Ethics: Yes, Even When Nobody is Watching | Dawne Ware | TEDxFairfieldUniversity

a few weeks ago I was walking the dog through the condo complex near my home and the parking spots were pretty empty and I looked down and saw a wallet in the middle of one I debated what to do should I move the wallet to a safe spot so that if the owner came back to get it they could find it I might have done that if it was a mitten or a scarf but this was a wallet it was 10:30 in the morning so the person probably wasn't coming back anytime soon and what if someone else saw the wallet and decided to take it I picked it up I could see there was a license inside and I didn't recognize the name or the face and the address was over an hour away from where I was so I did what I'd want someone to do if they found my wallet in a parking spot I called the local police and they sent two officers out to get it I don't know what happened but I'm hoping that the wallet got back to its owner safely and that she was pretty relieved it seems kind of simple but would everyone have made that same choice do you use that question otherwise known as the golden rule to govern your actions what would I want someone to do if the situation was reversed now what about the situation where there's not a person on the other side my husband and I have two kids ones in college ones in high school they've been skiing since they were three and where we ski kids ski free until they're seven and then there's a children's ticket from seven to twelve and once you turn 13 you have to pay the full adult price I'm sure a lot of parents pretended that their kids are under 7 or under 13 it's not a big it's a big price difference but we didn't why well what kind of example would we have been setting for our kids who could plainly see on their lift ticket what age bracket we bought even when they were under 7 they got a ticket that said that maybe the ski resort wasn't watching closely but our kids were and this was a moment be honest don't steal it's our job as parents to teach our kids to do the right thing now I'm not perfect I look back on plenty of situations and cringe maybe I didn't treat someone the right way or didn't handle a situation very well but on the whole I try to follow the rules and when there are no rules I try to do the right thing understanding that doing the right thing can be a matter of opinion so how many of you are wolf followers I'm a CPA by training good to see that and there are a lot of rules that govern my profession I graduated here from Fairfield and even just the fact that debits have to equal credits is a rule that we all embrace and maybe why we like being accountants we like the things balance we have a code of professional conduct for CPAs and in Connecticut to maintain my license I have to take an ethics course every three years and most professions have some sort of codified professional ethics to govern them and they can come in handy but when I think of ethics I think beyond published guidelines I think about personal ethics what guides us on a day-to-day basis to do the right thing treat people the right way because on a daily basis we're faced with situations like the ones I just described well there's no law there's no regulation that's gonna tell us what we have to do and all we have to rely on is our own sense of personal ethics our moral compass a few years ago after I made a light-hearted comment about being a rule follower someone said to me you don't get to be where you are by following the rules I was kind of taken aback at the time I was the fairly newly promoted CEO of a private company after having been a CFO for about nine years and in my opinion the fact that I was a rule follower by Nature is exactly why I was promoted to CEO our investors trusted me to lead the company through a pretty difficult transitional time but this person who had only just met me had a preconceived notion of my ethics based solely on the fact that I was a member of the c-suite Wow I get it sort of how many headlines do we see about executives having to step down from their posts for bad behavior about Rockstar CEOs that we later find out were treating employees badly having improper relationships spending personally on lavishly on personal items supported by boards who look the other way because the CEO got financial results or stories of outright corruption like Enron WorldCom fairness people who did bad things hoping no one was watching and they wouldn't get caught so where do personal ethics come from in my case they came first and foremost from my parents my dad was an engineer my mom was a home acti Chur and they were what you would call really good people i had a privileged upbringing in my family there was a lot of love there was a lot of forgiveness we went to church on Sundays another place that helped for my moral compass and we were taught to be humble and grateful and kind my dad traveled a lot for business which left most of the day-to-day raising of five kids to my mom later in life when my mom was suffering from Alzheimer's my dad took care of her at home as long as he safely could and then he visited her everyday once he had to make the decision to put her into a care facility his personal ethics told him that this was the least he could do for this woman who he loved and who had provided so much care for him and to our family over the years these are the people who raised me but I think personal ethics come from a variety of sources during our formative years parents grandparents other family members close friends teachers coaches religious organizations scouting organizations schools really almost everyone we come in tact with during those years has some sort of influence on our personal ethics either as a role model of something to follow or maybe just as importantly something not to be so how does this play out in the business world when asked what some of the hallmarks are in my career I said I hope that people would say that I act with integrity and to me that means being open and honest dealing fairly with people being authentic and accountable for the good and the bad and encouraging others to do the same after working for an internet for a public accounting firm I joined one of my clients as their controller I really enjoy the entrepreneurial environment of that client and I respected the CFO I'd be working for and I feel like I really grew up professionally at that company and al the CFO had a big influence as my personal and professional ethics continued to develop al was smart he was trustworthy and he was able to navigate some pretty volatile personalities in a professional manner people respect it out and listened when he had something to say al was and is a good person whether or not anyone was watching I was watching and I was learning and I wanted to be like Al I've also had some other great mentors over the years some with whom I've worked