Make an Ethical Difference Mark Pastin
1. Tool #1 Read the Ground Rules When a situation presents an ethical issue, look beyond the individuals and their actions and uncover the ground rules that help explain their actions. Remember that ground rules are rules that will only be breached under extreme duress.
You know you have the ground rules right when you can predict what the parties to a situation will or will not do next. Remember that organization or organizations involved in the situation have ground rules too, For example, in the situation involving the financial services company, the ground rule at issue was whether executives were held to the same standards of conduct as other employees. Written down it is clearer: “When an employee engages in wrongdoing, the discipline of that employee is consistent regardless of the rank or function of the employee.” This ground rule is important to any organization that acts ethically while achieving consistent performance.
Remember the analogy between ground rules and the operating system of a computer. If you were trying to understand something the computer was doing, it would not be that helpful to know the general principle, “Computers run on a series of ‘0’s and ‘1’s. But it might be useful to know the more specific, “The computer is running on Operating System 10.6.8.”
Thinking in terms of ground rules may seem like such a simple concept that it can hardly be an important tool for ethical change. But by viewing situations in terms of ground rules, you can not only better understand why certain things happen, you can also understand why you have to change--the ground rules--to be a successful ethical change agent. Instead of just being puzzled by the wrongdoing we observe, we can focus instead on what the wrongdoing means in terms of ground rules--ground rules that we may need to change.
Reading the ground rules is particularly useful for figuring out why organizations do things. While at least some people are reflective, organizations typically are not. Yes, they have retreats and the like, but these are more about rearranging the furniture than redesigning the space in which the furniture goes. Listening to what organizations say will not help nearly as much as observing the limits of their conduct in terms of ground rules.
When people do think about the ground rules of organizations, they often talk about the “culture” of an organization. When “culture” is used in this way, it is a metaphor suggesting unseen factors drive organizational behavior. But it is not a great metaphor as the word “culture” also suggests things that can only be changed over a long period of time. And this is not always true with respect to an organization’s ground rules. If the executives in the above financial services case had gotten away with their misconduct, the ground rules of the organization would have shifted--for the worse--almost immediately. That is why I prefer the analogy between ground rules and operating systems better than the analogy with culture. If you change one thing in a computer’s operating system, there may be widespread ramifications. Ethics is like that, too.
2. Tool #2 Reason Backward to Find the Interests
When considering an ethical issue, how do you know what interests are involved? One thing that often does not help is asking those involved what their interests are. Because stating your interests is often associated with not achieving them, people are often cautious about revealing their interests. They will state a public or socially acceptable interest but not a more personal or less acceptable interest. Organizations are often even craftier about their interests, putting advocacy of their interests in the hands of public affairs specialists and lobbyists. And it is often the unstated or hidden interests that are the key to resolving ethical issues.
The way to find the interests is to reason backwards from an outcome desired by someone to the interest or interests served by that outcome. In other words, ask of each possible outcome, “What interests will that outcome serve and for whom?”
Do not be quick to settle on a single or obvious interest. Most outcome serve many interests, and there is a tendency to hide a personal interest behind a public interesr. For example, in the case of the private and public schools, the public schools were quick to criticize the private schools, apparently in the interest of protecting potentially abused children. And that probably was one of their interests. But they were also pursuing a less obvious interest in avoiding scrutiny of their own practices.
Reasoning backwards from outcomes to interests often gives you a good picture of the interests in a situation. But there are also cases in which you will find that there is still something missing. A telltale sign that you are missing some of the interests is that some party to the situation is pushing hard for an outcome that serves no apparent interest.
There are two reasons for not finding relevant interests. There may be hidden parties to the situation, like the parents of children in public schools in the case above. Or there may be outcomes that have not yet been considered. Always supplement reasoning backwards by asking, “Who else might be affected?” and “Are there outcomes that haven’t been considered?”
Borderline Ethics I am often called into situations in which an organization has been caught doing something illegal, unethical, or both. A strategy that organizations employ in these circumstances is to institute a set of practices called an “ethics program” designed to assure the government and the public that the organization can be trusted going forward, no matter what it may have done to date. As an ethics consultant, the situation is ideal in some respects. An organization in serious need of redemption is more likely to listen to an ethics consultant than an organization that is pretty sure that everything it does is right.
