Exactly four weeks ago was the first time I stood in front of the MBA class. These first weeks have gone by so quickly, but at the same time it feels like we’ve done so much more than four weeks of learning together. Like the class, I have embarked on an exciting journey and there is no turning back.
Over the last three days we attended IMD’s inaugural Responsible Leadership Summit – three full days of discussion among business, government, and civic leaders about individual, corporate, and global responsibility. There was a lot of gloom and fear expressed, but overriding that was a real sense of opportunity. Humanity has a unique chance to redefine itself. When people look back a hundred years from now, what will they say about how we managed this transition? What can we do as individuals and together, to create a new way of deciding and acting for a better future?
The summit gave me a chance to think a lot about the MBA program. Many of the speakers called for more ethics and responsibility to be taught in MBA programs and throughout business education. “Business schools should have a course on ethics.” I found myself resisting this a bit. Not because I think ethics is unimportant – exactly the contrary. But my years of teaching executives at IMD (including our experienced MBAs) have led me to believe that business schools can make a bigger impact by doing something quite different.
Almost every manager I have met is highly conscious of ethical behavior, and wants to behave in an ethical and responsible way. We often have late-evening discussions about managing workers with AIDS, impending lay-offs, offering of bribes, child labor, and other difficult topics. In every one of these discussions, the managers involved have known exactly what the responsible choice is, and have thought in very comprehensive ways about the dilemmas. They are often pressured by systems and norms to behave in ways that compromise what they think is responsible, to work for short-term solutions rather than long-term ones. They feel this dilemma quite strongly, with intense frustration that there are no easy answers. They would like to feel strong enough to fight for win-win solutions.
I believe business schools should not teach ethics, we should empower ethics. The ethics are already there, they just get covered up in systems. We should give ethics courage, help it find its voice, refine it. This happens through discussions about the ethical aspect of decision-making, and most importantly in highly diverse classes where people can see surprisingly different sides to the same issue – and sometimes surprise themselves by all agreeing. We should help managers develop a repertoire of analytical and executional tools – yes, the traditional business ones like finance and accounting and economics and marketing and operations – so that when they face dilemmas of responsibility they can develop and implement the win-win solutions they already know are right. And we should help managers practice putting those tools into action in complex situations, through cases and through real-life interactions. Empowering ethics assumes that people understand their basic responsibilities, and the role of business schools is to help managers implement them.
I have had some nice opportunities the last few days to watch our MBAs in action. I smiled a lot. The MBAs are thoughtful and articulate, they ask tough questions of today’s corporate and thought leaders, and they discuss the answers amongst themselves and with the executives visiting for the summit. They pulled together a spontaneous group to visit with an important government leader, and had a fantastic dialogue together. It made me wonder – how can we make sure we build a program to empower and develop and refine and then let loose the power that is so obviously in them? That is how we will redefine humanity together.
So here is a question for you: Do you think that most managers are basically ethical, and would prefer to act in ethical ways? What can companies and business schools do to help empower ethics?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"Ethics" and "Humanity," two words that I *strongly* associate with my IMD MBA experience and that I *strongly* never expected to be part of a business school. It is therefore fitting that you began your blog with these words and I am sure that the reality of it will bear out.
ReplyDeleteI will follow your travails (zany antics?) here and via the IMD MBA Diary. All the best to you as you lead these 90 bright-eyed, bushy-tailed students through a very intense year.
Leaders going to business schools have - more often than not - as target in their mind to get promoted after they finish the course in the shortest possible time to earn more, become more important? Money has still a huge place in our business lives. Success and failure are defined by the salary level quite often. This is where the problem starts if money takes a too big importance - ethics might suffer... I guess we need to define success or achievement differently by "influencing" the community, striking a better work life balance, sustaining success through longer term objectives. Understanding sustainability and achieving it will help us in conducting business more ethically, not only focusing on short term profits. People might forget who were the richest men on earth but will always remember the ones who changed their lives.
ReplyDeleteEthics cannot be taught. It is something that is inherent in individuals but I believe with the surrounding influence of environment and exposure - people, life experiences, culture, faith - takes shape and is strengthened. Business schools can play a role in creating that enabling environment through exposure to diverse cultures, case studies that also include the non-business world and meeting people and organizations that work to ensure basic ethics, rights and values are in the forefront. At the end of the day, I believe that business leaders (all leaders in fact) strongly grounded in good ethics will prevail despite all the challenges in this increasingly "flat" and inter-connected world.
