Moral Compass!
Last quarter, I met Robert Finocchio, former CEO of Informix, and Dennis Barsema from Benchmark Capital. I was very much intrigued by Robert's story of Informix and how he weeded out the deep-rooted ethical problems by sticking to his moral character. Not only Robert, but also Dennis stressed on the importance of having a strong moral compass in life and in business.
Sue Newell in her article on “Business Ethics” talks about how unethical behaviors result from complex interactions between individuals, groups, and organizations[1]. It is the same reason why Robert stressed so much on the “Sin of a week character”.
In business, we interact with different people and processes all the time. It is relatively easy to point out a person doing something ethically wrong, but the problem intensifies and becomes complex, when a process (established over time) is responsible for unethical actions. Many times, these processes may not even involve monetary transactions, but still are morally and ethically wrong as they eat up on other two parameters, i.e. time and quality. It really requires a strong character to challenge these processes and stand up against them when everyone else in the company blindly follows them.
I firmly believe in what Bob mentioned that if a person looses his moral compass, he is a dead man. A strong set of moral principles is required when interacting with suppliers, customers, and partners. Globalization is making it even more crucial for companies to have organization-wide ethical standards as different cultures have different values and interpretations.
No comments:
Post a Comment