Featured Article
Ethics Above the Bottom Line
by Dr. David Schmidt
Businesses across America are closely reviewing and enhancing their ethics programs, in large measure, because of the disturbing wave of recent corporate scandals. And yet, some companies may overlook questions of morality in their quest to stomp out corporate corruption. As one executive proudly told me, "We have a highly ethical company — nobody here has been arrested in the last year!" While we can appreciate the pride he takes from this achievement, something about his statement leaves us scratching our heads. It seems he has missed the importance of ethics.
It is vital for business to have rules of conduct, to enforce these rules and to punish wrongdoers. But this is not the whole story. To understand what's missing, we simply need to remember that there is a "bottom line" in ethics. Just as business has a monetary bottom line (to maximize profit), so too ethics has a bottom line — the duty to do no harm. Some version of this ethical imperative is found in nearly every society; it is the basis of our most rigorous standards of professional conduct, such as the medical professional's Hippocratic oath. The basic insight is this: we must ensure that we don't hurt others, especially without good reason.
While it is tempting to be content with not falling below the bottom line — e.g., nobody's been arrested — there is more to ethics than simply avoiding harm or staying out of trouble. We need to ask, "what's on the other end of the spectrum?" The question reveals the good we can accomplish by regularly promoting ethical behavior in the workplace. By moving beyond bottom-line ethics, businesses can act in a manner that inspires mutual confidence and increases the capacity of people to do their very best.
Compliance is about "playing by the rules of the game." Building upon this foundation, ethics is about "playing the game well." We see this distinction in sports. All sports activities are governed by rules. Some sports use referees or umpires who ensure that the rules are followed. To stay in the game, one must play by the rules, the bottom line. But simply playing by the rules does not guarantee one will win. To triumph, it is necessary to play better than the competition. Compliance with the rules is necessary and important, but it is not the whole story. In sports, success depends upon things like physical prowess, superior teamwork and strategy. In business, excellence in ethics depends upon things like loyalty, courage, trust, honesty and integrity.
True business leaders do not settle merely for meeting the ethical bottom line. Instead, they push relentlessly beyond this bottom line to pursue excellence in all aspects of their work. Not content simply to stay out of trouble, the preeminent will set new standards and best practices that will redefine what counts as success.
In the next issue: How the Kew Gardens Principles guide us above the ethics bottom line.
Dr. David P. Schmidt is Associate Professor of Business Ethics and Chair of the Management Department in the Dolan School of Business at Fairfield University. Dr. Schmidt is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Business Ethics. read full bio
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