What needs to be done to convince executive leaders that

ethics training is a top priority

and warrants appropriate expenditures?
[Excerpts copied from my LinkedIn pages June 2012]

Are our leaders that insulated, arrogant, and self-serving to think that their organizations are
invulnerable to poor conduct that potentially exposes them to great risk?
John McDermott, CPLP I do not think that is the reason, I have heard the following
(honestly):
- Only managers care; others see it as a waste of time as they have no control over the
business
- Ethics training is BORING! (And calling it 'training' makes it worse)
- There is no way to make unethical people ethical
- Ethics is like religion -- we each have our own
- Are you perfect? No? Then how can you teach me ethics?
- The AMA [American Management Ass'n] doesn't have a course in it
Frank Bucaro Mark,
I honestly don't think that it will happen, generally speaking, until you tie ongoing ethics
training to ongoing performance reviews, consideration of raises, promotions, etc.
John, I like your list as well! Sad eh?
Aubrey Janga Dear friends. Ethical leadership to me is far beyond training from the
prospective of business control. What about taking a step back and considering the bigger
picture? What about looking a little deeper into the rabbit hole? One may even understand
why there are so many people caught in the ethical paradox. Consider a possible bigger
picture. Dare to invest two hours in the following compilation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEV5AFFcZ-s&feature=relmfu
Mark Faris Thanks all for your comments and observations. It is clear that most businesses
and organizations are content to print their codes of conducts and values to be read. We know
these are merely words and employees can hide behind them.
Recognizing, rewarding, and supporting employees to do the right thing by reporting ethical
violations sends strong signals and is a deterrent to poor conduct. Frank, this is an idea that
we all can get behind and educate as to the obvious benefits. This can save companies
significant litigation and human capital costs.
In addition, may I point out from personal experience that any officer of a company has a
fiduciary responsibility to report ethical violations and or possible illegal conduct taking
place. Turning a blind eye and being ignorant is not an excuse and those individuals can be
held criminally and civilly liable. John, I have heard the same reasons and excuses you have.
It is interesting how these same managers and executives change their tune when federal and
state prosecutors are part of training.

Aubrey Janga The Quality assurance function resides mostly under the COO nevertheless
the shepherd of the CXO remains the CEO. He is the one that can come to terms with the
chairman to collaboratively develop an environment of ethical leadership and trust at the
executive level. This WILL affect the environment of C-level manager. The clue resides in
the co-ownership of ethical leadership between the CEO and the Chairman. The former will
make the latter show off with an un-peccable reputation as long as the mutual understanding
is granted and hold high in alignment of their common purpose. If part of that purpose is
ethical assurance that the quality assurance will resonate on each process across the
enterprise, without becoming a technocrat about it.
adrian cutten A view from the UK. As a long time foot soldier in manufacturing industry
over 37 years, it's interesting to see how things have changes, or not, as the case may be.
Clearly those personal values and qualities imbued in the leadership of a people have always
been a subject of deep concern (Plato's Socratic reflection: "I choose a carpenter to build my
house; a cobbler to mend my shoes; so who should I choose to manage the ship of state?).
Aristotle (the first known writer of any treatise on ethics) was right on the money regarding
the problems of excess; rather that Eudaimonia (happiness) came from a personal balance of
virtues which could not be taught.
Certainly on a personal level, the influence of family, friends, teaching and self motivated
learning has shaped my world-view and given me certain cosmological values in relation to
human conduct etc which I value with my life. Whilst I have worked for many organisations
both large and small, including my current global employer, I have to frankly state that the
influences and failings which gave/give rise to criminality and malpractice were almost
always imbued into their perpetrators by an organisational culture which often tolerated and
frequently encouraged such practices in the name of success, competition, personal gain or
otherwise.
Whilst i hold hard and fast to the benefits of ethics training (I do lots of it myself) and the
constant need to be alert, it is a source of distress to me to have the Code of Conduct and
"Integrity" rammed down my throat by any management cadre who have presided over those
very acts of malfeasance: as if I/we were the malign influence which corrupted the moral soul
of the organisation. Companies need to discover some deep humility, stop grovelling to the
DoJ who cut them their deferred prosecution deals instead of prison and apologise to their
employees, shareholders, suppliers and other primary stakeholders, many of who they have
damaged or destroyed through their actions.
Unfortunately, most "ethics" in business still has overwhelmingly more to do with legal
compliance than moral conduct and integrity. Ethics should be included in the school
curriculum from first grade through graduation; that might yield real progress! I never look to
any business leader for ethical leadership (do you?), to paraphrase Whistler, that would be as
futile as for the musician to pour his notes into the ear of a deaf man!
Best regards
Christopher Bauer John and Frank's comments ring all too true. That said, if I take the
original question literally, I would say that it's counterproductive to assume that 'one size fits
all'. In my experience, different executives have their fingers in the wind for very different
reasons. Most, for better or worse, want to hear how ethics training will specifically build
their bottom line and we can certainly make that case. Others, certainly for worse, simply
want to look like they're doing something about ethics. There, our best hope is to transfer
some truly valuable knowledge despite their resistance to it. Still others, thank goodness,
actually want to invest in developing a culture of ethics and values because they believe that

