www.allbusiness.com - 2006
Making your company ethical

All too often, we think of business ethics and associate it with the offenses we read about in the paper. A chemical company pollutes a river, destroying the water supply to the surrounding area. The president of a local Saving & Loan lives the "lifestyle of the rich and famous", while squandering the savings of a couple on the verge of retirement. Or Michael Miliken, who lied and cheated his way to a fortune, setting in motion a chain of events that destroyed dozens of companies and affected the lives of countless thousands.

All too often, we think of business ethics and associate it with the offenses we read about in the paper. A chemical company pollutes a river, destroying the water supply to the surrounding area. The president of a local Saving & Loan lives the "lifestyle of the rich and famous", while squandering the savings of a couple on the verge of retirement. Or Michael Miliken, who lied and cheated his way to a fortune, setting in motion a chain of events that destroyed dozens of companies and affected the lives of countless thousands.

But these are not the most serious ethical problems that affect business. They are only the tip of an iceberg. The real danger lurks below the surface: the thousands of times each day that people act unethically, hurting others, hurting themselves, and slowly eroding the organizations for which they work.

Business can and should be exciting. It provides the chance to pursue a vision, often filled with great hope and promise. We take pride in our accomplishments, and justly so.

But our achievements are fragile. What each of us does remains vulnerable, and it always will. The effort of years can be destroyed in a moment by careless or inappropriate action.

In business, the greatest danger does not come from beyond our office walls. You can face the challenges of the marketplace. No, the danger comes from within, from you and members of your organization, because there lies the ability to tear down what has been built up. Each of us has the power to prevent the ambitions of our companies from being realized.

Most organizations do not fail from causes beyond their control. The roots of their demise lie in the organizations themselves - in the way people act, the values that have led them, the policies they have adopted, the goals they sought to achieve. Most often, organizations destroy themselves.

Your future - and your organization's - will not be dictated by who you say you are, or what you seek to accomplish. It will be directed by how you seek to accomplish your objectives.

Father Michael Scanlan, president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, has a sign on his desk that reads Faithfulness, not success."

This is a complex statement. It is far more than just a theological proposition. It reflects a critical principle for success: we must be preoccupied not just with what we do, but with how we do it.

This brings us to the subject of ethics. Rather than discourse on Plato, I want to share some of my own experiences, because most of what I now know about ethics was learned through the mistakes I made: errors in the way I managed my company, lessons that were often purchased with a lot of pain.

"I Didn't Know It Was Wrong"

One story begins with a call I received from a printer with whom I had been doing business for many years. He explained that his firm would no longer bid on work for our company.

They had decided that their success at winning our business over the past year had been so poor that the investment in time and resources to prepare bids was ...