Order Out of Chaos: Business Ethics and Priorities

Business Ethics and Priorities: a lesson in humanistic management.

In a previous post I discussed how business ethics and human ethics. http://humanisthappiness.blogspot.com/2015/10/business-ethics-are-human-ethics.html  I want to expand on this concept here.

It isn’t enough to have a set of ethics and values. You have to live by those ethics and make decisions consistent with those ethics to be an ethical person. How you choose to act matters.

Deciding how to act and what to work on is where things get complicated. This is especially true in business.

I’m an entrepreneur. I have a lot of demands on my time. In order to be effective, I have to choose what I work on and what I don’t work on. The ONLY way I can make such decisions and have those decisions help me and my business and my customers is if I have my priorities straight. And the only way I can have my priorities straight is if I have my ethics straight.

I can’t create order out of chaos unless I have a firm grasp of my ethics. My ethics dictate my priorities.  In my case, my family comes first, then helping others through my business. What I am looking for is balance.

I think the thing people have trouble with is that they think of ethics in black and white terms. Either something is good or something is bad. Those questions are easy to decide. Where morality requires extra thinking is when we are forced to choose between the greater of two goods or the lesser of two evils.

What causes problems in our personal and professional lives is when we are confronted with a variety of tasks, all of which are good. How do we choose?  Of what do we do when all of our options are bad?

The chaos in our lives almost always occurs when we are confronted by these greater of two goods or lesser of two evil situations and we chose not to choose.  Some people just can’t say no to a good request. So they become overwhelmed by the demands placed on them. They aren’t capable of saying no or prioritizing between the greater of goods. They have chosen not to prioritize their lives. And they live with the chaos that results.

We also get stuck in chaos limbo overload when all our options are bad. So we choose to do nothing. And instead of working our way out of the bad situation we find ourselves in – we live with a status quo that sucks.

Not choosing is a choice. Not prioritizing is a choice. If you want to create order in your life, you have to step up to the plate and start making decisions, even when the decisions are hard. Do your best. Set your priorities as best you can based on your ethics and see what happens.  It’s very rare that a decision can’t be undone if you change your mind later.

What I can tell you is that based on my personal practice, making choices helps me stay sane. I rarely know if the decisions I made are the right ones. It’s more that they are right for me in that moment. What I do know is that despite the chaos around me, I feel centered. Most of the time. And that’s at least something.

Order out of Chaos: Setting Priorities

Don’t have the time to prioritize? Don't sabotage yourself. Make the time!

We just got through the holiday season. It was probably chaotic for a bit. Our schedules are not the same. We have obligations that take up time. We have cleaning and sorting and laundry and cards to do. The holidays are often chaotic for most of us. Even the most organized among us.

 Hopefully, now that it is January we can start to create order out of the chaos. But how do we do that. Well, by setting priorities.  You have a ton of things that need to be done. But organizing them and saying I’m doing this first and this  2nd and so forth, you create order out of the chaos. That’s what prioritizing does for you.

As soon as I start to feel overwhelmed, I create a list, figure out what’s important and what isn’t and create order out of chaos for myself.

If you feel like you don’t’ have time to get organized, you are just prolonging your pain and making excuses. Make the time. Chaos doesn’t magically just disappear on its own. There is this thing called entropy. In order to create order out of chaos, you have to put energy into the system. Put the time in to setting priorities and you will find order.

This is hugely important for your mental health, so don’t skirt your responsibilities. Figure out what you need to do and what would be nice to do and act accordingly.

Sorting Out Your Priorities

How big is your to do list? If it is like mine, you have more things to do than you could possibly ever accomplish. In order to not have this drive you crazy, you have to sort out your priorities.

Sorting out your priorities is easier than you think. The reason most people don’t do it is because they don’t want to have to think or make hard choices. So don’t.

Don’t tackle your to do list yet. First figure out what it is you value. Why do you work? Why do you do what you do?  Is it to feed your family? Is it to have fame and fortune?  What is it that is important to you?  And don’t just list your values, prioritize them. Which of the many things you value are more important that others.

If you are like most people, spending time with your family and friends will be more important to you than having a satisfying job or being famous or wealthy. That is assuming being famous and or wealthy are on your list of things you want for yourself. And if you do – ask yourself why – what is it you want to accomplish by being wealthy and famous – that will help you better understand your true motivations and values.

Once you know what is important to you – truly important to you, you are now in a position to tackle your to do list. Those things that contribute to your main priorities are the things you prioritize in your list.  Yes, you have to balance things and work has to be prioritized because without that you can’t feed or clothe or house your family or yourself.

But if you do this, you will find that a lot of your to do list isn’t actually all that important. And being able to deprioritize tasks helps you sort out your priorities.  If something would be nice to get done, but doesn’t really impact anything if it doesn’t get done, deprioritize it.

The nice thing about this is the more you do it, the easier it gets. When you don’t do something and the world doesn’t fall apart, you will gain confidence in your decisions on what to prioritize and what not to.

And if you make a mistake in your prioritizing and it turns out something was really important, go ahead and reprioritize.  Finding balance in life is an active and ongoing process. Your priorities are changing all the time and the demands being placed on you will change to. What shouldn’t change that much – is your underlying values that allow you to prioritize your to do list in the first place.

Feeling Overwhelmed?

If you are doing too much, goal setting can help you prioritize.

If you are competent, you are busy. Sometimes too busy. People are always asking you to help out and take on a bit more work. So in addition to your work, your family and the upkeep of the house, you also have volunteering and hobbies and well, life.

I am also an entrepreneur. There are all sorts of things I could and should be doing to support my business, but the reality is, I have time constraints. I can’t do everything.

Yet, I don’t feel overwhelmed. My secret? I understand my goals so that I can prioritize.

Knowing what you want to accomplish, and more importantly why you want to accomplish helps you sort through the day to day demands and prioritize those that are critical, that that need to be done and those that would be nice to do.

Lots of people have a to do list. What they have trouble with is deciding which stuff can wait. In order to prioritize your to-do list, you have to know why those items are on your list in the first place.

We have primary goals and secondary goals and then intermediary goals that help us achieve our secondary and primary goals.  My primary goal is to live life fully and to leave the world a better place.  All my secondary goals, like create a business to help people learn how to stop bullies are in support of my primary goal.  My intermediate goals, like call on companies to talk to them about buying my sexual harassment trainings, are intermediate goals, designed to help me achieve my secondary goal which will help me achieve my primary goal of making the world a better place.

The reason it’s important to have a goal hierarchy is because you can’t prioritize your to-do list if your goals your to-do list are in support of aren’t prioritized! When I am in a time crunch, I look at my to do list and it’s very easy to sort into must do and can wait. Why? Because I have my priorities straight.

To learn more how to do this – take my ecourse: Planning for Personal Success at:  https://humanistlearning.com/planforpersonalsuccess/