Ethics in the Workplace

     Today Regan and I presented to the class on ethics in the workplace. It was an interesting topic to present about and we had some great discussion. Ethics is defined by BBC as "at its simplest, a system of moral principles, [affecting] how people make decisions and lead their lives." Another definition that came up in class was "what you do when no one is looking." There are many different areas and issues related to ethics in the workplace including misuse of company money, misuse of company time, abuse, lying, harassment, privacy, antitrust, and many more.
     Brooke Deterline, director of corporate consulting at Heroic Imagination Project discusses how being ethical takes courage in her TedTalk on creating ethical cultures in business. One quote she said that I particularly enjoyed was "there should be as little time as possible between when you know and when you say." This means speaking up as soon as you see something wrong taking place in the workplace. Another topic she discussed was situational influence. She spoke about how the situation around you can have a great influence on your actions (such as in the famous Stanford Prison Experiment), but that you must have the courage to stick to your morals and act ethically.
     As an activity to practice ethical decision making, we came up with three different scenarios that tested ethics, and had the class break up into groups to come up with how to act in these tough situations. What we found was that there are many grey areas in ethics. There is not always a clearcut black and white answer, particularly when the "wrongdoing" is not illegal. Ethics is a very real issue within the workplace and it is critically important to act morally and ethically within your organization.