Now that you’ve learned about the five principles of ethical intelligence, you’re in a position to evaluate your responses to the quiz questions from chapter 1 and discover how ethically intelligent you are. Here are the quiz questions again, this time with the most ethically intelligent response indicated for each one.
1. You notice that your friend Heather has posted a new picture of herself on Facebook in which she is smoking a bong with one hand and holding a bottle of vodka in the other. What would you do?
A. Tell her you don’t think this photo is a good idea.
B. Don’t say anything about it to her.
C. “Like” the photo.
D. Copy the photo to your hard drive and use it against her if she ever double-crosses you.
The ethically intelligent response is A.
Heather’s photo risks violating the first principle of ethical intelligence, Do No Harm, in several ways, and the harm it causes is primarily to Heather herself. First, she could lose her job, or fail to get a raise or promotion, if her employer comes across it. Second, future employers or those who might have other opportunities in store for Heather (grant-making foundations, competitions, volunteer organizations) might choose not to bring Heather into the fold if this image were to come to light. Third, if her employer is identified in her profile, the organization’s reputation could be compromised, which is bad for its own sake and bad for what might happen to Heather later.
This isn’t the stuff of fantasy. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps was photographed smoking a bong and promptly lost a lucrative endorsement deal from Kellogg.1 Anthony Weiner resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives after sexually suggestive photos he had sent privately through Twitter became public.
Two features of Internet communication are worth noting: its worldwide reach and its permanence. Presumably, Heather wouldn’t think of opening her bedroom window and yelling, “I’m smoking pot now!” But if she did, maybe ten or twelve people in her neighborhood would hear her. The Facebook picture, however, is visible to potentially the entire world. Even if her privacy setting is set to “viewable by friends only,” all one friend has to do is download it and post it elsewhere. Whatever you post, you’re essentially putting on a billboard large enough to be seen around the globe.
Remember the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever? It’s not just precious jewels that are forever; everything on the Internet is, too. Every email you’ve ever sent, every tweet you’ve ever tweeted, and every Facebook post you’ve ever made are capable of being excavated, and it’s almost impossible to erase what you’ve tossed into cyberspace.2 The ethically intelligent person keeps this in mind before hitting Send on his or her computer keyboard.
The Prevent Harm corollary of the first principle of ethical intelligence calls upon you to let Heather know that she should seriously consider removing the photo from her Facebook page. It is all the more incumbent upon you to do so because Heather is a friend of yours. She may balk at this suggestion, but if you let her know about the potentially harmful consequences to her career and her reputation that the photo poses, your argument could be persuasive. Even if she laughs it off now, she could very well reconsider the matter later on, especially if other friends like you reinforce the message. She could also choose to keep the photo posted. There is only so much you can do to protect Heather from a harm that she can’t or won’t recognize. However, being someone’s friend means making a good faith effort to help that friend correct a mistake that could come back to haunt him or her. The sooner Heather takes the photo off Facebook, the better her chances are of avoiding harm to herself and, if she has identified her employer in her profile, to the company she works for.
2. You’re having lunch at a restaurant and overhear two colleagues, Bob and Ray, talking about a client with whom your business is having difficulty. They mention the client by name as well as specific information about the problem. What would you do?
A. Approach them and mention your concerns about confidentiality.
B. Ignore it.
C. Tell your supervisor what you witnessed.
D. Record your colleagues with your cell phone’s video camera and post the clip on YouTube.
The ethically intelligent response is A.
Most likely Bob and Ray are being negligent rather than intentionally malicious. They’re simply not thinking about the potential consequences of what they’re doing. But those consequences can be quite severe; if people in the vicinity overhear the conversation and pass the information along, it can get twisted and end up hurting someone who isn’t even involved in the matter. But even if that information is passed along with 100 percent accuracy, it belongs to the client. He or she has trusted your colleagues (and, by implication, the entire company) to keep private things private. Recall that the third principle of ethical intelligence, Respect Others, requires doing just this. Even if Bob and Ray mean no harm by what they’re doing, and even if no one overhears Bob and Ray’s conversation, they’re still taking something that has been entrusted to them and isn’t theirs, and treating it disrespectfully.