it is truly the right and best thing to do.

As beaten down as many of us are when it comes to trying to make a compelling case for
developing ethical cultures, it's important not to try half heartedly - or, in the alternative,
inflexibly - to make that case. A part of that, it seems to me, is to do the best homework we
can about the organizations we're trying to interest and then looking for what might be the
approach most appealing to whatever their current priorities might be.
Frank Vogl A vital question. The environment is changing very rapidly. In today's 24/7
news cycle, global coverage of social media, massive and rising blogging, the perceptions by
major firms and their leaders of unethical actions can very rapidly become major issues. And,
when they do, the mass-media, including social media, is likely to have a very negative view.
the damage this can do to corporations can be formidable. Charges by New York's banking
regulators against Standard Chartered Bank of violating Iran sanctions and money laundering,
swiftly created enormous negative media and pushed the share price down 30% at one point.
Management did not have a chance at damage limitation. The negative perception of the
ethics of the bank's leaders will persist, especially as more US official investigations are
underway.
In this environment top managers, as well as boards of directors, need to find the best
strategies - there is no better strategy than ensuring that they and all their employees and
partners pursue the highest ethical standards. If they do not, the costs to them and their
financial and business interests will be greater than ever.
It seems to me this should be a powerful argument to convince top managers that investing in
serious ethics training represents a very minor charge relative to the damage costs that could
emerge -- see the Standard Chartered case and the settlement yesterday
Catherine M. Ethics is more than teaching, asking, or expecting people to do the right
thing... Policies and procedures need to dictate ethical behaviour.
Being an ethical company is ensuring that policies and procedures meet high standards and
are there to achieve a certain end, not just simply be there to exist...eg... If a company has a
complaint system in place, whereby there are no hotlines for complaints and employees
cannot complain anonymously, the investigators are not properly trained, or the process is
intimidating ...that complaint process clearly does not meet high standards and would not be
effective....that is unethical..
Companies can design ethics into their businesses by developing policies and procedures that
go beyond compliance and good ethics bring good business practices, more professional staff
and in the end successful companies....
Lack of ethics can be very costly for companies, not only through regulatory failures, but also
through losses caused by fraud, costs attaching to heavy staff turnover and in some instances
regaining their reputation. Stakeholders are seriously concerned about ethics.
Just as compliance officers became a necessity in businesses, so too will ethics officers as the
latter go way beyond compliance and touches every aspect of the company.

