May 1997
[May 1997, vol. 4, no. 2] The frustrations of many in corporate America surfaced at a recent meeting of the New
York City WBC chapter which examined pressures from within organizations which made
ethical behavior more difficult. Disappointment and frustration have also been noted at
numerous meetings at other WBC chapters by those responsible for the culture of their
organizations. The reason? Their people fail to abide by the principles set out in their
ethics codes. To get a handle on contemporary data concerning ethical and unethical
behaviors and the motives expressed by those on the firing line, this issue of the Woodstock
Business Conference Report takes note of two recent surveys in "High Ideals and Sleazy Behavior." A challenging article by professors Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr., and Allen P. Webb report
the results of research they conducted with recent Harvard MBA grads. In it, they question
the effectiveness of some of the standard techniques for communicating ethical values
within an organization. A second survey was recently reported in USA Today, it
shows a high percentage of admittedly unethical and/or illegal acts in business. The
report identifies some of the job pressures which serve as triggers for improper acts. Other articles in this issue discuss some Powerful
Trends as recognized by professional business forecasters and Archbishop Rembert
Weakland who recently commented on what should be considered were the US bishops to
rewrite their letter on the economy. The second part of our conversation with J. Michael
Stebbins covering "The Meaning of Solidarity"
is also included. Since the last Report, new WBC chapters are up and
operating in Philadelphia and New York City. Our Web includes a listing
for each active local chapter with information on its meeting dates, times,
locations and coordinators. We are most grateful to Charles E. F. Millard, the first chairman of our board and a
director of the Woodstock Business Conference from its beginning. Charlie indicated his
present circumstances require him to leave the WBC board of directors. He told John B.
Caron: Having been one of the midwives at the birth, and having observed its infancy and
childhood, I resign reluctantly as the WBC approaches adolescence and maturity. The WBC board thanked Charlie for his generous gifts of time, wisdom and material
support. The Woodstock Business Conference is deeply indebted to Charles Millard for
having ushered the WBC through its beginnings to this next stage and for adding his own
special sizzle to the journey. The Woodstock Business Conference wishes to welcome its two new directors, Joseph G.
Metz and Thomas J. Saporito. Joe, a Principal with Buck Consultants Inc. recently acquired
by Mellon Bank, is one of the nation's leading experts in employee benefits with
particular experience in the area of public employment. His operation advises most major
state and local governments in the United States. Joe coordinates the WBC Nassau County
Long Island chapter. Tom is Senior Vice President of RHR International, a firm of
management psychologists consulting senior management of 600 companies worldwide. A member
of his firm's executive committee, he is responsible for its North American operations.
Tom is a member of the new Philadelphia WBC chapter. Both Joe and Tom hold Ph.D's. Joe
also has a law degree. They bring wonderful breadth, vision, experience, energy, and drive
to the Woodstock Business Conference board. James L. Nolan Business school professors Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr., and Allen P. Webb were well versed
in what senior executives and academics were saying about business ethics but found in the
literature little in the way of a comprehensive examination
of how junior managers defined ethical issues, thought about them, and resolved them. They
set out on a "reality check" by conducting a series of in-depth interviews with
younger managers recently graduated from the Harvard MBA Program. They sought to determine
whether the people who would be the future leaders found ethical help in corporate credos,
the statements of ethical convictions by senior executives, ethics hotlines, ombudsmen, or
ethics training programs. What emerged from the interviews were several disturbing
patterns which they document with accompanying stories in "Business Ethics: A View
from the Trenches," California Management Review, Vol. 17, No. 2, Winter 1995,
pp. 8-28. The professors listed the following patterns: 1. Just Do It. In many cases young managers
received explicit instructions from their middle-manager bosses or felt strong
organizational pressures to do things they believed were sleazy, unethical, or sometimes
illegal. 2. Four Commandments. The people who pressured the
young managers to act in sleazy ways were themselves responding to and reinforcing four
powerful organizational commandments:
3. Feckless Ethics Programs. Corporate ethics
programs, codes of conduct, mission statements, hot lines, and the like, provide little or
no help. Moreover, when violations go unpunished, corporate codes of conduct become
"simply another wall decoration or file-drawer filler." One quote from a young
manager is fairly typical: I'm cynical. To me corporate codes of conduct exist to
cover the potential problems companies may have. It provides deniability. It gives
employers an excuse. On the other hand, when senior executives are seen to
choose the right thing over the expedient or the profitable, they are much more likely to
be sending a signal that will be clearly understood. As an example, the article cites one
manager who said he worked in a company where the CEO had made it clear through a series
of decisions that he would say "good-bye in a heartbeat" to a $20-million deal
if it were not ethically sound. 4. Out-Of-Touch Senior Executives.