Bob and Ray’s public conversation is not consistent with ethical intelligence. I’m not saying that Bob and Ray are bad people but rather that their actions are not compatible with this book’s main idea. What does any of this have to do with you? By being an eyewitness — or more accurately, an earwitness — you are called to action. You are, after all, in a position to protect client confidentiality (thereby upholding principle 3, Respect Others) and to prevent harm to others (which honors principle 1, Do No Harm). The potential harm here is both to your company (since what Bob and Ray are doing tarnishes its reputation for respecting its clients and could result in lost business) and to the client (because of what Bob and Ray may be revealing in their conversation).
The ethically intelligent thing to do is to talk with your colleagues about your concerns. You’d want to do this privately, lest you undercut the very principles you’re trying to uphold. You might want to use the “praise sandwich” technique of giving criticism:
1. Begin with something sincere and pleasing. You could start by saying, “Hey, Bob and Ray! It’s always good to see you.” This will make it more likely that they will take to heart the next thing you’re going to say.
2. Focus on what you observed. For example, you could say, “You know, I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about a client, and if I could hear it, maybe other people in the restaurant could, too.”
3. Expect the best from them. You might say something like this: “I’m sure you weren’t aware of what you were doing, because I know both of you, and you’re good guys.”
How you give unpleasant news usually determines how it will be taken. The kind but firm admonition of the praise sandwich all but guarantees your concerns will be taken seriously, and that will be the end of the matter.
In the unlikely event that Bob or Ray, or both, tell you to get lost or promise to be careful but do the same thing again, you not only have a right to notify their supervisor but you have an ethical obligation to do so. But the ethically intelligent thing to do first is to muster the courage to have an open and honest talk with Bob and Ray and leave it at that.
Note that this analysis assumes your organization does not require you to report confidentiality violations immediately. During a workshop I gave to members of the South Carolina National Guard, where I presented this scenario, a guardsman said, “Sir, we have to tell our commanding officer what we witnessed. It’s in our regulations, and we could be dismissed if we don’t honor them.” In such a case, the ethically intelligent course is different from the one described above, where there is no such policy in place.
3. You take your twelve-year-old son to the movies. At the box office, you see a sign that says, “Children up to eleven: $6.00. Adults: $12.00.” The movie theater’s management thus considers your son to be an adult. What would you do?
A. Ask for one adult’s and one child’s ticket.
B. Ask for two adult’s tickets.
C. Give your son the money and have him ask for a ticket.
D. Ask your son what he thinks you should do, and then do whatever he suggests.
The ethically intelligent response is B.
Business ethics is usually presented as a subject that concerns what businesses owe to consumers, such as safe products, fair return policies, and a truthful account of the goods or services that are for sale. But business ethics also concerns how customers treat businesses. In this example, the movie theater has decided to offer a discount to children, and it has chosen eleven years old as the cutoff point for determining who counts as a child. It’s true that the line is arbitrarily drawn; some theaters draw it at twelve years old, and some at thirteen years old. Still others offer no discount at all, and they’re entitled to do this. Why? Because we don’t have a right to a discount at the movies. The theater in question wants to make it affordable for families to take their kids to a film, and their discount policy for kids up to eleven is reasonable. Since your twelve-year-old son isn’t a child from the theater’s perspective, the right thing to do — the ethically intelligent thing to do — is to buy two adult’s tickets. In doing so, you’re showing your son that although he could pass as an eleven-year-old, it’s not right to take advantage of the theater’s naïveté. Even if you plan to give the money you save back to the theater at the concession stand, you’re still violating the business’s policy. The fourth principle of ethical intelligence, Be Fair, calls upon us to give others their due, and honoring a reasonable policy is consistent with this.
Of course, just because a business has a policy in place doesn’t mean that the policy should automatically command our respect. Some movie theaters used to have a “whites only” policy. But, of course, this was wrong, and it didn’t deserve to be honored.
4. An employee you supervise comes to work late, spends a lot of time shopping online, takes long lunches and coffee breaks, and leaves early. A few months ago, you fired someone for doing the same thing. This person, however, is the daughter of a close personal friend. You’ve talked with her several times about her conduct, but the problems continue. What would you do?
A. Fire her.
B. Ignore it.
C. Talk with her again and tell her this is her last chance to straighten up.
D. Ask your friend (her parent) to talk with her.
The ethically intelligent response is A.
The fourth principle of ethical intelligence, Be Fair, tells us to give others their due, and as we have discussed, the way you punish or discipline people reveals how fair you are. What is the appropriate punishment for a slacker whose father is a friend of yours?
