[Associate Professor Minette Drumwright] It can be difficult to have integrity in the
workplace at times, especially when it seems that many people are succeeding through
unethical behavior.
It can be tempting to throw up your hands and say, "I've got to be unethical if I want
to succeed!" or "If I'm ethical, I'll go broke!"
This type of thinking creates a false dichotomy between being ethical and failing or being
unethical and succeeding.
[Ghal] There is actually a movie called "Margin Call" and one of the things he says at the end is...
I don’t remember the exact quote but, he says there's three things that we can do to
be better than our competitors: we can be first, we can be smarter, or we can cheat.
[Dana] A lot of times people think to really make the most amount of money that they possibly
can, they can cut corners and that sort of thing.
[Kelly] Because of that climate, it’s really easy to feel like anyone who is really successful
at a certain point must have done something bad.
Some people are able to break out of this type of thinking, even in very tough circumstances.
They have what scholars such as Mark Johnson and Patricia Werhane have referred to as
"moral imagination."
Moral imagination is the ability to think outside the box and envision ways to be both
ethical and successful — alternatives that many people cannot even imagine.
[Jay] Hindsight is always 20/20 right?
You don’t always know that you being ethical is going to benefit you in the long run.
So it takes a lot of courage and a lot of confidence to say that okay, I don’t know
what the outcome of this is going to be but I’m trusting that this is going to
benefit me in the long run.
And I think you have to find that courage sometimes.
It’s not always easy.
I encountered a vivid example of moral imagination in my research with Patrick Murphy that was
published in Journal of Advertising.
The CEO of a major advertising agency described a time in which his largest client, who accounted
for more than one third of his agency's revenues, asked him to do something he considered unethical.
He objected, but the client dug in his heels and insisted that the advertising agency carry
out the unethical behavior.
The CEO went back to the office and discussed the client's request at length with his team.
After a good deal of deliberation, they came to the conclusion that they couldn't comply
with the request.
At the meeting the next day, the CEO used his most persuasive arguments in objecting
to the behavior, but the client stood firm.
The CEO resigned the account just before the client fired him.
Suddenly, one-third of the agency's revenues disappeared.
Typically, in a situation like this in advertising, most, if not all, of the people working on the
account get pink slips; they are fired to reduce the agency's fixed costs dramatically
and immediately.
The CEO said that he did not believe that this was the right thing to do.
He gathered his team together, and they brainstormed ways to cut costs and pitch new business.
And then they did those things.
In the end, no one was fired, and the agency made it through the crisis successfully with
its credibility and its reputation intact.
It had become a legend that embodied and communicated the values of the organization.
[Lauren] There is a brewery in town called Hops and Grain and they have made a commitment
to being ethical in the way that they use environmental resources.
For their excess hops and grain, the refuse that’s left after the beer making process,
a lot of places send it off to farms so it can be eaten by cows.
But there aren’t a lot of farms with cows near Austin, so that uses a lot of gasoline.
So their idea, which is clever, is to make dog biscuits out of it.
It costs more money upfront, so a lot of people probably would've told them they were being
crazy, that they were wasting money where they didn’t need to.
[Kelly Hogg] We see a lot of success in companies like Tom's, companies like Whole Foods, companies
that are really doing a lot to say, "This is a wrong thing that’s in our society...
as a business, what can we do to make it a right thing?
How can we fix it?"
So what can we do to develop moral imagination?
First, reject the false dichotomy that we have to either be ethical and go broke
or be unethical and successful.
Second, accept the fact that ethical problem solving is a part of our role as professionals
and apply the same problem solving skills and approaches to ethical issues as we do
to other issues.
Third, talk with other people who share our perspective about the importance of finding
ethical approaches and brainstorm alternatives.
And finally, have courage!
We can have the best values in the world, but they don't do anyone any good if we don't
have the courage to put them into action.
Most people have the ability to be creative; it’s just about trying to be and accepting
that you can be good at it.
You’re not born with a certain set of skills and you’re terrible at everything else.
If you surround yourself with honest people and people who are courageous and brave enough
to think outside the box and find new methods...
I think that you’ll find new methods too.
It takes a certain amount of courage to be able to say that you want to do things differently
than what's been the industry standard.
Your intuition says that, "Oh if I do something like this, it’s not going to be beneficial
for me as a company or as a business owner or as an employee,” but that’s really
not always true and I would question you to question your own intuition and
think outside the box.
I definitely think that dichotomy is shifting and is changing and people aren’t believing it
and I think that because we’re seeing this shift away from that dichotomy, we’re
seeing a great improvement in our society, and we’re seeing businesses that are ethical
be very successful and I think that’s a great trend to see going on.