Right From Wrong: Reporting Ethics Violations is Part of the Job

John Sullivan is a working project manager who writes and speaks on project and career issues.

  Ethics   PM Network  

Earlier in my career, I worked with a facilities manager who had a reputation for getting gifts from our suppliers as a reward for giving them business. He was quite arrogant and vocal about his accomplishments, which included a house full of furniture courtesy of our interior design firm. One day I overheard another example of his blatant unethical behavior and decided to take action. Too scared to call from inside the office, I walked outside to a pay phone to report the incident to the company’s ethics officer. He wasn’t in and I was afraid to leave a message. I never called back because I feared the facilities manager would discover I made the report and take action against me.

My fears were justified. Despite changes in laws in some countries over the last 10 years, the practice of “whistleblowing” remains a solitary and risky pursuit that often ends with dismissal.

That’s how it was for Cathy Goodman, Ph.D.

One project manager’s story

Dr. Goodman’s project team was forced to use a vendor’s equipment “despite the fact that our engineers had tested it before the project and said it didn’t work,” she says. After continued complaints, she was warned to never question management again.

Frustrated, she escalated her complaint through sales, the engineering organization and the project …

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