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Everyday
Ethics Program Proposal
We propose that we work in
collaboration to discover an ethics program the best satisfies the needs of
your organization, specifically taking into account time and resources. We have included some ideas here that
hopefully will enhance your thinking about what is possible.
In order to stimulate
interest or kick off this work we suggest that you do a one day or half day
for everyone that is very experiential and uses scenarios to get people
thinking about what ethics or right-doing is in their daily lives. A description of this approach is at the
beginning of the Everyday Ethics description. Also included is a diagram and description about the values we
emphasize in this ethical learning program.
Using the idea of
train-the-trainer, we thought you might offer a three to four-day course
spread approximately one month apart with action learning assignments in
between that the 20 plus managers or designated ethics persons will
take. They in turn would teach what
they have learned to their departments thereby keeping the costs and time
required for this learning to a minimum.
Developed by In Partnership with
BK & Associates Center
for Collaborative Learning
9701
Katie Leigh Ct. 4623
Morgan Drive
Great
Falls, VA 22066 Chevy
Chase, MD 20815
703-757-7591 301-654-5380
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Everyday
Ethics
Individual Reflection as an Ethical Practice
This experiential program
stimulates reflective thinking and dialogue for participants concerning
everyday ethical situations. Using simple scenarios to evoke complex
considerations, participants experience the natural push-pull of
self-interest, and the shifting of moral viewpoint depending on the position
we play in the scenario.
- Through these scenarios, addressed privately
and then in small groups, individuals can exercise and expand their
awareness of the impact of doing the right thing – whether that action
is taken knowingly in the public domain, or privately with little chance
that anyone will know what has occurred.
- Various methods and tools are culled from the
discussions, introduced, and gradually built into a more systematic way
of appreciating the importance of individual and mutual accountability
and their broader impact.
In life, things fall apart
or are held together with the glue of thousands of decisions made privately
and publicly. When those decisions are made with consideration for others,
the web of connections between us stays strong. The ways we treat each other
and the limited resources we share define the health, vitality, and
sustainability of our relationships and the customers we serve.
This introductory session
will demonstrate the natural excitement and energy people have around solving
the puzzles of everyday life, and the relevance of ethics to enhancing the
health of organizational life.
A rich mixture of
situations drawn from private and public organizations will help evoke a
common structure of considerations to guide decisions and actions. Some
examples are:
- What considerations and consequences accompany
hiring a new person in an ethical way?
- When does sharing or withholding information
uphold or violate a sense of respect and fairness?
- How does the kind of authority granted by
supervisors affect your dignity and motivation?
- What dynamics are generated by treating others
from a perspective of “power over” vs. “power with” them?
In this course participants will:
- Understand the various strategic safeguards
that can provide adequate checks and balances for potential errors in
judgment and abuses of power
- Explore the implications of personal and
collective histories on assumptions, behaviors and practices that result
in “right relationship” with stakeholders, the human community, and the
larger ecosystem.
- Learn how to be more astute observers of
themselves, their interests, their organization, and the public good
- Explore the impact of language on how we see
and think about power and ethics
- Consider the hidden organizational structures
and assumptions about power that define relationships and affect
judgment
- Explore major philosophical and ethical
perspectives
Tools provided include:
- An accessible and practical framework to
address complex ethical questions
- An open and safe environment for individual
and social inquiry in which participants can probe and explore their own
ethical quandaries and those that confront every organization and
society
- A respectful approach that holds space for
many diverse views, while also focusing on common human values and
principles for healthy and just living
- Ways of experiencing ethics and morality as
integral to daily life, and part of the fabric of our perceptions,
assumptions, language, intentions, and behaviors – with co-workers,
clients, and the global community both now and for generations to come
- A working awareness about how personal
integrity and mutual accountability creates the conditions of the world
in which we choose to live
·
Ways that individuals and groups consider and
create practices and processes that support dignity, fairness, and the common
good in all aspects of organizational life
Where
Discourse and Dialogue Shape Ethical Right-Doing
Developing an awareness of
doing “right” requires the discipline of taking time for reflection, becoming
skilled at observation, and being willfully courageous to do what needs to be
done or said. This conscious decision may also be carried out by not doing or
saying something, e.g., engaging in manipulation, theft (of an idea,
materials, credit, etc.), taking part in destructive gossip, going along with
group-think, etc.
Becoming a competent
observer of oneself and one’s organization requires standing outside of the
situation -- above the fray-- to look at the situation from different
perspectives. It also requires due
diligence of asking others what they see and giving constructive
feedback. Doing so creates a broader
appreciation for competing interests and the dynamics they animate, and
creating a panoramic view of opportunities for action. It also opens the way
for assessing processes and procedures in the light of fairness – a key
component of ethics. The diagram on
the following page symbolizes this contextual framing of ethics.
This course is designed to
highlight the basic ethical principles that govern behavior in the human
community. These principles draw from the major worldviews of thought: utilitarianism,
Kantianism, egoism, religions, and the more contemporary ethics
of care. Each presents a framework with methods or tools (such as the
Golden Rule) for applying to situations and coming to judgments about what is
right and good.
Values highlighted in the course are:
Interdependency – Everything is connected and interdependent. Humans live in a global
human community and are impacted by life experiences of others across the
room and around the world: socially, economically, ecologically, and
culturally. Ignoring the needs of others within the human community invites
suffering and disaster, and a weakening of the web of life.
Sustainability –Organizations, communities, and civilizations sustain over time
because they respect and adapt to the governing forces and latticework of
life. The building blocks and sustenance for daily life emerge from the
earth’s fertility. Respecting the earth’s ecological balance and
interdependencies allows for rejuvenation of nature and the replenishing of
resources for meeting basic human needs over time.
Dignity and Self Determination – As
nature has governing forces, so do humans. The inherent dignity of every
person (as defined in 1948 in the United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights), commands respect at all levels of social relations. Core to
respecting human dignity and self-determination are: access to information,
to opportunity, and to decision making authority.
Honesty, Truth, and Caring – These three are partnered as a way to recognize
the relationships between them that leverage the best in each of the others,
e.g., honesty without care can wound and divide; with care it heals and
unifies. The truth we see calls for us to be honest with ourselves and each
other, and to have the courage to care beyond our narrow self-interest and
short-term gain.
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