Ethics live in the details

Weighty words and hollow verbiage too often bear the title of a Code of Ethics and such codes remain under the radar at many organizations. Ethics codes speak of principle not practice. Only companies that make ethics a priority at all levels of the organization, especially at the executive level can reasonably claim allegiance to a Code of Ethics.

As a writer of online training courses in ethics and compliance I’ve seen the differences. Many companies train employees as a preemptive legal strategy: employees spend 60 minutes clicking answers and reading text about the organization’s policies and expectations. Doing this makes wrong doing or "ethics violations" the responsibility of the individual actor not, the company argues, the organization at large. Yet, once finished, most employees return to their tasks and tuck what information they retained somewhere out of consciousness, continuing on as if the training hardly happened.

Not much changes after the training. When an ethical violation arises — a coworker asks you to clock out for her so she can stop by the store before she picks up her kid from daycare — few employees have courage enough to draw attention to the situation. While some may refuse her request, saying: “I’m not comfortable with that” or something of the like, few consider such an incidental request an ethical violation. Would you?

Ethics live in the small things, in the details. Yet it is precisely here where the graying of ethics begins. Individuals must not only hold themselves accountable, but we must each remain accountable to our fellow colleagues, clients, consumers and citizens. Denying accountability in the simple, small matters frays the ethical fabric of upon which we base a code of ethics and hastens the unraveling and our collective ability to deny our own responsibility.