You have already established the right precedent for handling errant employees who continue to shirk their responsibilities: you let them go. After all, when employees accept their job offers, they’re essentially making a promise to do what is expected of them. The employer makes a promise in return: to pay the employee and perhaps to offer sick days, paid vacation, and health insurance. If either side reneges, the deal is off. If your company is no longer able to pay its employees, it’s hardly fair to expect them to continue working. By the same token, it’s not fair to the other employees who fulfill their job descriptions to keep a slacker on the payroll. The employment contract isn’t merely a legal arrangement; it’s an ethical one, too.
Since you have a precedent, you’re in a good position to decide the ethically intelligent response to the above situation. “Treat like cases alike, and unalike cases unalike,” a rule that has its roots in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,3 is a good guideline to follow. The only significant difference between the precedent and the current situation is that you have a personal connection to this employee, and you didn’t with the previous one. But this fact isn’t ethically relevant. Presumably, the policy at your business isn’t “Fire unproductive employees, unless you’re friends with their parents.” The friendship might feel like something you should take into account, since you might anger your friend by letting his daughter go, but the friendship has no connection to your company or its mission. Asking your friend to get involved is thus not appropriate. You’re fobbing off your professional responsibility onto someone else.
Giving the employee yet another chance to get her act together is merely biding time. It’s an understandable impulse, perhaps, but it’s not ethically intelligent. Besides, if you kept her on, how do you think this would affect office morale? Other employees would rightly feel that you’re playing favorites — because you would be.
The fair response, and thus the ethically intelligent one, is to let her go. But what happens if your friend really does get angry with you and puts your friendship on the line? Your response should be to stand your ground. A true friend wouldn’t expect you to violate your ethical responsibilities, and there is no good ethical reason for keeping the loafer on board. If your so-called friend decides to end the friendship, it will be unpleasant, it will hurt, but it will not be your problem!
The way you handle this situation will reveal how committed to the principle of fairness — and thus ethical intelligence — you are as a manager.
5. You wake up on a workday with the flu. What would you do?
A. Stay at home and rest.
B. Stay at home and work.
C. Go to work but avoid socializing with people.
D. Go to work but socialize only with the people you don’t like.
The ethically intelligent response is A.
The flu is contagious and potentially deadly. The first corollary to the Do No Harm principle, Prevent Harm, points in the direction of staying home. The fifth principle of ethical intelligence, Be Loving, takes it a step further: doing work at home would be unkind to yourself and would make it take longer for you to get better. Staying at home and resting is thus the ethically intelligent response to this common problem. Loyalty to one’s company and the desire to avoid being a burden to one’s coworkers are noble impulses, but you’ll do more harm than good by going to work sick. Everyone, including you, will be better off if you take a few days or even longer to restore your health.
Now that you’ve seen how the five principles of ethical intelligence apply in the scenarios from the quiz, it’s time to find out how ethically intelligent you are. If you selected the ethically intelligent choice:
• 0–1 time, your grade is F
• 2 times, your grade is D
• 3 times, your grade is C
• 4 times, your grade is B
• 5 times, your grade is A
If your grade is D or F, then you’ve come to the right place for help! It appears that you are more likely to do what’s easy than what’s right. If you’re willing to take the ideas in this book to heart, however, you may just find that not only will other people be better off — you will be, too.
If your grade is B or C, then you suffer from Charlie Brown syndrome: wishy-washiness. Sometimes you take the high road, and sometimes you don’t. The ethically intelligent path can be hard to follow; yet in the long run, it’s the right way to go, as you’ll see throughout the rest of this book.
If your grade is A, then you are a model human being! Nevertheless, there’s always room for improvement, so I hope you’ll continue reading. Doing so may help you stay on track and continue being such an ethically intelligent person.
How you responded to these scenarios in this chapter reveals how ethically intelligent you are.
When a friend posts an incriminating picture of herself on Facebook, the duty to prevent harm calls upon you to encourage her to remove the photo and to explain why it is in her own interest to do so.
When you observe colleagues violating client confidentiality (which compromises your client’s right to privacy as well as the reputation of your company), you ought to share your concerns privately with your co-workers. The drastic step of reporting your colleagues is usually not necessary unless your organization requires you to do so.
Customers should abide by the fair policies that businesses create, such as a movie theater’s requirement that children over a certain age to pay full price for admission.
If you have previously fired employees for slacking off, the fourth principle of ethical intelligence, Be Fair, calls for you to do the same for an employee who is doing that now, even if she happens to be the daughter of a friend of yours.
It is ethically unintelligent to go to work when you have the flu, because doing so violates the Do No Harm and Be Loving principles.