Why your Organization may need an Ethics Consultant.
A few years ago, Marvin Brown wrote a great book titled Working Ethics. In it , he explains the differences between negative and positive ethics.
The implications of these differences can have a tremendous impact on the results of your ethics training initiatives. In a nut shell, here’s the difference and my two cents in their implications.
Negative ethics tell us what not to do and the goal is it is to prevent a harm. For example, if your employee handbooks uses this statement: “No employee shall…….” This is a negative ethics approach to ethics in the workplace. The issue for leaders is that you become, cop, judge and jury in making sure that all are doing what they are supposed to do by walking around and making sure that emplpyees are obeying the rules.
Positive ethics give us guidelines for what we should do. The goal is to produce a good. The statement , “All employees will…..”, changes the entire tone and focus, that makes each individual responsible for one’s decision. The leader then, becomes a mentor, cheerleader, coach and guide.
Take a look at your employee handbook, code of conduct, etc. See how things are stated. Negative ethics are the easiest to implement in that people tend to focus on what not to do based on what some entity has created. Positive ethics focuses on personal accountability for decisions made.
I hope the differences in ethics training are a little clearer. Now ask yourself, which approach will give you the greatest return on your training investment?
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