Senior executives were seen as out of touch on ethical issues, either because they were
too busy or because they sought to avoid responsibility. The authors expand on this. In general, the young managers believed that the
corporate cultures were set, not by the intentions and pronouncements of those at the top,
but by their actions. The message for executives was that they were being watched all the
time..."Never forget that there is not a moment that goes by when the people who work
for you aren't looking at you and listening."...Unfortunately, senior executives
often set poor examples for their organizations: in common parlance, they "just don't
get it"--- or perhaps they don't want to. 5. The "Sleep Test." Young managers in
the study reported that they resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on the basis of
personal reflection and individual values, not through reliance on corporate credos,
company loyalty, the exhortations of senior executives, philosophical principles, or
religious reflection. "If I do this can I sleep at night?" The interviews
revealed that the managers reliance on their gut feelings or the "sleep test" were actually proxies for more complex considerations,
largely derived from traditional sources of values---fidelity to family values,
long-standing moral maxims, and advice from trusted individuals---as well as reputational
concerns. The authors stressed the extreme importance assigned by
these young managers to maintaining good reputations. One dreary conclusion for those desiring to establish and
maintain an ethical corporate climate is that these young managers had little
"idealism about corporate visions, the values of top managers, or the role of the
company in society." They were frustrated, turned off by their organizations.
Instead, they focused on their own self-reliance, mobility, and autonomy. The authors list
several implications for business managers and executives: 1. The difficulty of establishing sound ethical norms
for an organization, especially a large one, can hardly be underestimated. The task
requires unremitting effort. 2. Many people, perhaps most, in business organizations
are intensely concerned about their careers and about their job performance. This creates
strong pressures to choose the easier wrong rather than the tougher right in a difficult
situation. 3. Ethics codes can be helpful, though not decisive,
particularly if they are specific about acceptable and unacceptable behavior and provide
advice on handling "grey area" matters. 4. The ethical climate of an organization is extremely
fragile. The "grapevine" quickly communicates situations in which executives
have chosen the expedient action over the right one. This, in turn, significantly
undermines the credibility of subsequent pronouncements by senior executives of their
commitment to ethics. 5. Young managers are much more likely to believe that
a code of conduct means what it says if the code is enforced. This means punishing
individuals who are guilty of violating the code; it also means letting the organization
know that these infractions are being punished. 6. In a culture of suspicion, both inside organizations
and in our general culture, the pronouncements of senior executives on business ethics, no
matter how heartfelt, count for very little. Actions are what matter. The authors advise senior management if you want to
attract and retain bright, young, and ethical managers, you must personally commit to
unremitting effort in support of high ethical standards. If you can not or will not
investigate and discipline violators of codes of conduct, you would be far better off to
abandon or avoid creating company ethics credos in the first place. Otherwise, senior
management is simply creating and sustaining a culture of suspicion and cynicism. Is this picture too bleak? Consider the April 4, 1997, USA
Today cover story [pp.1A-2A] with the headline: 48% of workers admit to unethical or illegal acts. The article tells of a survey sponsored by the Ethics
Officer Association and the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters &
Chartered Financial Consultants. The survey's top five unethical acts were:
The persons surveyed were also asked to identify workplace
pressures which triggered unethical or illegal acts. The top 10 list of pressure factors
included:
The USA Today article ends with advice offered by
those surveyed as to how to address and curb ethical violations. Interestingly, 71% called
for a serious commitment from management to address the issue, and 73% said what was
needed was better communications and more open dialogue. In other words, the survey
respondents repeated the advice of professors Badaracco and Webb "to walk the
talk," to commit serious effort to the enforcement and implementation of codes of
ethics. Executives serious about ethics need to look at the patterns of behavior within
the organization, identify those workplace pressure factors which promote unethical and
illegal behaviors, and then change them. How do these accounts compare with your own experience? Do
you agree with the 56% of the survey respondents who felt some pressure to act unethically
or illegally on the job? The survey also found that a majority of workers "believe
that business and ethics can mix." Citing recent Texaco and ADM cases, the USA
Today article suggests that businesses will be driven to commit the necessary effort
and resources required to reinforce ethical behavior by the desire to please their
customers. Is that realistic or merely wishful thinking? Let us know. The February 1997 Trend Newsletter, published by
the Global Network, Washington, DC, contains its forecast of the "10 Powerful Trends
Affecting Your Profitability Over the Next 6 Months." It maintains that companies
"who ignore or resist these trends will fail. Those who adapt will survive."
Among the trends were: A. From the Status Quo to Flexibility.
"To succeed and grow in a world unlike that of the '70s or '80s you must disband your
vertical hierarchy and welcome new sources of ideas, strategies, and leadership." B. From Homogeneity to Diversity.
