Bad Corporate Conduct - Don't Be Like This

 If you have a company, you have an obligation to NOT kill your customers. If your business model requires you to kill people, you are a horrible person who should NOT be in business.  And I can't believe this has to be said out loud!!!!!

I live in Florida and we have a LOT of crazy stuff that happens here. Recently, my part of FL had a company responsible for a multi-state listeria outbreak that killed one person and hospitalized 22 others. One woman lost her fetus as a result of the infection. The company? Big Olaf.  

Now, having a contamination problem is bad enough. If you aren't putting effort and money into making sure your manufacturing is clean, you can run into problems that can kill people. People running food businesses have a moral obligation to make sure they take precautions to make sure their food is indeed safe and doesn't kill people. Big Olaf failed here. So - part 1 is - something happened that shouldn't have. 

Part 2 is how you respond if a mistake is made. Clearly a mistake was made, people got sick and died. Big Olaf, upon learning that their ice cream had killed someone - and a fetus, responded so badly, I honestly think they should no longer be in business. They insisted for a couple of weeks - after the outbreak was traced to them, that, they were being unfairly targeted by the FDA. They were not. They were the source of the outbreak.  But because they refused to admit it, they refused a voluntary recall of the contaminated product. For over 2 weeks, they continued to sell product that they knew was making people sick and killing people. 2 frigging weeks!!!! It was only after the FDA got a legal order to issue the recall, that the recall occurred.

Most food companies, issue voluntary recalls when they find out there is a problem with their product that can cause injury or death. This is because MOST companies are run by reasonable people who actually care about their fellow humans. This is the hallmark of humanistic leadership and humanistic business management. You take care to do good and do no harm and if you err, you fix it quickly!  This is how trust is created. 

This is NOT what Big Olaf did. They stuck their heads in the sand, claimed they were the victim and continued to harm people. Some of their franchises are now refusing to do business with them because they no longer trust the company. Act in an egregiously untrustworthy way - that's the consequence. No one wants to do business with you. 

I don't give an F who you are. Our government agencies overseeing commerce for our safety and benefit are not the enemy. They are our allies. If they tell you, your restaurant isn't clean or your food service facility has a problem, clean it up!!!! Your first obligation is to do no harm to your customers.  If your ego is such that you are willing to risk the lives of your customers to make some money, you don't deserve to be in business! 

We all have the ability to choose our response. If your business makes a mistake, own it, fix it and move on. Don't continue to do harm and pretend it's ok or pretend that you are the victim. If you've killed a customer and killed a customer's baby - you have a problem. If you refuse to acknowledge that, you don't belong in business. 

Rant Over.

Practicing humanistic leadership when others are not

 I had an article recently published in the Manila times.  It's about how to practice humanistic leadership when the people around you are not.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/02/23/business/columnists-business/practicing-humanistic-leadership-when-others-are-not/844335/

The key takeaway is this: If you want to be more humanistic, no one can stop you. Just be a good person. Live your values. Be compassionate, honest and responsible with everyone you meet. Your reputation will benefit from this choice. While unethical people around you won’t like it, most people you meet will be thrilled and your social status will benefit as a result. The number of unethical people is actually small when compared to the silent majority who are sick of unethical people but don’t have the courage to do anything about it.

Want some more advice? Here is a video I did on a similar theme - how to be professional.

Why are ethics so important?

Why are ethics so important? Because you can't make good decisions without them. 

Thinks about this. What is a good decision? Or a good solution?  Without defining what "good" means in the particular situation you are in, you cannot answer that question.

All good decision making requires the active application of ethics to decide between options. There is ALWAYS some metric being used to define good. Whether we are talking about a good hire, or a good customer or a good solution. 

If we don't actively and explicitly discuss what we mean by good, we a) have trouble creating consensus and b) often end up with bad results because we used bad ethics without questioning them.

Whenever I am on a team having a disagreement, my first effort is to ask questions. What is a good outcome? Or an ideal outcome? And most importantly - why. 

For instance, I was at a tower company, a good tower to the marketing team is a tower they can market. A good tower to the maintenance team was a tower that didn't require a lot of maintenance. A good tower to the financial team was a tower that brought in more cash flow than debt. 

Until we talked about the various differences in how the groups were defining good, we couldn't get consensus on this question. Once we did get clarity on the various versions of what good means, we could.

Now, I know what you are saying, but Jennifer, those aren't- ethics, like we think of ethics. But they are. They are closely related to them. 

Once you start discussing what good means, you can start bringing in the more moral aspects of ethics. Do this help or hurt the community? Does it help or hurt people in general? What about the climate?  These are all valid ethical considerations that should be integrated into decision making, both on a personal and a professional level.

So, stop worrying about whether you can discuss ethics. You are already. Or should be already. And don't be shy about bringing in moral metrics in addition to the business cases for what is good. Doing so will elevate the discussion. Engage people in the problem solving effort and make it collaborative. 

As always, I do have courses to help you learn this. My courses provide certificates of completion and are approved by HRCI and SHRM for continuing education credits.

Reality Based Decision Making for Effective Strategy Development - https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/ - 1 hour business

Principles of Humanistic Leadership https://humanistlearning.com/principles-of-humanistic-leadership/ 2 hours 

Or become a certified humanistic leadership professional - https://humanistlearning.com/certified-humanistic-leadership-professional/

Is there a core value I emphasize? Yes, there is.