Aubrey Janga Dear Catherine, I am of the same mind. Ethics is the fabric of organizational
consciousness where the "CORE VALUES" are encoded. From an architectural point of
view, they represent the fundamental essence of corporate identity. This substance of
integrity, encoded in the DNA of all related corporate resources, enables a harmonious and
optimal ethical balance across the whole organism (the extended enterprise).
The bespoken architectural integrity framework drives a type of Corporate Immune System
by monitoring, detecting, alarming, rejecting and taking corrective action in auto-response to
unethical instances. Hence, a process of optimization of both the risk to innovation profile as
the cost of doing business will render incremental improvements across the enterprise culture.
On this note, I insist in looking at business executives for ethical leadership, in response to
the question posted earlier by Adrian.
In closing I would like to point out that all entities can and will evolve to a stable balance of
being during its absolute life-cycle. Whether it is one subatomic particle consisting of yet unidentified quantum processes, an organism consisting of billions of processes or an
identifiable organization of economic, public or social resources consisting of hundreds to
thousands of processes. There will always be a collaborative relationship between the
respective zero-point, heart or board of directors and the intention, brain or operations.
The brain has evolved to serve the heart, as the heart was cultivated to evolve its values
adrian cutten Interesting and thought provoking responses. I can tell you that in my business
they evolved from "legal compliance" to "legal and integrity" on the basis that "integrity" was
different to "compliance". Then, we appoint integrity officers for each country, but guess
what, they have to be lawyers. Why? Because when you cut a deal with the US DoJ, one of
the paybacks is "health monitoring" and installing new programmes of training, education,
reporting and enforcement and that must be under purview of a lawyer because US FCPA is a
complex statute requiring legal qualification status to administer under it. Bunk is what i say.
One of the problems is that legal compliance, administering the law and being a lawyer can
never be synonymous with the problem if living an ethical life in business. At ground level,
to be a lawyer, you are required to separate your moral conscience regarding the equity of
adversarial justice and the power inequalities and injustice that inevitably follow. If I accede
to the process of convicting the innocent and/or acquitting the guilty (sometimes knowingly),
I am by default separating my moral reserve about such inequities in order to participate
within the established architecture for prosecution of the law.
Of course, that merely highlights that for most of us there are fewer choices than we are
willing to recognise, as the architecture described above is relatively insoluble by one
individual in an ordinary lifetime.
But for me, the real poison pill for conducting ones business life in accordance with decent
moral precepts is that overwhelmingly, most business mimics the adversarial nature of the
legal process. That is to say, if the matter of equity need not be present in any civil contract
between parties (excluding any monopolistic consideration), then I am at liberty to prosecute
any iniquity my cunning and power allows me to. This is what I witness everyday in large
business transactions, where some organisations play this mantra to the brink (lying, cheating
and beyond). It's only one small step from being free to prosecute inequalities against another
party, to doing them a serious moral injustice which might just do them real harm (and often
does).
The facts on the ground still mitigate strongly against open moral conduct in business and we
have to judge organisations by what they do, not what they say. Many whistleblowers today
still fair very badly in the aftermath and the fact that they need legal protection at all says
more about the real state of the organisational conscience than any of their codes or

