In honor of PRSA ethics month I am posting today about my own standing on ethics. In the simplest of terms, I believe in doing the right thing. Even as a child, I was that one kid who could never lie to my mother, not because I was afraid of the consequences, but because I knew it would weigh on my conscience causing a way worse punishment than my mother ever could. I believe that these early moral values have no doubt stayed with me and shaped me into the individual that I am today.

My views on ethics in the workplace are quite simple as well. When working for a particular organization, one must be familiar with their specific code of ethics, but there will always be issues in that grey area. This is why it is important (as stated in my previous post) to know who you are and what you stand for. If someone within the company is committing fraud, do you tell? If you have the opportunity to receive kickbacks under the table, do you accept? When having to answer these questions or any other similar ones that may arise I think of two things: my mother, and the New York Times. While this is certainly a strange combination, its effective. Basically, I think is this something that would make that same mother that I could never lie to as a child proud, and secondly, would I want this on the front page of the New York Times with my picture beside it. I feel that if everyone in the world did this before making crucial decisions, the world would be a much better place. Here's an example:

Years ago, the Pinto car company discovered that 1% of their vehicles, when hit from a specific angle during a collision, would burst into flames. From a business standpoint, it would cost between 10 and 20 million dollars to settle with the families of those who would certainly be killed or between 100 and 200 million dollars to recall the cars. The decision was made to leave the vehicles on the market. When I think of this occurrence, I ask myself: when the meeting to decide this occurred, did no one in the group think to speak out on the issue of ethics. Or at the least, think of their mother or the New York Times?