Day-to-Day Ethics

Following 20 years at a large Canadian telecommunications firm, Bruce established the project management consulting firm Solutions Management Inc (SMI). Since 1999, he has provided contract project/program management services, been a source for project management support personnel and created/delivered courses to over 7,000 participants in Canada, the United States and England.

  Estimating   Ethics  

As business professionals, a certain level of conduct is expected when dealing with high-profile issues that could perhaps involve legal or media exposure. But what about the more mundane, day-to-day issues? Do the same guiding principles apply?

Definitions
I found it interesting to gather three definitions of ethics. With each, I provided my thoughts.

Merriam-Webster defines ethics as “rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad.” My first reaction was to question if different people would have contrasting interpretation of “good and bad.” To be clear, I am not referring to criminals, but rather the contrasts between people of different age demographics, cultural backgrounds or even geographical locations. What is “bad” to one group may be considered acceptable to another.

A website focused on business ethics stated that they “can be defined as the critical, structured examination of how people and institutions should behave…In particular, it involves examining…the pursuit of self-interest, and profits, when the actions of individuals or firms affects others.” I reflected on my career at a very large organization where sales staff were aggressively measured on their quarterly results. The compensation package was absolutely built on individual performance. Did that make the company …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.