Even with a solid foundation of good moral values, no one is immune to making unethical choices.

Ethical slips and traps are rampant, from telling white lies that protect a friend, to ignoring a gut feeling and following orders when we know better.

Not a month goes by without some highly publicised ethical scandal. Be it tax evasion, executive pay excesses, sexual dalliances and outright fraud, many individuals are simply unable to resist temptation.

Does this make the perpetrators corrupt sociopaths?

Sometimes, but usually not. They’re often leaders and pillars of the community, and their actions leave us shaking our heads and wondering what were they thinking.

The sad truth? No one is immune. Cheating isn’t limited to those in positions of power. While power is certainly fraught with opportunities and temptations, each of us faces daily choices that involve doing the right—or wrong—thing. Only when a CEO, politician, celebrity or sports legend gets caught does the problem rise to front-page news. Just ask Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton or more recently, Mark McInnes, former CEO of Australian retail giant, David Jones.

But the same ethical traps lie in your path. Even the little guys transgress. Often, people feel an urge to cheat—a strange pull to try to get away with something. Sometimes it’s small; other times it’s scandalous. Sometimes it matters; other times it goes unnoticed.

What exactly happens inside our heads when we choose to violate our ethical standards? Do we lose sight of what’s right? Do we take the easy way out? Are we driven to win at any price? Are we attracted to our “dark side”?

Ethical Roots

Psychology and other social sciences offer a huge body of experimental studies that demonstrate the allure of cheating. In The Ethical Executive (Stanford University Press, 2008), Robert Hoyk and Paul Hersey describe 45 ethical traps inherent in any organisational environment.

Many of these traps are psychological in nature, creating “webs of deception” that distort our perception of right and wrong. Such rationalisations lead us to believe our unethical behavior is normal and appropriate, and they have contributed to large-scale corporate disasters like the Enron and WorldCom affairs.

The Brain Science of Traps

At any given moment, we have impulses that motivate us to act. They are reactions to internal or external stimuli, which may be powerful enough to trigger automatic behavior. At this point, we may rationally ignore other (and better) options.

Other times, we’re aware of several distinct choices, but the stimulus’ effect overrides these potential actions. We may desire a specific outcome so strongly that it propels us to move in an unsound direction. Anxiety and stress may also compel us to make choices that alleviate our short-term distress, yet lead to irrevocable long-term consequences.

Our ultimate behavior depends on a complex weave of situational factors, history and personality.

Four Basic Tribal Drives
 

1.     The drive to acquire and improve our status in the tribe
2.     The drive to bond with others
3.     The drive to learn and acquire knowledge
4.     The drive to defend and protect

Some experts believe we’re motivated by four basic human drives that have evolved from our primitive ancestors:

These drives are especially evident in western and other modern cultures. We work hard to provide for our families, far beyond our survival needs for food, clothing and shelter. Many of us are highly motivated to land the best job, home and/or salary possible. It’s human nature to want to acquire things that make our families comfortable and happy. Many of us are driven to be the smartest or most  prestigious person in the room.

Much of our energy goes toward protecting what we have and defending our territories, families, positions, rights and freedoms—a strong drive that explains why nations go to war.

Organisations are like theatres, where actors play out their desires to acquire, bond, learn and defend. There’s no better stage to demonstrate our tribal drives, and nowhere are there more daily opportunities to choose between right and wrong.

The Ethical Stage

As children, we were primed to obey our parents. Our very survival depended on it. Some families demanded strict obedience; others were lenient about opposition and rebellion; still others encouraged creativity and individual spirit.

But all families required obedience to authority. This conditioning continued in school. Consequently, as adults, when our boss orders us to do something, we quickly obey—often, without thinking.

If an authority figure orders us to do something unethical, our sense of obedience may be so powerful that we follow orders without acknowledging that we’re going against our ethical principles. The impulse to obey is so strong that it overrides rational judgement.

Root Causes of Traps

Obedience to authority is a “primary” trap, which means a strong external stimulus impels us to move in a certain direction, without regard for our ethical principles.

In business, people don’t abandon their ethics simply because they want to maximise profits. Rather, their drive to acquire and improve their status lures them into a social-psychological trap.

This often happens in small steps—yet another trap. If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out quickly. But if you place it in the pot and slowly increase the heat, it will remain there and be cooked.

Small steps and choices create minor ethical transgressions that do little harm, but they set the direction that eventually leads to major, irreversible violations.

Primary Traps

Hoyk and Hersey describe three types of social-psychological traps that occur in the workplace: primary, defensive and personality. They include:

1.     Obedience to authority
2.     Small steps
3.     Indirect responsibility
4.     Faceless victims
5.     Lost in the group
6.     Competition
7.     Self-interest
8.     Tyranny of goals
9.     Money
10.     Conformity
11.     Power
12.     Obligation
13.     Time pressures

When we carefully review and understand these traps, we can prepare for—and avoid—them. Our choices become sound.

A Study of Business Ethics

Twelve years ago, Joseph Badaracco, an ethics professor at the Harvard Business School, interviewed 30 recent MBA graduates who had faced ethical dilemmas in the business world. All of them had taken an ethics class at Harvard. Half of them worked for companies that had official ethics programs.

As Badaracco notes:

“Corporate ethics programs, codes of conduct, mission statements, hot lines, and the like provided little help…the young managers resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on the basis of personal reflection and individual values, not through reliance on corporate credos, company loyalty, the exhortations of senior executives, philosophical principles or religious reflection.”

Most of the Harvard-educated managers had learned their personal values primarily from their family upbringing, not from ethics courses. Traditional ethics education based on philosophical principles does not always transfer to the workplace.

What does make for better choices in our jobs, however, is an understanding of the root causes of unethical behaviors: the psychological dynamics. If managers have a firm knowledge of how pervasive and compelling ethical traps can be, they can use this understanding to objectify what’s happening to them.

When you can think and talk about these traps with a trusted colleague, mentor or coach, then their allure and the possible distortions they evoke can be revealed. Some distance is created between the person, the choice and the trap. As a result, anxieties are reduced, improved clarity is achieved and more effective choices can be made.

Traditionally, business-ethics and MBA programs present vignettes of ethical dilemmas one may face, such as pollution, sexual harassment, product safety and discrimination. These problems have no clear right or wrong answers. To solve them, students are often provided with an outline of eight to 12 critical questions. A sample is provided here for your use.
 Twelve Questions for Examining the Ethics of a Business Decision

1.     Have you adequately defined the problem?
2.     How would you define the problem if you stood on the other side of the fence?
3.     How did this situation occur in the first place?
4.     To whom and to what do you give your loyalty, as both a person and a member of the corporation?
5.     What does your intuition tell you about making this decision?
6.     How does this intention compare with the probable results?
7.     Who could your decisions or action injure?
8.     Can you discuss the problem with the affected parties before you make your decisions?
9.     Are you confident that your position will remain valid over the long term?
10.     Could you disclose, without qualms, your decisions or actions to your boss, CEO, board of directors, family and society as a whole?
11.     What is the symbolic potential of your action, if understood? If misunderstood?
12.     Under which  conditions would you allow exceptions to your stand?

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