Christopher Bauer's Ethics Nexus

Survey on Ethics Program Interests for College Students, Faculty & Staff

I have been asked for quite some time to do more work with college students on helping them to make better choices and I am now at a point where I can pursue that in a more dedicated manor. I have created a quick survey for college students, staff, faculty and parents on what kinds of programs and resources they would like to see on how to help college students make better choices.

 

The link to this very quick survey is here.

 

If you are a student, staff or faculty member - or the parent of a college student - I hope you will take a few short moments to fill this survey out. Whether you are one of the above or not, however, I'm guessing that you know one or more folks in each of those groups. If you would be willing to forward this post and survey link to them, I would be most grateful. Thanks!

Which Ethics & Values Training Topics Do Your Organizations Need To Hear About?

I'm getting ready to put together some new ethics and values programs and would love your input on what I need to be talking about these days. (If you don't know what my current keynotes and seminars cover, you can find overviews of them here.)

What I'm looking for is simply this... What are the problems currently facing your company or association that need to be addressed? I'll make it my job to see if/how my expertise could be used to address those problems. Any input will be appreciated. (Feel free to reply via email to me at chris (at) bauerethicsseminars.com.) Thanks!

Ethics Books & Services Survey - Please Provide Your Input

Over the last couple of years, subscribers to my Weekly Ethics Thought, live program attendees, and readers of this blog have suggested quite a range of new products and services they would like to see me create. All are terrific-sounding ideas but with my time being at a premium, I need to get an idea of the actual level of interest in my developing any or all of these products and programs

If you wouldn't mind, there is a very brief survey found here that will let me know the level of interest in each of these possible new ethics-related products and services. Your input would be greatly appreciated.

The survey is anonymous unless you choose to identify yourself and it can easily be completed in less than ten minutes.

Thanks for your time in completing this brief survey and please know that your time, feedback, and suggestions are all deeply appreciated.

What's After The End of The Line?

In a recent Weekly Ethics Thought, I said, 

"Should you become aware of an ethics concern that does not require being reported due to legal or organizational mandates, the first thing to do is to diplomatically discuss the matter with the individual(s) about whose behavior you are concerned. If that takes care of the problem, you have discharged your ethical duty in all but the rarest cases.

But what if that doesn't take care of the problem? To whom are you going to go next? Not knowing the answer to that question does not excuse a lack of follow-up! You must find out to whom you need to speak and then do so.

For starters, everybody in your organization has an immediate supervisor and they will likely be the best person with whom to discuss your concerns. Should your concerns not be taken seriously by the supervisor, though, that person has a supervisor as well to whom you can go. Feel like you can't take it to a supervisor for some reason? Then take it to your HR or Compliance department if you have one. No HR or Compliance department because your business is too small? Take it to the owner.

There will always be someone to whom to bring your concerns. You may or may not like their response or plan of action but your duty is discharged when you have appropriately notified the proper person.

Should your concerns be about a matter requiring a formal report because of either a legal or organizational mandate, that mandate will always specify a course of action including providing you the proper contact person(s) to whom to bring your concerns. In addition, any legal mandates will usually specify whom to contact outside of your organization should your concerns not be appropriately addressed internally. Be sure to know with whom you need to speak about which types of ethics problems or concerns. Rightly or wrongly, not doing so will almost inevitably result in your sharing a portion of the ethical culpability.”

I was alarmed by how many readers emailed me to describe ethical or legal concerns they had reported all the way up the chain of command only to be ignored or rebuffed at every step. One person was in the process of resigning because of their frustration and wish not to be associated with the kinds of behavior being shown by their employer.

A common question was what the next step needs to be when you have exhausted the chain of command in these situations. The answer is that, though there aren’t a lot of choices, there are certainly still some:

1.)          Inform corporate counsel if there is one.

2.)          Inform internal or external auditors if the issue is financial.

3.)          Inform law enforcement if the actions you see are illegal.

4.)          Decide if you can stay knowing that critical issues are being ignored. (There is not ever an absolutely right or wrong answer to this question, however. You need to let a combination of your conscience, your gut, and your mind come to the best agreement they reasonably can.)

In the meantime, though, what remains the most important thing is to assure that you have, in fact, clearly reported your observations and concerns to the appropriate parties.

Have you been in a situation where you have taken your concerns all the way up the line and met a complete lack of concern or never gotten a reasonable response? I’d be interested in what your experiences have been. Let me know – as well as whether or not I am free to cite your situation as an example in my programs or here on the Ethics Nexus blog. I would obviously do so without identifying either you or your organization. Thanks!