I was hired by one such organization, a public hospital located close to the U.S.-Mexico border, seeking an ethics program….
It became clear that the hospital was going up in flames while the lawyers played the fiddle. Despite being guilty in the particulars at issue, this was a good hospital that had helped thousands of individuals who otherwise would have received no care.
During the break, I asked myself what interests the various parties brought to the negotiation. For the government attorneys, the more money they derived from settling the case, the better their performance would be viewed. The hospital’s lawyers got paid no matter what happened, but seemed genuinely committed to the hospital’s cause. And, I thought about the numerous underserved patients of the hospital, who seemed likely to be more underserved in the near future.
After the break, I interrupted the ongoing arguments among the attorneys, pleading that I was running out of time. In truth, no one walks out on the Department of Justice. I had decided that it was time to get past the technicalities and focus on the interests. I asked the hospital’s new CEO to outline the hospital’s financials for the group. The CEO, just as if prepped, apologized for the past improper practices and then outlined the hospital’s bleak financial situation showing that 45% of the care it provided was completely uncompensated. One of the attorneys for the Department of Justice was of Mexican heritage, and it was as if a light went on for her. If this hospital went down, a lot of people with backgrounds at least somewhat similar to her own would pay for it. She pretty much dismissed the arguments of the hospital’s attorneys and proposed a settlement far more reasonable than the hospital considered possible--one that allowed it to continue its charitable mission.
3. Tool #3 Face the Facts The first step in facing the facts is to look for the facts that all parties, irrespective of their ground rules and interests, agree upon. This is your core set of facts. In the example above, one such fact was that the hospital had allowed undersupervised services to be delivered by residents. The next step is to identify the contested facts. These are the facts that one party asserts as fundamental, without the agreement of other parties to the situation. In the above example, it was a contested fact whether or not anyone was actually harmed by the undersupervised services. Finally, look at any facts that are introduced by one party but are neither agreed upon nor contested. Thus, facts concerning the financial situation of the hospital were introduced by one party to the situation, the hospital, and not contested by the other parties. Now that you have the universe of facts, it’s important to narrow them down to a manageable body of information.
The simplest way to do this is to ask of each contested fact, “ If I accepted this as true, would I change my mind about the right thing to do in this situation?” If the answer is no, don’t worry about that one. If the answer is yes, evaluating that contested fact may be important to what your ethical sense tells you. If this process does not bring you to a clear picture of the facts relevant to the situation, follow the same process with the facts in the third category, those that are neither agreed upon nor contested.
You have done a good job of facing the facts when adding more potential facts to the picture no longer changes what your ethics sense tells you about the correct course of action. There is always a chance that there is some unconsidered fact that will change everything, but you have at least considered all the facts known to the parties to the situation.
4. Tool #4 Stand in the Shoes In the early 1980s, Tom Peters and Bob Waterman wrote a book, In Search of Excellence, which changed American business--for the better. The book is about the common characteristics of companies that are successful over a long period of time. The main lesson that I and many others took away from the book became known as “Management by Walking Around.” The idea behind this concept, which became a series of speeches, calendars, baubles, and, of course, follow-up books, was that domestic companies were failing because their leaders had lost touch with their own employees and customers. For example, if the leaders of domestic car companies had spent time in their companies’ repair docks, showrooms, and break rooms, they would not have needed Japanese competitors to focus their attention on quality and service. Using surveys and other tools instead of actually talking to customers and employees is just another way of keeping them at arm’s length. In short, the message was to walk around and talk to your employees and customers to learn what they really want as opposed to what Marketing and Human Resources tell you they want. Many CEOs allocated a fixed part of their weekly schedule to walking around and talking to employees and customers. Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, is one of the best known proponents of this approach. That is why he sits in a “bull pen” shoulder to shoulder with his direct reports and sometimes rides public transportation to work.
Given what we have learned about the way distance reduces empathy and sympathy, we can see why Management by Walking works. When you get to know people as individuals, as opposed to roles or categories, the distance between you and them decreases and your ability to see and feel their circumstances increases. They cease being the role of employee or the role of customer and become people. You get to know what they want and how to make things, including products and services, that work for them. As you increase your ability to share their thoughts and feelings, the ethics eye has an opportunity to function.
