WPA in the News

Investor's Business Daily's 10 Secrets to Success: Time For An Ethics Code

August 10, 2007

So many ethics crises pop up: backdating stock options, fudging numbers on income statements, conflicts of interest, using company money for personal items.

One way to address the problem is to create a businesswide code of ethics.

That's the solution Howard Gardner proposes. He's a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of the book "Five Minds for the Future."

He points to several professions, such as medicine and law, in which professionals must meet standards to keep their licenses. Business isn't like that.

"Unless you have agreed-upon criteria and training, you can't get kicked out," Gardner said.

Now's the time for a code, says Lynn Lieber, founder and chief executive of Workplace Answers, a San Francisco-based training firm focused on ethics.

"Technology is going to force us to come up with an ethical code for everyone," Lieber said. "It raises all sorts of business ethics questions."

Blogs and Web sites question behavior in the corporate world -- including whether you can complain about your boss, post work photos or bash co-workers online.

"A code could be a very powerful tool for businesses to adopt," Lieber said.

The problem for many businesspeople when it comes to ethics is they aren't sure what's right, Lieber says. They see lots of gray.

• Make it have consequences -
  People must sign an agreement to live up to the code, and there has to be a method of complaint, as well as a judging and enforcing mechanism," Gardner said.
  Any successful ethics program should reward ethical behavior and punish bad actions. A code might include a license that could be pulled, he says.
• Push personal conduct -
  People in public must maintain the firm's standards, Lieber says.
• Protect company assets -
  "An organization needs to define what that includes," she said. She says you shouldn't pass along information about a customer that needs tech service to your brother-in-law who's a tech consultant.
• Underscore conflicts of interest -
  This includes whether you should serve on another firm's board, Lieber says.

Why don't businesses just do the right thing, regardless of a code? A lot of it comes down to the quarterly pressure for profits. "People will do whatever they can to make profits grow," Gardner said.

Sure, business schools tell students they need to be ethical. "But the implicit message that you have the chance to make a billion dollars by the time you're 25 is powerful," Gardner said.

Most companies want to be ethical, Lieber says. But many firms don't require training in that arena. They gloss over their own internal codes and don't focus on overall integrity.

"There's some hesitation," Lieber said, "because they think they'll open Pandora's box if they emphasize it."

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