This post comes as a result of many situations I have faced while working in India since the past 6 months and also occasionally while I lived in New Zealand. It is an ethical conundrum as to when one draws the line between Honesty and Getting Results
Let’s take a few examples:
1. You need to develop a Standard Operating Procedure or Business Contract
Since you don’t have a clue how to get started, we do what is the birth right of everyone living in the 2000s – you Google some examples. You go through the examples, tweak a few sentences here and there, add your company logo and Voila! you have a SOP or a contract for your business. What is your perception here – is this kind of ‘copying’ ethical? This was the first example I came across during my working experience and when asked why we could not sit and think about our own terms and conditions I was taught that why “re-invent the wheel”? Moreover, in fact if you don’t undertake this “research” you may in fact miss out an important point and face a competitive disadvantage. Over time, this just became standard and me an my colleague regularly ‘googled’ all sorts of procedures and customised them to suit our needs
2. Undertaking Business Development for a small business
Hop over to India and I started working for a small business where as part of the role I am expected to source details of CEO’s and Marketing Heads. If you have ever called an MNC you will know the number of ‘gatekeepers’ you need to go through to be able to talk to a CEO or Marketing Head. To make the process easier, I was entrusted the task of finding the details so that my boss could talk to them and pitch business directly – not as easy as it may seem as why would anyone give you the CEO’s direct number? So, I was advised to say that I am calling from a government organisation and would like to call them for an ‘event’. Now, this rankled my chains a bit and I felt quite uncomfortable doing this the first 15 times I did it. The point here is – should we be worried about honesty? Smaller firms need to ‘fight to survive’ so we must do anything to get the information we want. Right? (Still not sure about this)
3. Using aliases/ outright bullying operators to get contact details
I am sure you have all come across instances where you have had to meet targets and urgently need to speak to the decision makers. Have you been tempted to or been asked to lie to the operator or even bully them to get these contact details? Has it made you feel uncomfortable? What have you done about it or is this yet another instance which has just become normal and standard within your organisation
The above are just some examples of regular ethical issues that come up in the workplace or even as entrepreneurs. We can convince ourselves that we must do this to become more competitive, achieve targets, operate within the industry etc but where do we draw the line? There is a strong anti-corruption move that is sweeping through India – are these kind of ethical shortcuts the beginning/ seeds of corrupt behaviour to follow? The worst part is that seasoned professionals are often requested to ‘teach interns’ the ropes at work and show them how this behaviour is replicated. So then, the questions remains are we teaching young India Inc to be more productive or are we teaching them to eventually become corrupt?
Where do you draw the line in your businesses – would be keen to know.
Gandhi said – Be the change you want to see in the world. But does this apply only to the big stuff or does this need to be implemented at every stage in our lives?