5. Tool #5 The Global Benefit Approach The global benefit approach doesn’t solve ethical problems, but it raises questions that can help solve these problems. Even if you cannot tell if something is right just by asking if it produces the greatest benefit, the benefit an action produces is relevant to its rightness. Once we realize this, the global benefit approach becomes a powerful tool to sharpen the ethics eye.
The global benefit approach is especially effective in business situations where you have to justify your approach. Usually you can’t just say what you believe is right without justifying your viewpoint. You can often use the global benefit approach to support your viewpoint.
In order to use the global benefit approach you first have to ask who counts--who are the affected parties. You also have to ask what is to be considered--what counts as a benefit or harm.
Who counts? If you have already used find the interests, you have a good understanding of who counts--the individuals and groups with an interest in a situation. You also have to ask what is to be considered as a benefit or harm. If you have used stand in the shoes, you have a good idea what counts--that which would count as a benefit or harm if you stood in the shoes of the potentially affected parties.
Our first tool, reading the ground rules, also fits into the global benefit approach. While we want to produce as much benefit as possible, we also have to consider the ground rules that apply to what we are doing. An action that produces a lot of benefit while violating important ground rules is probably not the right action. An action that produces great benefit without violating the ground rules is, however, a good candidate for being the right action.
Look again at the neighborhood casino. When we ask who is relevant to the decision, the answer is easy--everyone who will be benefited or harmed by the casino. To this point, the casino looks like a clear winner since so many will benefit (everyone who benefits from the increased tax revenue and new jobs) compared to the much smaller number (current residents of the neighborhood) who will be harmed. However, when we look at the ground rules, we quickly see that some basic ground rules will be violated if the casino proceeds. One of these ground rules states that a person’s right to his property and his home normally should not be abridged without his consent. If the casino developer were being honest, he would admit that he upholds this same ground rule with respect to his own home and property. In fact, stuffing the casino down the throats of the neighborhood is so contrary to the ground rules that enable communities to function that it is not an acceptable outcome. Of course, there might be situations in which the developer would be right (the benefits are greater) and the neighborhood wrong (there is less disruption), but this is not one of them.
6. Lessons on Agreement The first is that we need not reach agreement with everyone to have enough agreement to trust the ethics eye and act on what it shows. For the ethics eye to work, we need to use it responsibly by ensuring that we make every effort to understand the ground rules, interests, and perspectives of others. We need to be sure that we have looked at a situation carefully enough that our empathetic and sympathetic reactions to the situation fully engage our ethics eye. There will always be others who do not take the trouble to create conditions in which the ethics eye can be trusted. Ideally, we would get everyone to look at the situation under conditions that focus their ethics eye. But it is not realistic to expect this in every case.
The second thing we have learned is that settling conflicts about general ethical principles is not a matter of arguing about the principles. It is a matter of testing the principles against what we see in particular cases. In most of the cases reviewed in Make an Ethical Difference, seeing the right course of action has not been a problem, even if pursuing that course of action is. Even when we cannot see what is right immediately, we can use tools to sharpen the ethics eye and bring us closer to seeing what is right. When we want to resolve differences about ethical principles, we should start with specific cases, cases in which the ethics eye is most acute, and proceed from these cases to general principles on which we can agree.
a) Dead River The problem in the Dead River case is that holding the companies accountable today for what they did when they were run by different people with different employees punishes current managers, employees, and shareholders for deeds in which they had no part. On the hand, if the companies are not held accountable, the people who live along the river will be punished for something they did not do, and companies will escape responsibility for their actions merely by outliving them. This dispute actually went to trial with the sides taking the above stances. A mistrial was declared. It became evident to the parties to this dispute that settling matters in court would serve no one’s purpose. This meant that the parties themselves had to reach agreement, which, to the surprise of many, they did. Because the ground rules of the two sides could not be brought into agreement, the two sides took the process to the next step, which is to look at the interests involved. The companies agreed to pay those who lived along the river a significant amount. While this amount was less than it would take to clean up the dioxin, it was enough to significantly help those affected by it. Even though there was no agreement on ground rules, it was possible to achieve agreement based on interests.
