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?

fbucaro
Like you, business ethics and ethical leadership expert, Frank Bucaro has seen the challenges and problems of corporate leadership, particularly over the past few years in regards to poor decision-making, SEC violations, and record breaking financial settlements in a number of different industries.
With over two decades of executive training, speaking, writing and with real life experiences, his view and approach to ethics in the workplace is uniquely different. He emphasizes that ethics is a moment-to-moment choice and has little to do with position, titles, personalities or education. Ethics is everybody’s responsibility from the top down.
His goal is to help organizations to:
a. Strengthen their ethics training initiatives in order to significantly decrease the odds of an ethical/compliance violation.
b. Energize, train and motivate employees to understand the value of consistent “high road” behavior as a business advantage.
c. Support individuals and thereby the organization by contributing to its success by quality, ongoing values based leadership development.
Frank is known for his very practical, slightly irreverent, yet somewhat humorous approach to ethics and leadership development. His conversational style and real life stories connect with his audience in a personal, intense and practical level.
Companies such as Bayer Healthcare, BP, ReMax International, EnMax Energy, Danone, etc. have partnered with Frank when they want to proactively stress the message, tools, insights and practical applications that good ethics IS good for business!