Badaracco is presenting a theory of ethics that I have seen in textbooks before. I’m not impressed. The first has got to be the shallowest possible interpretation of Utilitarianism as well as an equally inadequate exposition of the principle of rights. Then there is “what will people think.” My reputation is all. And we can’t live in a fantasyland. Wow, I betcha that Bible and the Western Civilization stuff got nailed there.
Of course, I guess you have to make it simple for the masses of the corporate relativists in the crowd.
Oh, well, read it for what’s it is worth –
The conference’s concluding keynote speaker, Joseph Badaracco, Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School, presented the assembled CIOs a practical guide to making ethical decisions—not in case of right versus wrong, because that’s easy—but in right versus right, because that’s hard.
Badaracco suggested four ways to think about each decision:
1. Will it produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people? That’s a good place to start, Badaracco said, but it’s not sufficient.
2. What are the rights of the people involved? For example, if a Nobel Prize winner, on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer, needs your heart, having it cut out of your chest against your will would, ultimately, produce a great deal of good for a great number of people, but it would certainly violate your rights. Not to mention establishing a grisly precedent.
3. What will the decision say about your values, your character, and the values and character of your organization? Leaders need to represent the values they hold dear. However, simply focusing on how the decision reflects upon you can be short-sighted at best, priggish at worst. Finally,
4. What will work in the real world? Leaders cannot afford to live in fantasyland.
All these questions eventually need to be answered, and one can spend a long time thinking about them. But say you don’t have a lot of time? Badaracco offered a quick three-step process:
1. The newspaper test. How will you feel if your decision hit the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper?
2. The Golden Rule. How would you feel if someone else made the decision about you?
3. The obituary test. How would you like the people you respect to look back at your decision?
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Mr. Badaracco seems to put much stock into the idea that what is popular is best. 2 of the 3 steps in his quick process revolves around how others will perceive the decision. I think this is a shallow and intellectually hollow way of developing a system of ethics.
The “Golden Rule Test”, I think, warrants some merit, but it also has a flaw. Sometimes the best decision for a company will involve a negative impact to one or more individuals. If one utilizes this rule and thinks “what if I were the one being laid off or fired?”, then it could lead the CEO to make a decision that, while compassionate, is detrimental to the company as a whole.
I find the long method to be more intellectually and morally stable. Of course, its not perfect either. I agree that #1 is a good place to start, and that it alone is not sufficient. #2 is a fairly simple question in my mind. The rights of the people involved are usually determined by the overall society that the corporation resides in. This can, of course, vary from society to society. The value and character of the organization should be paramount. To preserve that, the leader must act in accordance with the organizations set of values. If he does this, then he needs not worry about how his character is perceived. The character of the organization is inevitably linked to the character of its leader.
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I’m going to reblog this one as well. Thanks!
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