Rules on the scales

Even when our choices are determined by rules and principles, we cannot avoid making trade-offs

Next week, Gallup, a consulting firm historically known as an opinion pollster, organizes a webinar titled Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: How to Make it a Competitive Advantage rather than Window Dressing. I wouldn’t be so cynical as to assume that there is a binary choice between doing the right thing with ulterior motives, and just pretending to do the right thing. No doubt there are organizations that really could not care less about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and treat it as window dressing. However, my own experience as an adviser over many years suggests there are many managers who do take ethics seriously, and who really want to do the right thing.

The cost of the right thing

Doing the right thing is in the ethical realm of the deontology: the strict adherence to simple rules without nuance. It is not “try not to cheat too much”, or “seek to minimize the amount of cheating”, but unequivocally “don’t cheat”. In organizations, however, decisions are generally guided by the costs and benefits of the available options — a rather more utilitarian perspective. Despite the fact that most costs and benefits can be expressed in hard currency, such choices can be complex…