The nature of any personal issue of ethics, in my experience, is inherently complicated. The ethical dilemma in fact exists because a variety of elements are difficult to reconcile, and at the deepest levels. Even the most pragmatic business affairs reflect this conflict, as I came to know very well. At one point in my career as a business analyst, I accepted a position with dot.jo, a web development company. Another person in my office had completed the analysis phase of a client’s project, and I was informed that the client was dissatisfied with what had been delivered. It was turned over to me, but it soon became clear that a good deal of necessary information was missing. I perceived that I needed to obtain these requirements from the client; my manager, however, advised me to elicit the information from the client without revealing that the work needed to be redone. Apparently, the client had spent weeks providing the information to the other employee and was unlikely to be willing to cooperate. Essentially, I was asked to obtain the information under false pretences, as I knew that the manager did not wish to give the client any reason to believe we could not move forward without this assistance. My choice was clear: comply with my manager and conceal the real situation from the client, or honestly deal with them and risk losing the account. I chose to abide by my manager’s directions, even though I was greatly uncomfortable with concealing the truth from our client.
As this phase of the project went on, and after a number of meetings, the client did in fact come to understand what had occurred. Fortunately, this had a minimal impact on our relations with them. The phase was concluded successfully and the client was completely satisfied with the work. There was a favorable outcome, and this was greatly affected by the fact that the reality of the situation was, after all, known to the client. I had no “secret” to conceal any longer, and no cause for feeling that I was maintaining duplicity of any kind.
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As I reflect further, however, I am by no means satisfied with this entire episode. More exactly, it seems to me that ethics should never be defined by the actual consequences of the questionable course taken. Being satisfied that no one is treated unfairly in the end cannot make up for a failure to do the right thing. That translates to “the ends justifying the means,” and I find such a rationale unacceptable. Ethics exist to guide us, not to certain results, but by a code of behavior that is fundamentally right, and it concerns me that I did not fully appreciate this at the time. I am certainly glad that the client accepted our actions, but I do not believe that I should allow such acceptance to play any role in my wrestling with an ethical issue.
There is as well another issue here, and one I think relevant to many faced with ethical decisions, large or small, in our business lives: the determination of where our own power of choice begins and the right of a superior ends. The sheer reality of the chain of command in business tends to absolve us from difficult decisions, simply because we feel that those above us, in issuing directions, undertake the responsibility of the ethics involved as well. This, as I discovered, is not always the case, or even anything to be relied upon. The situation I faced was hardly a matter of life or death, yet it contained an ethical component as strong as any such case because my values were challenged. I did not meet the challenge correctly, and I later realized that no other party can decide our ethics for us, no matter their position in the workplace.
It would be agreeable to leave all such issues in the hands of others, but the nature of ethics is, first and foremost, highly individual; what we believe to be right will assert itself, no matter the circumstances, and it will also create unease even when there is a rationale of permission attached to the questionable action. From this relatively minor episode, then, and even as there were no negative consequences from it, I realized that I must adhere to what I feel to be right, and that no circumstances should be permitted to influence my choice.
