Are we paying attention to the dormant ethical fires?

 

As I am writing this blog, more than 80 fires are raging in New South Wales and Queensland - two states in Australia! Heavy smoke is blurring visibility at the airports, hiding Sydney Harbour Bridge and triggering fire alarms in buildings. 

It’s been quite a tough time, whether on Australian farmers or on those who live in or close to the bush! Lives were lost, homes, belongings and a large part of bush land along with native habitats and animals lost.  And it’s more likely to get worst as the summer season has just started.

It’s not the message anyone wants to hear nor the experience that anyone wants to go through. Especially during the festive season, we all want to rejoice, be happy, look optimistically as we turn the page on a year gone and open a new page on new beginnings.

My mind starts drawing parallels between the bush fires and ethics in project management.

Photo from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-12/gospers-mountain-fire/11790830

Our Ethics and Professional Conduct are at the core of what we do, whether it’s part of our daily behaviors, actions, sentiments or decisions.

It is a critical component of our culture, as individuals, as teams and as organisations. Yet sometimes, we might dismiss an unethical behavior or be patient in tackling it until we see the “Fires”.

Though we might be away from the fire, the smoke that engulfs a profession, an organisation or an industry, engulfs us all. This causes damage that we would never imagine to us as individuals, organizations and to project management as a profession. The fire of unethical conduct can rummage through smaller pockets of projects to large-scale industries thus causing impact that might no longer be controllable. Its impact could be detrimental to the survival and existence of an organisation – depending on its nature, it ranges from damaging the individual and organisation brand and reputation, destroying trust to putting its sustainability let alone its existence at risk.  

Similarly, Sydney was engulfed with hazardous smoke, you could smell it while inside the office, you could see it as it covers all the beautiful harbour city, its beaches and distinctive Sydney Harbour Bridge as well as its buildings.

One cannot help but wonder - are we preserving the heritage that we are enjoying? The history of the land and its people, the environment and the resources that are entrusted to us?

This is a hard project management lesson that include ethics. Are we listening to all our stakeholders? Are we really listening and respecting their advice by honoring their experiences and wisdom? 

Are we responsible enough to take actions in our projects that will mitigate and eliminate the ethical fires, ensuring awareness of our Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, and providing the tools to our team members to equip them sufficiently to deal with dormant fires - be prepared for the fires once they come their way, or even better recognize what to and when to do it well ahead of the fire?

Let us all refresh our memories as we embrace a new year wearing ethics as an armor that will protect us from the fires to come, putting them at bay, getting us to manage our projects ethically, sustainably and successfully. It’s our responsibility to ensure that our team members are aware and well equipped well ahead of the fires. Re-read and distribute our PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, have a look at the PMI Ethical Decision Framework and use the available Ethics toolkit – run a workshop, go through all resources  on pmi.org/ethics. There’s a plethora of ethics related discussions, webinars and articles on projectmanagement.com.

Let me take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Festive Season and a Prosperous, Peaceful and Ethical New Year.

Photo from https://pixabay.com/photos/poinsettia-adventsstern-4648025/