This is often the kind of agreement on ethical issues you can achieve. You have to allow for this kind of agreement if you want to make an ethical difference in the real world. It may not please the philosophers and pundits, but it serves as the basis for taking action.
b) Ethics Across Culture One of the biggest red herring in ethics is that we cannot reach enough agreement in ethics to have firm views because of irresolvable differences among cultures. This is much like saying that because there are cultures in which scientific method is not respected, we cannot arrive at truth in science. I do not see a growing doubt in science caused by the persistence of voodoo. In the case of science, we know this is baloney. Why do we maintain our confidence in science despite cultural differences? Because science helps predict what our senses recognize as facts.
For some reason, people give more weight to cultural differences when it comes to ethics. For example, when I was in college I was told that we view obligations to the elderly differently than some Eskimos, who will send the old off into the frozen tundra to die in peace. But I have witnessed healthcare delivered in Eskimo villages. When their options for the care of the elderly are similar to ours, they make the same healthcare decisions we do.
I have done business on five continents, not only as an ethics advisor but also as a general business consultant. I have yet to find a place in which honesty is not valued. I was in Japan shortly after the Lockheed bribery scandal broke. It was alleged as part of the scandal that various members of the Diet and Japan’s Prime Minister were involved in taking bribes. I have been told many times that this was culturally acceptable in Japan. But why then did Prime Minister Tanaka and many members of the Diet resign in disgrace?
Just because ordinary people cannot prevent their leaders from taking bribes does not mean that bribery is acceptable. We often hear the same story with respect to Mexico, that bribery is acceptable there. But the ordinary Mexican citizens I know are as disgusted as anyone over the corruption in their society.
The ethics eye is a human trait not a cultural artifact. There are no cultures in which there is no ability to sympathize or empathize, the triggers to the ethics sense, and none in which there is no distinction between right and wrong. The distinction between right and wrong may be different than ours, but it exists. This means that the tools we use to sharpen the ethics eye and to create ethical agreement have a chance of producing ethical agreement across cultures. When we are too quick to write off ethical disagreements as cultural artifacts, we lose the possibility of using our ethics sense to achieve insight and agreement. Maybe some cultural differences are so deep that we cannot expect ethical agreement. But shouldn’t we at least try? I am not suggesting that we force others to follow our ethics. I am suggesting that we try to find common ground in ethics even at the risk of changing our own views.
What happened on the issue of ethics and culture is that for many years we simply assumed that our ethical viewpoint was the ethical viewpoint. When anthropologists began to probe other cultures, they correctly found this attitude to be arrogant and one-sided. But the factors that cause different people in different cultures to disagree are often the same factors that cause people within a culture to disagree. I think the extent to which there are irresolvable ethical differences among cultures is often overestimated as a sort of penance for our past arrogance. Once we recognize our ethics sense, and develop tools to sharpen it, there is no reason not to seek ethical agreement within and across cultures.
Observation
1. The five tools for sharpening our ethics sense are Read the Ground Rules, Reason Backward to Find the Interests, Face the Facts, Stand in the Shoes, and The Global Benefit Approach. How would the five tools apply in the owner’s case?
2. Ground rules were broken to protect personal and group interests. There were insufficient sympathy when confronted with facts and general dissatisfaction with how the issue was handled.
3. Make an Ethical Difference Mark Pastin
People are often skeptical that there is anything they can do to raise society’s ethical level. Mark Pastin begs to differ. We can make a difference, and we don’t need ethics “experts” to tell us what to do. He argues that we all have an innate ethical sense--what he calls an “ethics eye.” He offers tools for sharpening the ethics eye so we can see and do the right thing ourselves, particularly in the workplace, where our decisions can affect not just ourselves but coworkers, clients, customers, and even an entire organization.
Seeing what’s right is one thing--getting others to agree with you is another. With examples drawn from his decades of experience advising governments, corporations, and NGOs, Pastin shows how to identify competing interests, analyze the facts, understand the viewpoints, measure the benefits of different outcomes, and build consensus. You’ll gain confidence in your ethical sense, make better leadership decisions, and take actions that elevate the ethics of the groups and organizations you belong to--and society as a whole.
