Business Ethics Made Simple

By Mary Parker
ALL-n-1 Security Solutions
Building 2005; Growing 2007

For an organization to conduct its business in a truly ethical manner, ethical behavior must be firmly instilled in the corporate culture.  Embedding anything new into an established business culture is a laborious and not always successful venture.  Employees in many types of enterprises are reluctant to embrace change, especially if they find the current modus operandi satisfactory or beneficial.  One way to instill ethics as a corporate value is to enforce codes of conduct.  The codes must apply to everyone in the organization, from the CEO down.  Nothing undermines efforts to instill ethics more than applying the rules to some employees only.  For employees to embrace change, they must see it as beneficial and equitable.  If a new value does not apply to everyone in the organization, it will ultimately apply to no one.

While making an ethical decision can be difficult because of the variety of considerations and options available, the basic ethical premise on which a business can base its ethics program is simple.  Aristotle observed that one becomes just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, and brave by performing brave actions.  In brief, a business can become ethical by performing only ethical actions.

In most cultures the closet thing to a universal guideline for ethics is the Golden
Rule:  to treat others the way one would want to be treated oneself.  This guiding principle works for both individuals and organizations.  It appears simple but applying it requires a little more thought. The concept of deciding to do the right thing begins with individuals who bring their personal values into their business dealings.  Therein lies the crux of the problem in making ethical decision.  Determining the right thing to do in a given situation is not always easy.  Differences between persons, cultures, laws, circumstances, and business rules and obligations mean that there is often more than one right thing to do, depending on one’s perspective.  Deciding what is right is and being willing to do it may take a significant amount of resolve because doing what is right may not be the easiest or most popular choice.