Just when the drum-beat of KenLayBernieEbbersDennisKozlowskiMarthaStewart
began to seem as unstoppable as, well, a tsunami, the always-refreshing
Michael Schrage tees
off at "the pea-brained ‘ethics-ification’
of business decision-making:"
"Be honest. Would you look your employees in the eye
and tell them something that wasn’t quite true if it would dramatically
increase the chance that your key IT implementation would be finished
on time and on budget? I would."How about deliberately withholding important information from
your boss because you know that its disclosure would provoke his
immediate counterproductive intervention in an important project?
I would."
From Schrage’s perspective, too often people with hidden agendas,
ulterior motives, or who just plain take issue with a decision try
to turn a legitimate difference of opinion into an illegitimate ethical
conflict.
But weren’t Arthur Andersen, Enron, and WorldCom prime examples
of ethical lapses on an operatic scale? No—they were
cases of fraud, misrepresentation, and criminality.
Beyond Schrage’s colorful rhetoric ["CEOs
are supposed to be Chief Ethics Officers; CIOs should be Chief
Integrity Officers. How noble. How politically correct. How silly."]
is a real point: Business decisions involve tradeoffs,
and simply declaring one should do what’s "right" typically resolves
precisely nothing since "right" is in the eye of the beholder.
So weigh the tradeoffs astutely and clearly, make a decision,
articulate the rationale to those concerned, and move on. How
refreshing.
