I'll be the first to admit that I'm prone to stating the obvious. Sometimes I apologize for it and sometimes I don't. Many times I don't even realize I've done it until thinking back on a comment later. Most of us have been told all of our lives that it's pretty poor form to speak the obvious. My goal is simply to stop apologizing for it. Here's why...
Some of you may have seen the recent article about the woman in Seattle who used a city car, on city time, to drive to a casino - yes, indeed - en route to an ethics training program. It's pretty easy to laugh (or, perhaps, cry) and simply file this under "Bad idea - DUH!" since no one would ever presumably think about doing such a thing. The fact is, though, that she did. Here's the other fact; the papers are filled daily with reports of folks who have engaged in extremely serious ethical and legal lapses that are every bit as obviously inappropriate to anyone with even half a brain. Most of them, however, actually have a fully-functioning brain and yet they do these things anyhow.
So what's my point here... If your training or your supervision or your counseling don't allow plenty of opportunity to state the obvious for folks - to remind them of things they admittedly probably ought to already know - you are missing opportunity after opportunity to drive home the full range of considerations employees need to be making about their behavioral choices all day, every day. Don't talk down to them - that's simply rude. Rather, in the same tone as you review the rationale for more complex ethical and legal guidelines and mandates, spend some time on what you believe to be the obvious stuff as well. You might well be doing far more good than you imagine.
So, is what I'm saying here pretty obvious? Maybe so. But I'm going to do my best not to apologize for it.


Does Montana Have Better Municipal Ethics Training Than It Realizes?
I just ran across this brief article from the Bozeman, Montana Daily Chronicle in which the author rightfully is shocked that a recent study found only 7% of Montana's cities appear to have provided any kind of ethics training to their employees. Is that a horrible problem? Absolutely! The article goes on to describe a variety of employee ethical issues noted recently.
Here is what's far more disturbing to me, though. In many states, that level of ethics training - especially if it is, in fact, well-conceived and delivered - would be a huge step forward. There are many states where ethics training isn't provided to nearly that many folks or, in the alternative, is provided but is so minimal that the likely impact isn't much greater than if no training had been offered at all.
So, readers, please do catch me up. How much ethics training is happening for officials and employees where you live? If there's hard evidence of the amount, please let me know. If it's just your impression, that's fine too - just let me know so I know that there may not be specific data to back your comments up.
Posted at 05:09 PM in Current Affairs, Ethics Commentary, Ethics Training, Seeking Resources | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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