the laws of its home country, or should it follow the less stringent laws of the developing country in which it does business?

To illustrate, United States law forbids companies from paying bribes either domestically or overseas; however, in other parts of the world, bribery is a customary, “accepted” way of doing business. Similar problems can occur with regard to child labor, employee safety, work hours, wages, discrimination, and environmental protection laws.

Business ethics should be distinguished from the philosophy of business, the branch of philosophy that deals with the philosophical, political, and ethical underpinnings of business and economics. Business ethics operates on the premise, for example, that the ethical operation of a private business is possible — those who dispute that premise, such as libertarian socialists, (who contend that “business ethics” is an oxymoron) do so by definition outside of the domain of business ethics proper.

The philosophy of business also deals with questions such as what, if any, are the social responsibilities of a business; business management theory; theories of individualism vs. collectivism; free will among participants in the marketplace; the role of self interest; invisible hand theories; the requirements of social justice; and natural rights, especially property rights, in relation to the business enterprise.

Business ethics is also related to political economy, which is economic analysis from political and historical perspectives. Political economy deals with the distributive consequences of economic actions. It asks who gains and who loses from economic activity, and is the resultant distribution fair or just, which are central ethical issues.

CATWOE Model and Business Ethics

system I am sure you consider the five “E’s”:

Efficacy (will it work at all?)

Efficiency (will it work with minimum resources?)

Effectiveness (does it contribute to the enterprise?)

Ethics or Ethicality (is it sound morally?)

Elegance (is it beautiful?)

Let’s talk a bit about the fourth “E” – Ethics.

There is an ethical dimension to every decision.

Any time a human being, or entity, intervenes in the life of another human being, or entity, directly or indirectly, an ethical situation arises.

There is a story, probably apocryphal, which illustrates this.

There was a cyclonic storm and millions of fish were washed ashore and were struggling for life on the beach. A man came to the beach and patiently began to pick up the fish, one by one, and throw them back into the sea. An amused passerby asked him what difference it would make, to which the man pointed to the fish in his hand and said, “Ask this fish?”

Thus, we see that seemingly routine decisions, which at the organizational level do not appear to have major ethical magnitude, have large ethical significance at the individual level.

Some people believe that ethics is of little concern to business people. “Ethics is Ethics” and “Business is Business” they say. Thus many upwardly mobile managers of today tend to rationalize when faced with an ethical dilemma and take the position that they must wear multiple ethical hats and cloak themselves with three separate conflicting codes of ethics:

One code applicable to the professional or technical aspects of their work (Professional or Technical Ethics);
Another code for their business behaviour (Business Ethics);

And a third code of ethics for their personal lives (Personal Ethics).

This leads to the development of schizophrenic ethical personality wherein the individual may strive for professional excellence and high ethical standards for one’s own self and within one’s organization, but resort to unethical practices to succeed in business at all costs.

This Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde approach is at the heart of many ethical dilemmas in managerial decision-making.

Each person, entity, group, institution or constituency that is likely to be affected by the decision is a “stakeholder” with a moral claim on the decision maker.

This stakeholder concept provides a systematic way of perceiving and resolving the various interests involved in our ethical decision making.

There is an ethical dimension to every decision. Thus any of your decisions, which affect other persons, have ethical implications, and virtually all of your important decisions reflect your sensitivity and commitment to ethics.

In summary, as you perform your job in your workplace, you must analyse and ascertain various ethical dimensions as you deal with your superiors, peers, subordinates, customers and all other stakeholders connected with your work.

Different stakeholders have different ethical perspectives.

For example, take the case of workplace romance.

Whereas, some organizations [and stakeholders] may feel that there is nothing ethically wrong with workplace romance and many even encourage organizational romance / marriage among colleagues by giving various perks / incentives, some others may discourage or even prohibit workplace-romance. Of course, sexual harassment would be universally considered unethical.

One useful technique to resolve such ethical dilemmas is the CATWOE model adapted from Systems Management.

Ethical dilemma occurs due to mismatch in ethical perspectives of various stakeholders involved in the ethical situation.

A CATWOE analysis helps the manager identify all stakeholders involved in a decision and their respective ethical perspectives.

CATWOE is an acronym to categorize various stakeholders:

CATWOE MODEL

C = CUSTOMERS, OR CLIENTS OF THE DECISION
A = ACTORS, OR AGENTS WHO CARRY OUT THE DECISION
T = TRANSFORMATION PROCESS, THE DECISION MAKER
W =WELTANSCHAUUNG, WORLD VIEW PREDOMINATLY HELD
O = OWNERS / OWNERSHIP
E = ENVIRONMENT / ENVIRONMENTAL IMPOSITIONS

To elaborate a bit:

C: The ‘customers of the system’. In this context, ‘customers’ means those who are on the receiving end of whatever it is that the system does. Is it clear from your definition of “C” as to who will gain or lose from your decision?

A: The ‘actors’, meaning those who would actually carry out the activities envisaged in the notional system being defined.

T: The ‘transformation process’. What does the system do to the inputs to convert them into the outputs?

W: Weltanschauung – The ‘world view’ that lies behind the root definition. Putting the system into its wider context can highlight the consequences of the overall system. For example the system may be in place to assist in making the world environmentally safer, and the consequences of system failure could be significant pollution.

O: The ‘owner(s)’ – i.e. those who have sufficient formal power over the system to stop it existing if they so wished (though they won’t usually want to do this).