 My core value as a Humanist is compassion. Here's why.  

I realize this list of humanist values doesn't include compassion. That's ok. It gets at it through the concept of empathy. 

I like to keep things simple. The list I use for myself has 3 elements. 

• Honesty
• Compassion
• Responsibility.

This list appears in my book The Humanist Approach to Happiness: Practical Wisdom. Which has been translated into several languages. https://humanistlearning.com/the-humanist-approach-to-happiness-book/

It also dominates all my online courses. 

Why Compassion? 

Let me answer that question with a question. Why be honest? Or why be responsible? Because if you aren't honest and responsible, you will hurt others and probably also yourself.  Why does it matter if you hurt people?  It doesn't, unless you are compassionate.  

Being compassionate means you are concerned, not just about yourself, but about others as well. The only reason to behave morally, is because of compassion. Without compassion, I don't think there is morality. 

Compassion is my moral compass. If I am ever in doubt of what to do, I think about the problem from the stand point of compassion. What will do the most good and the least harm for myself and others?  

Obviously, being compassionate isn't enough, but I do think it is a necessary starting point for all morality everywhere. 

Learn more by getting one of my books or taking one of my online courses: https://humanistlearning.com/jennifer-hancock/

Don’t Let Them Bully You

Stick to your values.

Sometimes it seems like the entire world is made up of unethical people.  People who are out for themselves and who are taking unethical short cuts. If you want to get ahead, do you need to take shortcuts too?

No!

If you have to be talked into doing something, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. This goes for jobs, sex, relationships, investment opportunities and more.   Business ethics are personal ethics.  If something isn’t right to you, it isn’t right. So don’t let people bully you or try to convince you that your ethical instincts are wrong.

Do be open to learning new facts, but if the facts seem unethical to you, they are probably unethical.

And if you really are dealing with bullies, ethical or otherwise, learn how to get them to leave you alone using science with the book: The Bully Vaccine - https://humanistlearning.com/the-bully-vaccine-book/

Ethical Frameworks

In order to be ethical you need to behave ethically. To behave ethically, you have to know what the ethical thing to do is and that requires you to be able to make ethical decisions.

Ethical frameworks provide support and guidance for ethical decision making by enabling the important aspects of the situation to be highlighted and evaluated. If you don’t have an ethical framework, making ethical decisions is nearly impossible. You might behave ethically, but it would be accidental.

Ethics is about what is good and what is bad. It involved making a choice. This is good, that is bad. To be able to make those judgements requires you to have values. Helping people is good, hurting people is bad is an example of a compassion based value.

One of the most famous ethical frameworks is the Bible’s 10 Commandments. Thou Shalt Not Kill, covet, commit adultery, lie, or steal. You should honor your parents and take days off now and again.  Yes, that’s only 7. The other three aren’t really about ethics.

So let’s say we all agree on these 7.  Where things get tricky is when they are in conflict with one another.  Is it ok to lie to prevent a murder?  Only if you value not killing more than you value not lying.

The ranking or prioritizing of your values is what transforms a set of ethical values into an ethical framework.  The more you think about what it is you value the more you are able to prioritize your values ahead of time so that when you are called upon to make an ethical decision, your ethical framework will help you find clarity.

Ethical decision making is rarely about whether something is good or bad. It’s the ability to decide between the greater of two goods or the lesser of two evils.

To learn more about ethical frameworks  - consider taking Living Made Simpler – my 6 hour online course on applied Humanism

Why is Ethical Decision Making So Hard?

4 steps to ensuring your decision making is ethical.

It turns out that ethical decision making isn’t easy. If it were, people would not struggle with this.  Here are 4 tips to help you make better, more ethical decisions.

1) Decide on your ethics. You cannot make ethical decisions if you have no concept of how to judge whether something is ethical or not.  Most ethical systems are basically the same, so it doesn’t really matter which one you pick. As long as compassion is ranked high on your list of things to care about, your ethical system will be consistent with most of the rest of humanity, who are the ones who will judge whether your decisions are ethical or not.

2) Be Prepared to Make Hard Decisions. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that ethical decision making is easy. All they need to do is apply their ethics.  It doesn’t work like that.  The big decisions, where what is good and bad is obvious, don’t require you to decide anything. What is hard is deciding between the better of two goods or the lesser of two evils. Those are the situations that require ethical decision making. Accept that up front and have the courage to decide what you think is the most good or the least evil. The essence of ethical decision making is, after all, the act of making a decision. It is sometimes unpleasant, but be prepared to do it anyway, or admit that your decision making isn’t based on rational ethics.

3) Learn How to Think Well. In order to make good decisions, you have to have some basis of deciding. This is where critical thinking comes in. First, to be ethical, you have to know what is true and what is false. This is the foundation of ethical decision making. If you think something is true that isn’t, you could end up doing something unethical by mistake.

4) Use your ethics to decide. Think through your options and work hard to figure out what the best solution to your problem is. Use your ethics as a guide to what you think is the most good and the least harmful.

So there you go. Ethical decision making requires you to think about your ethics so that your decisions do the most good and the least harm. At the center of this is thinking. Take the time to learn how to think well and your ethical decision making should improve too.