and others that I just have known for years people who will have coffee or lunch with me and just talk things through and these people who are both successful and ethical are great sounding boards and give me something to strive for on a daily basis so what do you do when you're faced with a tough decision or a tough situation I found out the hard way that everyone's motivations aren't necessarily ethical either in business or in life and I've had to deal with some not-so-nice people and keep it professional so when I faced with a tough situation I think to myself is the way I'm handling this or the decision I'm making something I could defend first it was to my parents and now to my husband or my kids and if there's a person on the other side I go back to that old standard how would I want to be treated if the roles were reversed I don't make the right decisions all the time and I know I don't please everybody all the time but I do my best and I try to do no harm which I'm told is the baseline of ethics and better yet I try to do good so we're the headlines about the people who do the right thing day in and day out or treat people the right way well who wants to read the headline about the CFO who chose the right accounting policies or didn't manipulate the quarterly earnings yay but I think those people are a little bit more than Noren than what we read about in the headlines now being an ethical executive doesn't mean you're always making the popular decisions and doesn't mean you're a pushover in negotiations you have a responsibility to your organization and you have to deal with financial realities sometimes that means taking a hard line in negotiations it might mean cutting expenses or even staff where the ethics comes in is how you implement those decisions what a difference it can make if you treat the people on the other side with dignity I've always found that tough conversations can go better if the person on the other side has a window into my reasoning or at least knows I'm being straight with them it doesn't mean they always go well but hopefully better than they would otherwise and losing a job is devastating no matter what the circumstances so what a company or person does to help soften the blow and help that employee move on goes a long way on the morality scale when I took over as CEO we had just sold most of our ongoing operations to another company and our former president had joined that company to lead the division we both felt a huge responsibility to our team and worked together to find most people a spa at one of our corporations so what does it take to make a company's culture ethical there's no question that the tone is set at the top ethical people like to work at ethical companies and follow ethical leaders most of the people I've worked with over the years really like producing a good work product they like having good relationships with their customers and they like to be proud of the organization that they're part of and I've known people who will leave organizations whose methods of doing business or values don't align with theirs I've done that I don't mean that a company I worked for ever broke the law or violating any regulations but maybe I would have handled certain situations differently or declined to work on certain clients at the choice of in mine alone and as my husband says you can complain about the people you work for for a little bit but if you stay at some point you become them and so I chose to leave so what companies do you think of when you hear the words ethical company it's easy to think of those who donate a certain amount of their profits to charities those who support their communities financially and through volunteerism those that are leading the way in decreasing their carbon footprint but not all companies can afford to do these things in a material way so what are some of the other signs of ethical companies how do they treat their employees and their customers are they transparent in their communications and operations do they take ownership when they make mistakes what are they doing when no one's watching or there are no rules to follow the tide seems to be changing and boards are no longer supporting bad behavior executives are having to step down for ethical reasons not just for poor financial results activist investors are holding public companies responsible making sure they have independent and diverse views on their board and also making sure that executive making the right decisions companies now have to report on their environmental social and governance policies the Business Roundtable which is a group of almost 200 US companies CEOs put out a paper a couple a couple of months ago with a new definition of a purpose of a corporation no longer is generating shareholder value the only priority higher on the list we're delivering value to their customers investing in their workforce dealing fairly and ethically with their suppliers supporting the communities in which they work and last came generating shareholder value now some of this is a little bit circular because in order to do well financially you have to deliver value to your customers and invest in your workforce and in order to support the communities in which you work you have to have the resources to do that but the point is made all of these should be priorities I hope it's not just PR and I hope boards and governance and compensation policies support all of these priorities because in reality how we compensate people is going to drive behavior today's theme is innovation and inspiration with the evolution of technology companies of all sizes are waiting into uncharted waters there are a few rules and those that exist have to be continually updated to keep pace with advancing technology companies have access to an enormous amount of information about us the stories coming out recently about how some of those companies have used and profited off of our personal information are unsettling what code of ethics were those executives following AI and robotics implementations compose even more challenging ethical considerations as the process is concurrently done by humans are automated so in my opinion it's more important than ever that companies our staff from the top down of people with strong personal ethics people who can put in place policies to govern how the company will implement technology and protect personal information and help their employees deal with the changes that automation will ringg people who will act ethically and mentor others to do the same who can put in place controls and rules were none currently exist people who will do the right thing even when no one is watching thank you [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 55,766

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Health, Business, Ethics

Id: ohmOCHYz530

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 20 2019