We’ve been saying practically since the dark ages that you can’t legislate ethics. But organizations can foster an ethical culture, which is why this piece from Inside Counsel caught our eye this week.
In it, Brian Martin addresses the challenges nearly every organization faces when trying to develop policies and training programs to support ethical business practices. Chief among them? Integrity isn’t easy to teach, and ethical decisions aren’t the black and white sorts of things that fit well into training manuals.
Fortunately for all of us, he also shares some best practices for fostering an ethical corporate culture – first, by basing ethical codes on values core to the business and second – and crucially, by incorporating discussion of ethical dilemmas into training. As he shows, even hypothetical dilemmas can be seriously valuable in training, where varied functions can evaluate different options and address together the best choice in a particular circumstance.
The whole piece is worth a read, and we’d love to hear in the comments what your organization is doing (beyond lip service) to encourage ethical practices.
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