Ethics Bistro

As I am writing this blog, Australia confronts the findings of an investigation that our special forces allegedly committed war crimes in Afghanistan, our New South Wales Premier is perceived to have broken her own health advice rules – not self-isolating after a Covid-19 Test; and our previous Federal Finance Minister; is jetting Europe at the expense of tax payers to lobby for an OECD role while at the same time, Australians overseas are waiting for repatriation flights to bring them home.  

Australia is facing national and global challenges[i]:  Covid-19 pandemic, the future of work resulting from the introduction new technologies; AI, Robotics, Cyber Security;  climate change and the impact on our environment with the diversity and uniqueness of our rare species be it in the bush or in the oceans. The fires followed by floods that we faced last year are still vivid in our memories as we are experiencing a heat wave this weekend with well above average temperatures. In addition to that our journey of reconciliation with Indigenous Australians has yet a long way to go.

One cannot help but wonder: How ethical is Australia? And what difference would that make? And why would I care as a leader whose field is Project Management about how ethical the country is?

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay[ii]

Despite the challenges, and the current political climate, the findings of a recent study commissioned by the Ethics Centre in Australia and conducted by Deloitte Access Economics[i] draw a more positive picture, stating that:  

• 56%:  Proportion of Australians who think most people can be trusted. This was a considerably higher percentage than the USA, the UK and most Western European nations but some way behind the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Finland. In particular, we were approximately 10 percentage points behind Sweden – a country with consistently one of the highest levels of trust.
• 12/18: Average assessment of the degree to which others make agreements honestly, keep their word or succeed by not stepping on other people
• +37%:  The Governance Institute rates Australia + 37 on the scale of -100 to 100. The health care sector is seen as the most ethical.

So what are the benefits of a more ethical Australia, or any country for that matter, and where do we start?

The study affirms that ethical infrastructure is to be built at the society and organisational level in both formal and informal ways;

So how ethical are we as leaders? What’s our ethical score? And, do we have any PMI Ethics tools that will enable us as individuals to be more aware of our ethical values and behaviors?

• Ethics Self Assessment
• Project Team Ethics Assessment
• Ethics Decision-Making Workshop
• Project Bully Identification

How about taking the Ethics Self-Assessment questionnaire as a self-reflection tool? How ethical is each and every one of us? What is the gap and how can we address it?

Share your thoughts - What other activities do we undertake as individuals and professionals to build ethics and professional conduct awareness in our teams, organizations, and communities? 

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  References:  [i] https://ethics.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/The-Ethical-Advantage-4.pdf  [ii] https://pixabay.com/illustrations/business-idea-style-concept-goals-1753098/