I know I should be blogging about business advice, knowledge trading and http://gibli.com but I have become increasingly interested in ethics, and business ethics in particular and so will today blog about this.
We live and run our businesses as a part of a community and so have both rights and responsibilities as a part of that community.
However I go beyond the view that so long as we obey the law, everything is OK. I also go beyond the view that giving something to charity makes all the bad stuff OK.
The Good
The choices are not easy to make, as we have to make choices every day about how we will communicate and work with others, but the wrong choice is often easier and more profitable than the good answer.
But the title of this blog may seem a bit extreme for this topic. How can small decisions that seemingly only effect ourselves lead to evil? Like booking a conference with a particular airline or hotel because you get points, or choosing a supplier because they wine and dine you, or helping yourself to the office stationary?
However small decisions like these reduce our sensitivity to the bad stuff. The more often we see it the more likely we are to consider it correct and OK. Then we find its OK to discuss in public with friends and colleagues.
The next step is to only do stuff if there’s something in it for you. This is common in the upper echelons of some large companies, and leads middle and junior level people to assume that you can only get on in your career by being corrupt.
So each small decision leads people to assume the bad stuff, bribery, corruption, cheating and theft is OK.
I like analogies as they make things easier to visualise.
The Bad
The top of the saturated part of the earth rock beneath our feet is called the water table. So above the water table there may be tunnels and air filled caves, but below everything is wet and any spaces like wells will fill with water. Where the water table appears on the surface we get streams, lakes and seas.
The analogy that works for me in this case is that as well as a water table there is also a ‘goodness table’ which appears at the surface in places where good things happen, and below the surface in war torn countries.
The way this analogy works is that every time we do something bad, it depresses the ‘goodness table’ down toward the ground. Thus a company may have its own goodness level, which may be lower in businesses which accept the bad stuff as just part of doing business than in a business which is more ethical.
But the level of the goodness table affects not just other employees in the company, but suppliers, customers, families and the community at large. So some businesses will raise the level, whereas others will reduce it.
If the bad stuff spreads and affects the whole community it can lead to the ‘goodness table’ being forced underground, and lead to the evil taking over.
My point overall is that each small decision we make, can make our community either better or a worse place.
Lets make good decisions, lets raise the goodness table, and lets encourage others to do the same.
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