"More and more we live in a world without borders. Our tastes have been whet for yet
more variety -- more styles, more technologies, and more life-styles from other
cultures....Avon Products boosted African-American and Hispanic managers' authority over
its unprofitable inner-city markets. As a result, these markets are now among Avon's
strongest performers." C. From Nation State to Business State.
"Strapped for funds but burdened by demand, governments need to squeeze more
productivity out of their budgets. Angry taxpayers reject tax hikes for services they feel
are wasteful or overpriced." D. From Nationalism to Globalization.
"Stagnating home markets and rapid global developments will redraw the competitive
map for industries of every nature. Broadbased international operations are today's
preeminent growth strategy, driving this overriding trend....But a word of caution. The
more the global economy integrates cultures and erodes national boundaries, the greater
many people's need to reconnect with their roots." Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B., in an address
entitled "Economic Justice for All 10 Years Later," offered his reflections on
changes in the world situation which might alter the bishops letter on the economy, Economic Justice for
All, if it were to be rewritten today. He noted four
significant events over the past ten years, some of which corresponded to trends listed in
the Trend Letter: 1. The fall of communism. 2. The globalization of the economy. "The
picture seems to be one of an enormous engine that is just rolling ahead at a most rapid
pace, without clear goals and with no conductor. The pace defies an analysis that is clear
and secure." 3. Anti-government sentiments in American society.
"The growing tendency to blame government for all our problems." (Note the
parallel with the angry taxpayers mentioned in the Trend Letter.) 4. Domestic trends in the economy that are affecting
American society as well as the world. (E.g. the rising disparity between poor and
rich, employment and poverty, education, immigration, labor and trade unionism.) Archbishop Weakland concluded his remarks with a warning
almost as dire as the one the business forecasters issued to the business community, one
disregards the powerful trends of our times at great peril. He said: The problems have grown more intractable, and the
effects of wrong moves can be even more disastrous. I am sure the bishops would say that
there is now more need for guiding principles than there was 10 years ago. Probably the
bishops who hear or read my words will be thinking: But should not the lay people be doing
this job?...They would be right. It is a project now for all of us. The address was given at Georgetown University as the
sixth annual Joseph B. Brennan Lecture sponsored by Georgetown's Center for the Advanced
Study of Ethics. The talk is reproduced in America, March 22, 1997, at pp. 8-22.
The Georgetown Center is directed by WBC Board member William J. Byron, S.J., who
introduced the Archbishop. We often hear people talk about solidarity in
interviews and statements concerning Catholic social teaching. As Archbishop Weakland
remarked this notion has come more and more to the forefront with the fall of communism.
It is a recurrent theme of Pope John Paul II's in his addresses on social issues. When the
Pope visited Baltimore in 1995 he said: Since the beginning of my papal ministry, I have
repeatedly affirmed the importance of social solidarity as an instrument for building up
the civilization of love for which humanity yearns. Just exactly what does this term it mean when it is used
to describe how we should and do relate to each other? What are the implications for the
American business community? Once again, Woodstock Business Conference Report
called on J. Michael Stebbins of the Woodstock
Theological Center's Arrupe Program for Social Ethics in Business for help to better
understand the concept of solidarity and its significance. WBC: Mike, how prevalent is the term solidarity today? STEBBINS: Many church leaders now make explicit use of the
concept of solidarity to diagnose social ills and prescribe social remedies. Cardinal
Mahony of Los Angeles, for instance, spoke of solidarity when he publicly opposed
Proposition 209 during the last election. Solidarity now appears on everyone's short list
of the fundamental principles of Catholic social teaching. WBC: Well then, what is solidarity? What is its source?
And, how do we recognize it when it occurs? STEBBINS: I think it is important that Pope John Paul II
characterizes solidarity as an "attitude" or "virtue." He says
emphatically it is "not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the
misfortunes of so many people, both near and far;" rather, it is "a firm and
persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good." WBC: What does it mean to say that solidarity is a virtue
consisting in a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good? STEBBINS: As I mentioned before [See, Woodstock Business Conference Report, January 1997 ]
the common good is the product of properly oriented human freedom and collaborative human
intelligence. A community achieves its common good to the extent that its patterns of
cooperation and the particular goods flowing from them concretely embody an authentic set
of values. Today's question is what does it mean for us to commit ourselves to the common
good. To put it another way, what kind of actions give expression to the virtue of
solidarity? WBC: How would you answer that question? STEBBINS: I agree with the Pope, who said that the
exercise of solidarity is the love and service of neighbor, especially of the poorest. In
this sense, every kind of action that reaches out in love to meet the real needs of people
is a manifestation of solidarity. The greater the need -- and this is the point of the
preferential option for the poor -- the more insistent is the call to love and service.