E: The ‘environmental constraints’. These include things such as ethical limits, regulations, financial constraints, resource limitations, limits set by terms of reference, and so on.

CARDINAL ASPECTS OF ETHICAL DECISION MAKING

All decisions must take into account and reflect a concern for the interest and well being of all stakeholders.

Ethical values and principles always take precedence over non-ethical and unethical values and principles

It is ethically proper to violate an ethical principle only when it is clearly necessary to advance another true ethical principle which, according to the decision maker’s conscience, will produce the greatest balance of good in the long run

THE FIVE STEP ETHICAL DECISION MAKING APPROACH

Step Action

1 Identify and classify the stakeholders in the situation using CATWOE and understand their ethical perspectives

2 Identify their dominant ethical perspectives

3 Construct an ethical conflict web, mapping different ethical perspectives [CATWOE - six nodes]

4 Identify those strands of the web where no significant conflict may be assumed to exist. These may be removed from the ethical decision making model.

5 Concentrate on those strands where conflict does exist. Use conflict resolution techniques to achieve the “overall good” for the system

Ethical decision-making involves the process by which a person evaluates and chooses among alternatives in a manner consistent with his or her core ethical values or principles.

Thus when you make an ethical decision you:

(a) Perceive and eliminate unethical options
(b) Select the best from several competing ethical alternatives.

Ethical decision-making requires more than a belief in the importance of ethics. It also requires sensitivity to perceive the ethical implications of your decisions; the ability to evaluate complex, ambiguous and incomplete facts and the skill to implement ethical decision making without jeopardizing your career.

Ethical decision-making requires three things: Ethical Commitment, Ethical Consciousness and Ethical Competence.

The CATWOE model will help you in Decision Management – in improving the Ethical aspect of your managerial, professional and personal decisions.

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Vikram Karve, 52, educated at IIT Delhi, ITBHU and The Lawrence School Lovedale, is an Electronics and Communications Engineer by profession, a Teacher by vocation, a Creative Writer by inclination and a Foodie by passion.

An avid blogger, he has written a number of fiction short stories and creative non-fiction articles in magazines and journals for many years before the advent of blogging. His delicious foodie blogs have been compi

How to Build a Stronger Business? Align Your Business Ethics With Your Business Culture

Business code ethics need to be part of your organization’s culture; and recent business ethics cases prove that need. Stories of large business fraud to small business embezzlement are being reported with ever-increasing frequency; unfortunately business ethics are under attack.

How often in your business day do you need to make decisions? What is the basis for those decisions? Do you have a business vision statement and a mission statement that helps you with your decision making? That is, can you align your decisions to your vision and mission? Many business owners and managers face challenges in making decisions; not because they can’t decide, but because they need to make a decision without an ethical framework.

Developing a business code of ethics is necessary for all business ownership. You need to identify how you want your business to be operated. If you have your ethics code written and available, making tough decisions will become easier.

What should a business code of ethics include?

A focus on the organization’s long-term direction (the vision) and the shorter-term goals (the mission).
Identification of values that are important to the business. A sense of your business culture.
What ethics means to your business: your definition of business ethics.
Acceptable workplace activities and behaviors.
Unacceptable workplace activities and behaviors and the sanctions or consequences that will result if unacceptable behaviors occur.
Orientation and training that will be provided to support the values and culture and ethics of the organization.
The role of communication and ethics: how will employees and other stakeholders understand what you value, or don’t value, without communications.
The relationship and responsibility of the organization within its community.
Industry standards and practices; and how your organization is focused on meeting or over-achieving against those standards.
For the most part we all like to believe that we are ethical in our decisions, and that is likely very true where there are clear-cut right versus wrong decisions. But the bigger challenge lies in making ethical decisions between right versus right options. These types of decisions are often the most difficult.
For example, is it right to continue paying your executives a high salary while you cut the work hours (and therefore the net pay) of your lower-paid employees? Is it right to provide a price discount to one customer but not the other? Is it right to reward one employee with a gift certificate for work well done on servicing a large account when other employees have worked hard to support smaller assigned accounts?

Your code of ethics should be written in clear enough language that these, and other, decisions are easy to make and easy to support. Additionally your ethics code needs to provide a basis or framework for assessment. The framework could be questions to be asked and answered.

For example, if you are faced with a significant issue:

Identify and determine the different points of view on the situation.
Define what the cost is (both tangible and intangible) of the proposed solution(s)?
Affirm that your vision, mission and values statements clearly support your proposed solution(s); in other words, are they aligned? (If the answer to that question is no, then either your solution is wrong or your vision, values and missions statements don’t accurately reflect your culture).
Does the proposed solution or decision ‘do no harm’ (this is the basis for most ethical reasoning)?
Reports of recent business ethics cases highlight the need for businesses to operate in an ethical manner. Your business brand and identity is tightly connected to the values and the ethics you demonstrate, and commit to, in your business. Build a business code of ethics; and make sure you ‘live’ to your code; you will build a stronger, more effective and more sustainable business.
Kris Bovay is the owner of Voice Marketing Inc, the business and marketing services company. Kris has 25 years of experience in leading large, medium and small businesses and has worked hard to build a strong reputation for ethical business practices. Kris also teaches a business ethics and practices course at the largest post secondary institution in British Columbia, Canada.

« Newer posts