ETHICS IN ORGANIZATIONS Dr. Begoa Roman.

2nd Intervida Day (22-10-10)

I distinguish four Ethics: 1. Personal 2. Civic 3. Professional 4. Organizational First and foremost, I should clarify the concepts of ethics and morals: Morals: the daily behavioral norms of each of us. These respond to the question: what should I do? and the answer is an action (or an omission of an action). Ethics: is a moral philosophy, a critical reflection on morals. These respond to the question: Why do I have to do it? and the answer is an argument, a justification. It goes one step beyond the moral and at times it is hard for us to justify or explain why. It is the character of each and every one of us, that which distinguishes us, given that we are what we do; we are our actions.

1. Personal ethics Ethics of intimacy: Why do I do what I do. This includes a whole range of intimate decisions: get married or not, have children, become a vegetarian, be Catholic or Buddhist, etc. This cant be judged because everyone has his or her own criteria for personal ethics; we all seek our own personal happiness and there are many possible option, despite the fact that not all of these are valid. 2. Civic ethics It is also ethics what we decide for ourselves that affects not only our intimacy but also the rest of the world. It is a global ethic and there criteria here is not individual happiness but rather justice. And this is where philosophers have historically failed, because they have wanted to envision a global happiness and this is not possible given that when you try to achieve this, you are imposing your happiness model, your world vision, on others. When we talk about Justice I refer to dignity of life, not quality of life; I refer to the civic minimums which all people should have. A just life and a dignified life is a life in search of a better life, and you can seek this because you have certain minimums guaranteed (food, education, health, security, freedom of expression, etc.). As such, when we Cooperate, we do so in service of Justice and for the happiness of others, no tour own. If we do the reverse and we prioritize our world vision, then we fall into an enlightened absolutism like everything for the people, but without the people. And many say we want to make them happy, but this is a mistake! We should not be at the service

of their happiness but rather of their JUSTICE, of their DIGNITY and then they themselves will decide how to be happy; but first we must guarantee THEIR dignity. 3. Professional ethics This occurs when you act in your profession as a doctor, psychologist, teacher, etc. Now we are not looking to be happy, but rather what is at stake is the quality of our care, teaching, etc. In the case of Cooperation, there may be different aims of the service: education, community work, alimentation, health, etc. 4. Organizational And you all develop your profession in an organization (Intervida) and you come together, work and organize for a common aim: Cooperation for Development. And we have to reconcile these four ethics because when I come here to speak I dont check my personal ethics at the front door; I carry these with me as I am speaking. But how are these four ethics ordered? Which one predominates and which ones are secondary? The answer is that all social service is legitimized only if it increases Justice. The social legitimacy of any organization involves helping to increase Justice in a particular country or region. --Therefore, in the first place we have CIVIC ETHICS, that is JUSTICE (human rights, equality, decision-making on the part of the affected people as to what is just and what isnt, etc.). And before this, there are a series of implicit conditioning factors which are non-negotiable, given that they are essential requisites for Justice, such as: the pacts which must be fulfilled, our physical integrity must be guaranteed while we are making a pact, all parties must have access to the information and the decision-making about the pact, etc. AS such, remember that Justice is an agreement, but not all agreement is just. We must take care not to confuse Justice with Negotiation. Secondly, we have ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICS, because you dont go to developing countries independently, but rather in representation of Intervida, which is the organization which has the resources to do Cooperation. Thirdly is PROFESSIONAL ETHICS, given that there are no excellent organizations without excellent professionals. And finally, there is PERSONAL ETHNICS, and this means that you have to come motivated from home; if not, no one can motivate you or make you more conscientious about a particular issue. Each one of you has to understand what you do and why you do it. And despite that we are all on payroll, we shouldnt work just for salary alone; there has to be something else which gives meaning to what we do and this is easier in a job like yours in Intervida because you have a clear social legitimacy: you are in service of a Good, which is Justice.

What do we refer to when we talk about Quality?

In an organization like yours, Quality does not refer to a conventional and corporate term which means satisfying the needs and expectations of the client; you dont work with clients. You have to satisfy expectations, but always oriented in terms of Service to a Beneficiary so that one day he/she can be independent and not depend on you. Therefore, when we talk about Quality we refer to satisfying the fundamental expectations of all those involved in a service and not to crude corporate terms which say that Quality is only the satisfaction of the clients expectations. Among other things, because in the conventional sense, the client pays and decides; he makes demands of you and holds you accountable for your work. And you dont work this way; you work to better the lives of the most disadvantaged. As I was saying, the expectations have to be founded; that is, they have to be real and just. And what does that mean? Its simple, really: one can be ill and deny it, but the illness is still there and can only be treated by an accurate diagnosis. And in the case of Cooperation, the treatment (intervention) of the illness (poverty, unhealthiness, lack of education, hunger, etc.) has to produce a result (the improvement of living conditions). Thats why we should always ask: are the beneficiaries satisfied with our interventions? And its also necessary to take into account the expectations of the Cooperation professionals: yours and those of the Organization (Intervida). And how do we know that these expectations are real and just? Asking all those groups with whom you work: partners, sponsors, cooperators, beneficiaries, professionals, workers and teams. And on a day like today it is recommendable that you ask yourselves this question: what does Intervida expect from me? And then see if you like this expectation and it makes sense for you to respond to it or not, because perhaps it undervalues you or what they ask of you makes you inefficient, or because youve been doing the same thing for many years and dont move forward, etc. And there is another important question which you must ask yourselves: What DOESNT Intervida expect from me that I would like them to expect? And this means the large quantity of human capital which you give to Intervida and which is essential for increasing the initial motivation we talked about earlier. And we should also ask these questions to cooperators, beneficiaries, partners and collaborators and sponsors. What does Cooperation imply? Cooperation has to find coherence between the values which drive it, the actions which it carries out and the effect which it generates. It is not enough to say that you have some values and have created some interventions; you have to see what impact these interventions have had and evaluate these. Secondly, Cooperation implies Trust, but not in the sense of someone blindly giving us money and then we see what we will do with this Money, but rather it means hoping that people trust us because we do a series of projects and these are well thought out and justified. I explain why you should trust me, Intervida.

