From Ethics To Innovation

Preparing Your Enterprise for an Emerging Global Ethic

I train businesses and educational institutions using a unique approach to ethics management. My ‘Right vs Right’ workshop has been taught at UC Santa Cruz’s Leadership and Management Programs. By incorporating our workshop, managers gain a deeper understanding of ethics’ role in their workplace. They also gain essential leadership tools for creating and sustaining a healthy company.

Organizational Ethics: A Conceptual Overview

Today’s troubling business climate requires that organizations have a thorough understanding of ethics so that appropriate decisions can be made when dilemmas arise. But ethics management consists of more than knowing what to do once a problem arises. Appropriate ethical action can only be applied when company managers are committed to leading from an ethical rightness based on values, not just the law. A broader education on ethics can help to reduce legal action by teaching managers how to make clear decisions early in the process.

 

The 6P’s of Ethical Influence

PRINCIPLE – PRACTICE – POLICY (organizational)

PEOPLE – PROFIT – PLANET (global)

These ethical concepts for company managers to comprehend:

1. Know why doing the right thing is important as a principle.
2. Know how to incorporate ethics as part of a daily decision-making practice.
3. Know what the legal responsibilities of corporate and government policy.

Knowing the ‘why, ‘how’, and ‘what’ of ethics allows managers to:

• Intuitively respond to principle needs of involved stakeholders [the why].
• Exercise ethics as part of making quality day-to-day decisions, such as hiring employees, or determining the appropriateness of new technologies [the how].
• Rationally apply legal policy-correctness to ethical circumstances [the what].

Right vs Right – Ethics for Managers

Based on the book ‘Defining Moments‘ by Joseph Badaracco

Workshop 1 Description:

Ever find yourself choosing between corporate and personal values? What process do you employ to approach ethical problems? This interactive workshop will explore ethical decision-making through the views of Joseph Badaracco’s book “Defining Moments”. Multiple perspectives from great thinkers including Aristotle, Machiavelli, and William James will be considered. Participants will learn to make ethical decisions by asking a series of ‘right-versus-right’ (rather than right vs wrong) questions aimed at clarifying ethical dilemmas and making better strategic decisions.

This workshop will help you determine what can be done when ethical activity is in question. Managers will learn how to:

• Explore what can be done when confronted with an ethical dilemma.
• Determine how to make ethical decisions using a non-judgmental, collaborative process.
• View ethical decision-making from multiple perspectives.

Balancing my right with your right.

This ‘Right vs Right’ workshop will help your organization be more successful by helping its people make better day-to-day. Whether you are part of a large or small organization, the success of your business now requires that decisions be made based on a larger perspective. The ‘Right vs. Right’ concept for decision-making will help to:

1. REVEAL basic values and ethical beliefs held by managers that may be keeping your organization from realizing its optimal place within the global market.
2. STRENGTHEN managers commitments to the organization and to doing the right thing.
3. SHAPE their personal character to better match the needs of company stakeholders. As the character of management shifts, so will the character of your organization.

Thus, ‘Right vs. Right’ practices will help to define a more strategic enterprise that is aligned with today’s global society.

Download Right vs Right workshop slides

 

A Company’s Ethical Onion …

Ethics are based in personal and collective values, which are buried at the center of the organization.

Outer Skin: Ethical Policy of the Organization relating to Customer and Supply Chain Relations Inner Layers: Manager Awareness of Values and Applied Practices At the Core: Underlying Cultural Belief Systems & Mythical Assumptions

Conversation cafe’s bring the human-ness back into the picture of company ethics and rightness, and individual morality and beliefs

Corporate Ethics – A Company Conversation

Workshop 2 Description:

DiscoveryFuel.com offers facilitated cafe conversations relating to ethics. Shift your company’s orientation from ‘passively listening to a presentation’ to ‘actively engaging in a conversation. An organization’s commitment to ethics provides value beyond simply getting employees to do the right thing. By engaging in ethical conversations, a company actually opens doors to new forms of innovation at all levels of the enterprise – from hiring quality staff, to producing better products and services. The conversation will be focused on three primary influences upon organizational ethics: principles, practices, and policies. We will discuss personal understandings of these terms, how they relate to ethical activity within companies, and how both corporate and individual values play a role in building a balanced ethical practice within enterprise and its implications on innovation.

Download ethics conversation slides and conversation table cards.

Websites for Increasing Your Ethical Comprehension

Institute for Global Ethics, Center for Applied Ethics, Markula Center For Applied Ethics, Earth Charter (global principles for establishing global ethics), Socially responsible business links, Improving social, environmental and economic performance of business, Ethics Resource Center More … Ethics Questions, Options for Change, Business Ethics Balance, Ethics Quality, Resources for Ethics and Management, Working Ethics, Wharton Legal Studies Ethics Program

To Learn More About Onsite or Online Workshops at Your Company
Email Vic