ReplyDeleteI would answer your first question with an unreserved "yes", although I would not want to quantify the term "most" here ....
ReplyDeleteWhat I have seen over time, though, is that few organizations foster an environment where ethical behavior can be constructively discussed, in a way that helps to create shared understanding about the organization's approach to - and principles for - ethical issues.
One will typically find some references to ethical basics in the "Business Principles" or similar documents, that organizations provide to their members to adhere to, but unless this topic is actively pursued, it remains sterile and abstract. And more people in the organization than necessary will fall back on survival tactics, when it comes to ethical aspects of their behavior.
Now your second question: what can we do? A good 'language' for working actively with ethics, is stories. Nothing new, of course, this has been the approach since groups of humnans started to sit together around campfires.
Reactions to stories are an excellent way to bring out commonalities and differences in ethical viewpoints. And these in turn are essential ingredients to build - and evolve - shared understanding about a workable set of ethical principles that should form an organization's foundation. Trompenaars' "Did the Pedestrian Die?" is a good illustration of the approach, although written with a slightly different objective.
Business schools, then, can use the story approach to help students explore and define their own ethical principles, and those of their organizations.
And organizations could benefit from creating opportunities (blogs, discussion fora, wiki's, &c), where people can - anonymously, if needed - contribute real-life stories from events occurring in the organization, that raised ethical issues for them: "Our principles say A, but I experienced B, and I think these two do not match. What should we do in cases like B?"
That sort of exchanges will lead to an effective set of ethical principles, that can be truly empowered, and that can be adapted over time to changes in the environment.
I liked that view. Most leaders i have met have clearly understood whats right and wrong, no problem. The challenge has been to get the strength to "deviate from the system" and do what the person understand is right. I know several leaders who have dared to follow their instincts, and they normally get a good reputation. I also know quite a lot who haven't, and struggles with a bad conscience.
ReplyDeleteI also have met a very few who couldn't understand that they did wrong, sometimes even if it was in conflict with the law. Often that had developed slowly for many years, with subordinates not able to protest, or gaining from the activities. They would probably not have been open for an ethical principle debate on IMD
Yes, most managers knows what is wright or wrong, but the environment is more important on deciding their actions. For example, would my employees be willing to give up a bonus, which is formally right but ethically wrong (maybe because of big layoffs)? Probably not but if I gave up my bonus and changes the environment, yes then it would be easier for the employees. Bad example with money, it os so painful to give up a bonus....:-)
ReplyDeleteTeaching ethics is maybe a litle bit like teaching "profit". It is not easily done but it is ingrained, it is in the foundation of management training. When it comes to ethics what should be done is, like proposed by Martha and several comments, to create discussions and give courage for managers to change their behaviors in line with their ethics in an environemnet that does not support it.
An interesting follow up questions is how to choose business school, to get the right ethical environment? Or is there only one right ethical way and all business schools share it?
Dear Martha, you come again with difficult questions!
ReplyDeleteEthics is part of yourself and your past life experiences, the teaching you received and reflexion. But more importantly of where you are today to make the decision. It is not about great principles and ideals; it is about daily life decision.
Is Ethics the same everywhere at the same or different periods? I dont believe so.
Ethics under Roman Empire for your peers or your slave was not the same.It seemed "right" the Roman citizen had the right under some circumstances to kill his slave...He was in his right to dispose of his poperty (at that time).
The most difficult is to pay attention to what seems fair, normal to you can be unfair and partial to someone else. "Right or wrong" is never easy to know, understand or detect if you think about the consequence of your decision.
The Western world has been too sure about the good achievements and supremacy of its Ideology, Religion, and ways of doing. The last 20 or 30 years have prove that wrong...
My point is:
Ethics is not only about yourself and what you think is "good or right", but more about what you can achieve for the "better" of the group or the environment you are living in.
You are not alone there and you need the help of others to reach the "best" and the "right" decision. Hic et Nunc!
If you want to teach Ethics, teach to listen and be aware of your own shortcomings or those of your culture and knowledge.
Not an easy task!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html?em
ReplyDeleteAn interesting article .....