Thirdly, show me what you do and show me that you have done it how you said you would. I tell you what you have done well and congratulate you but I also tell you what youve done wrong and ask for an apology. We have to be fair when we are right and when we are wrong. As such, TRUST and JUSTICE should complement SOCIAL LEGITIMACY and EFFICIENCY in our actions. What is our Cooperation model? Firstly, we have to see what our ethos at Intervida is. Who am I, where do I come from and where do I want to go? Where am I going, why do I do it this way and what distinguishes me from other ways of doing cooperation? Secondly, the organizations publicity should be transparent. You say what you do and how you do it with no other reason. You say what you have learned and what you have done so that it doesnt happen again. Thirdly, the image: what do they know about me and what dont they know about me. The organization has to manage the ethos, the what it is (IDENTITY), the what it says it is (PUBLICITY) and what others say it is (IMAGE) in a coherent way. There is no Organizational Ethics without Professional Ethics To do things well it is necessary to do them with pleasure. We all have aspects of our jobs which we like and other aspects which we like less. But we have to find the reason why we do our work; this will make it less painful to do. Thats why, when we work in a team, it is very important to do things with meaning. You can force people to do a task but you cant force them want to do it. When people dont want to do something, they do it badly, without enthusiasm and it takes a lot of effort. As such, we have to try to ask ourselves why things are done they way they are done. If the reason is simply because this is the way weve always done it or because thats the way it is then we dont contribute to the ORAGNIZATIONAL ETHIC, which implies AWARENESS and BELONGING. This brings us to the Aesthetic of the Ethic. There is no ethic without aesthetic and, as such, there is no ethic without sensibility, without pathos (suffering, passion). It is also necessary to have a SENSE OF BELONGING, A COMMON OBJECTIVE and CLEAR LEADERSHIP. But WE MAKE THE ORGANIZATION; WE ARE NOT A VICTIM OF IT. This means that we cannot constantly situate ourselves as victims of the corporate syndrome. We respond for the organization, we do it day in and day out and we are the organization. And we cannot go each one alone, despite how apt we are in our area, because this leads to inefficiency and the craziness of Quijote. We all have to go in the same direction.

Between Intervida and me are the work teams In the first place, here act belonging and pride. We have to know what is our function. And for this, we need leadership; but not autoritarian leadership as in the old days, but rather leadership which is understood as a collective shared action which agrees upon a goal that

transcends the entire team. It is not a question of knowing: and what do I get out of this but rather of seeing why should we all fight for this? The work team, as a metaphor, should function as a group of geese in flight, forming an inverted L. When the first goose is tired, he goes to the back of the L, letting another leader take charge of the flight. The direction and the velocity remain the same, but there is a clear responsible delegation of tasks, because no one is indispensable. What do we understand by Responsible Delegation? This consists in not delegating problems, but rather in delegating that which you know how to do and, in the last place, in asking the person if he/she knows how to do what you are asking, if he/she can do it and if he/she wants to do it. Delegating what you know how to do means empowering the other and precisely because I have delegated to someone else what I know how to do I can dedicate my time to learning that which I dont know how to do. Trust is an important value which Cooperation Works with. It is earned, day by day, in the mid to long term and it is lost quickly. And to close, I will say that everything I have commented on up until now refers to Moral Resources (Justice, Trust, Moral, etc.) which depend on us. And this happens to the reverse as with Economic and Ecological Resources. With the latter, the most you spend, the less you have less. With the moral this is not the case: the more you invest in Moral Resources, the most you earn, the more you will have. --------------Begoa Romn Maestre (Petrer, Alicante, 1965) holds a Doctorte degree in Philosophy from the Universitat de Barcelona (1993). She received the Award for Excellence in both her undergraduate (1989) and doctoral studies (1995) at the Universitat de Barcelona. From 1996 to 2007 she served as Head of the Ethics department of the Universitat Ramon Llull. She currently is a professor in the Faculty of Philosophy of the Universitat de Barcelona. She is member of the consolidated research group of the Generalitat Contemporary Philosophy and Ethics. She is also the President of the Ethics Committee of Social Services of Catalonia, spokeswoman for the Bioethics Committee of Catalonia, member of the Bioethcis Committees of Hospital San Rafael and Hospital Moiss Broggi, and member of the ethical code monitoring committee of the Catalan Federation of Development NGOs. Her areas of specialization are Kantian ethics and applied ethics in professional and organizational spheres, about which she has published extensively.