procedures.
Nevertheless, it doesn't stop me trying folks!
Jim Meyers I think if you need to convince executives that ethics is a top priority - be it
ethics training or ethical principles underpinning policies and practices then the business is
probably doomed.
Executives must be committed and demonstrate commitment to ethics in every facet of the
business if the business is to succeed and if employees are to have a clear understanding of
what the business values and stands for.
Frank Vogl Jim Meyers is right in theory - but many CEOs believe that they are displaying
the right "tone at the top" and that the compliance training of their employees is, in effect, the
same as ethics training. here the comment by Adrien Cutten goes to the heart of the problem the lawyers are too often in charge, seeing all ethical issues within a compliance prism. I do
not think we shall see change until boards of directors assert themselves on this front. Recent
corruption scandals may heighten awareness. It will be important to see how the allegations
against WalMart for bribery in Mexico and related matters, works out --- it is just the sort of
very high profile case which could create the needed buzz to get boards at some firms to start
asking the right questions.
****Frank Bucaro Frank,
You hit the nail right on the head! I come up against this attitude all the time.
Ulrich Schckermann We need to be quite clear that compliance training is not ethics
training. i am not so sure that ethics can actually be taught. Compliance is doing - not
necessarily involving any personal decision.
Ethics requires thought and reflexion; it requires some kind of record to show what was
thought at the time and what factors influenced the decision. Compliance only requires a "tick
list" successfully concluded. Unless ethical behaviour forms part of a evaluation system and
plays part in determine size of pay-packet and terms of promotion, we will always struggle to
get ethical behaviour as part of the organisational behaviour which is supported by
management and all staff.
Frank Bucaro ULrich,
I've been "preaching" the difference between compliance and ethics for over 20 years! They
are complimentary yet distinctly different. Thanks for affirming that for us!
Elena Buran Dear colleagues,
I would like to draw your attention that you basically touch only part of the ethics functions:
policy and analysis. Analysis and an indication of signs - not productive, people intuitively
feel it, so react accordingly.
Business manufactures a product, value-added. The production is not very friendly with the
analysis. except for quality assurance.
Fortunately, ethics has a creative approach. Consider a business process as the energy cycle.
energy can be increased specifically by creating a structure, energy does not suffer breakage
transfer. This continuity and extent, bringing profit and happiness the new product lines!
These new jobs, satisfied customers and employees - when they are together collectively to
participate in the work that did not exist before! People want new goods, and they want to be

happy - it is a productive approach.

This synthesis of the wealth in the business. And all you need to do - add value by increasing
the core values.
Personally, I see similarities with the children of businessmen - they happily rearrange the
"pyramid" of their productions, always enthusiastically waiting for the best effect. This
means that it is useful to praise, praise for doing directed that they should be at work as if it
had been there already. and denote increasing the presence of compensation for the fact of
what praise. So increasing the cost. This is a productive approach. This is close and
understandable business, because business creativity of talented people, like children! they
need the prospect of achievement. That's how the best PR professionals, marketers and the
best coaches seeking stable long-term effect.
Nobody likes to be taught in their own home. Enjoy the hospitality business focused!
wish you all the best!
****Mark Faris A lot of great points and thank you. This is so important to weigh in on. We
have all seen corporate executives and their Boards patting themselves on the back for
creating the policies, guidelines, and even the values they claim to represent. While a great
place to start and certainly enforce from a compliance point of view, we all know this is just
the beginning.
Frank and Ulrich are correct to distinguish between compliance and ethics. The common
worker needs to SEE (not just read or hear) from supervisors, managers, executives, and
Boards of Directors much more that will significantly change cultures to be morals based,
honest, transparent, and less self-serving. This calls for deeds and not just mere words. It calls
for leadership that is open and wants input from the work force. It calls for environments
where employees are rewarded for not only providing valuable ideas and input, but also
reporting behaviour that is questionable, unethical, or illegal.
I have seen first-hand some publicly held companies that have a history of punishing
whistleblowers under the guise of employee hotlines and legal departments that are supposed
to provide them protection and confidentiality. Their reputations become tarnished in the
communities they serve, to their colleagues they work with and to potential candidates who
might be considering employment with them.
I would remind any executive or manager what their job as a leader is: you teach, develop,
enrich, mentor, and guide others to be successful as individuals that contribute collectively to
the organization's missions and goals. If you disagree, do us all a favour that truly care and do
the right thing and get out of the way. Take off your shackles and start inspiring others!!
You are not invulnerable to poor conduct by others and can take shortcuts as easily as the
next person. It's not about you, and the needs of your organization are always more
important. Perhaps at the end of the day, it is this very point that I feel is required to repeat
over and over again often without the impact I would like to see.
Frank Bucaro Bravo Mark!