 

The Need For Independence For Both Auditors and Ethics Officers

Not that there’s anything wildly new in it but I think this is a nice overview at CFO.com of WorldCom Whistle-Blower Cynthia Cooper’s ‘lessons learned’. Though perhaps not the heart of the interview, the paragraph that, for me, casts the widest net is where she says,

“The reporting structure for the internal-audit function often presents a conflict of interest that, so far, Corporate America has been content to live with. Many chief audit executives still report to the CFO, who determines their compensation. If we want the most independent internal-audit function possible, internal audit should report both functionally and administratively to the audit committee. The next best option would be for it to report functionally to the audit committee and administratively to the CEO.”

Though Cooper’s comments stand well on their own, there is a parallel issue I have found in the way that many companies set up their Ethics Officer with a similar bind. Contrary to the ways in which such positions are often structured and positioned, the ethics officer needs to be free to report directly to the board at the discretion of either the board or the officer. Even if this is not the exclusive routine, then it at least needs to be possible at any point desired by the ethics officer or board with no opportunity for senior managers to interfere with the request. Similarly, compensation needs to be set up in such a way that it cannot be dependent on feedback that all is well on the ethics front when perhaps that is not actually the case. (Mind you, it is the officer's duty to walk if they think that their position is compromised to the point where they cannot reasonably do their job. However, it seems crazy for that to even need to be a concern...)

This seems like common sense to me but I continue to hear stories of companies where this is not the way in which things are structured.

If you have an example of where inappropriate structuring of an ethics officer's position has caused problems, I'd like to know about it for (presumably anonymous) use in an upcoming article. Please be in touch to let me know. Thanks!

The Mission of Your Mission Statement vs. The Value of Your Values Statement

A frightening number individuals and companies say they really don't need a values statement because, after all, everything is covered by their mission statement. That's a sure sign that either the mission statement or its application needs some serious work. Both are frequently the case...

Mission statements are intended to be a summary statement of why your organization exists and concisely let the world know what your purpose is. That is, after all, what a mission is.

A values statement, on the other hand, should equally concisely tell your employees, along with the rest of the world, the essentials of how your business runs. Among its most critical functions, a values statement needs to:

-> Make clear to employees the values that are to inform their job behavior all day, every day. In other words, when there isn't a rule for something, or when there are multiple possible ways to make a decision, your values statement should effectively guide their choice regarding what to do.

-> Allow employees to unambiguously judge the appropriateness of every action in their working day by discerning whether or not those actions or are not aligned with your stated values. (This should simultaneously be a great tool for helping employees judge the ethics of their actions or intended actions.)

-> Accurately tell the public what values they can expect to see brought to life when dealing with your company.

The value of a well-written values statement is enormous. It not only creates an easily-applied guide and gauge for the appropriateness of any employee's behavior at any time, but can equally easily be used as the foundation for building better management, leadership, and customer-service at all levels of your organization. After all, if each of these functions were to be constantly driven by your most important values, wouldn't that necessarily assure both significant and positive changes? Obviously, however, none of this can happen without a values statement that is extremely well written.

Though I am spending a greater and greater percentage of my time helping folks write highly effective values statements, I am always looking for good examples of existing ones. Do you have one or know of one you could share with me? If so, please either post it here or send me a copy or link. Thanks!

Where I Have Been

I realize that the Ethics Nexus blog has been pretty quiet for the last couple of months and I wanted to explain why. Most of my time has been going into an extensive revision and expansion of my book “Better Ethics NOW: How To Avoid The Ethics Disaster You Never Saw Coming”. The completion of the second edition is rapidly finishing up, though, and so I’ll hope to be back in more persistent action here in the near future.

In the meantime, I am also working on a book of quotes on ethics and integrity. If you have one you think I might want to use, please send it along to me. All I need is the quote and the speaker/author/songwriter to whom it should be attributed. Although this project wil probably be wrapping up in the next couple of months, I'm always looking for interesting quotes so I hope you'll send them to me as you find them. Thanks!

Send 'Em On!

If there are either ethics-related news bits or interesting/helpful links you think would be of interest to other readers of Ethics Nexus, please email me with them. Many of you are tuned into other sources than I am and I'll always appreciate being able to see/hear whatever is out there that I may have missed. I'll post interesting, relevant information and resources here as efficiently as I possibly can.

In case it's a helpful 'filter' for you as far as what to send me, I am extremely unlikely to publish or link to rants, material that is primarily political or religious in nature, or obviously flawed studies (unless their flaws are actually the point of the post...). Otherwise, I'll look forward to seeing what's interesting out there that has come your way!

Also, if there are topics you'd like to see me address either here or in my Weekly Ethics Thought, please let me know that as well. If it's something I feel that I can competently say something about, I'll certainly try!