Furthermore, what solidarity demands is not so much working for others as working with
them -- the act proper to solidarity is collaboration. WBC: Describe for us what would motivate someone to go
beyond self-interest to answer this call to love? STEBBINS: The motive that impels us to take on other's
burdens as our own and join with them in the effort to promote their own integral
development, is not some theory or ideology. Rather, it is a real appreciation of the fact
of human interdependence. It may emerge as a gradually dawning awareness, or it may erupt
as a sudden and perhaps unsettling disruption of our usual way of looking at ourselves and
the world -- a reorientation that might best be described as a religious or moral
conversion. However we come to this awareness, its emotional component is undeniable; it
includes a felt sense of identification with all human beings, and especially with the
groups with whose concrete needs one is most familiar. WBC: What implications do you see in this for the busy
business executive or manager? STEBBINS: The link between solidarity and the common good
challenges us to conceive of solidarity as showing itself beyond a focus on individuals
and groups to knowledgeable concern for patterns of cooperation. Giving a hungry person a
meal is an exercise of solidarity. Hiring and training individuals so that they can earn
enough to provide for their food and shelter is a greater exercise of solidarity. And
addressing the systemic economic, psychological, political, social, and cultural issues
that put people in the position of needing soup kitchens because they have no other ready
source of food represents a still greater exercise of solidarity. WBC: How does one go about addressing these systems, what
you call patterns of cooperation? STEBBINS: Taking solidarity seriously means taking on: (1)
the responsibility of understanding accurately the patterns of cooperation already
in place in a particular situation, with all the desirable and undesirable consequences;
(2) the responsibility of seeing where real development could take place, and where
it would be foolish to attempt development; and, (3) the responsibility of carefully
thinking out the many practical steps that have to be taken in order to bring a new
and better situation out of the old. This means putting into play on a broad scale the
very problem-solving skills and strategic thinking that business people use all the time. WBC: You seem to stress the significance of these patterns
of cooperation. Why is that? STEBBINS: I do so for two reasons. The first is that it is
relatively easy to imagine oneself some kind of prophet and denounce this or that
institution, organizational practice, or social situation. While in a given instance a
particular denunciation may be entirely appropriate, there is the danger of stopping
there, assuming that is enough. The far more difficult job is to engage in the process of
figuring out concretely what ought to come next and how we might make it happen. And so,
my second reason for emphasizing the importance of patterns of cooperation is to draw
attention to the huge amount of intellectual work that must accompany our efforts to
promote the common good. WBC: Could you give some examples where serious
intelligence is needed? STEBBINS: We do not yet really understand how to reform
the welfare system, how to fix the schools, how to combat the drug problem effectively.
These are not just questions of an absence of political will; they also involve real
deficiencies in data-gathering, theorizing, and testing, in the range of questions being
asked, and in the creativity and sophistication of the solutions being proposed. Living
responsibly at the level of our times demands a collaborative intellectual enterprise that
does not shrink from confronting the world in all its concrete complexity. A commitment to solidarity involves the head as
much as it does the heart. If our desires are skewed, then we will not act at all;
and if our thinking is inept, the results of our actions will likely run make things worse
despite our good intentions. Being in solidarity requires the full and integrated
engagement of all our specifically human capacities. WBC: Earlier, you said that solidarity is a virtue. What
difference does it make to call solidarity a virtue? STEBBINS: Clearly, what is needed as a springboard for
sustained action is something far deeper and more abiding than a vague feeling of
compassion or distress. A virtue is a habit, a developed capacity to perform a certain
kind of activity easily, excellently, and with enjoyment. The virtue of solidarity in this
sense is a deeply rooted orientation of our entire selves. To the extent we possess it, we
are people whose minds and hearts spontaneously turn to the task of serving the common
good, even in the face of opposition and difficulty. WBC: How do we gain this virtue of solidarity? STEBBINS: Like most habits, the virtue of solidarity has
to be acquired gradually. It requires a lengthy process of educating one's feelings and
sensibilities, of acquiring knowledge, of broadening and deepening one's experience of the
lives of other people, and so on. At its root, it is the result of God's grace -- of God
entering our hearts so they become capable to loving everyone and everything God loves. WBC: Can the Woodstock Business Conference play a role in
this? STEBBINS: What ultimately makes it possible for us to live
a life marked by solidarity in the most serious sense is the experience of God's limitless
love for us, the love which St. Paul says "has been poured out in our hearts through
the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5). The Woodstock Business
Conference, its chapters and monthly meetings aim to promote this experience. To the
extent they do so, the WBC can play a most positive role in the process. In the end, any
success we achieve in attaining the common good is more God's doing than ours. Solidarity
is not our own project; it is rather our cooperation in God's effort to bring salvation to
the world.
Contents
Executive Director's Report
Articles
WBC Continues to Grow
Directors
Executive Director
High Ideals and Sleazy
Behavior
Powerful Trends
Economic Justice for All 10
Years Later
The Meaning of Solidarity
See also: