“Ethical scandals in today’s businesses quickly make it to the national spotlight. Almost every newspaper highlights some situation or issue reeking of unethical behavior, questionable business practices, or outright law violations. However, Frank Navran writes in a recent issue of Training and Development magazine that those spectacular scandals account for only about 10% of the business losses attributable to poor ethical behavior.
That other 90% accounts for billions of dollars annually across the U.S. and appear in the way we treat each other when we try to protect our own turf, or get ahead at the expense of others, or do the wrong thing because we believe that is what our company wants us to do. Mr. Navran lists these examples of the “silent saboteurs”
- Scapegoating — blaming others for missed commitments, bad decisions or poor results.
- Allowing the boss to fail by withholding information and not pointing out risks.
- Budget games — padding the budget in anticipation of cuts, end-of-year spending sprees to match estimates to actuals.
- Overpromising to win a customer, gain support for a pet project or avoid a confrontation.
- Turf-guarding — protecting yourself from losing control or power.
- Endless meetings and memos to make sure that you are covered or that you can distance yourself from a bad decision.
- Under delivering on commitments because the other person’s priorities are not important to you or because you look good by looking better than someone else.
- Risk aversion — not doing what is needed to succeed because you fear the consequences of failure more than you value the reward of success.
- Sharp penciling — fudging on reported results because everyone else does it so you have to do it to stay competitive for pay and promotions.
The cost of these activities is high…in the areas of motivation and morale, stress, quality, turnover, productivity, pride, and customer satisfaction, all of those areas that we want to emphasize in a highly ethical company.”
The above exerpt was taken from an article posted on The Online Ethics Center at the National Academy of Engineering. What do you think?