Tag Archives: ethics

100-Day Challenge – Day 16. And why your argument might make you look stupid.

16 Sunday Jul 2017

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Lost another 2 pounds this week, which might have been more had I not succumbed to limited, controlled but admittedly self-undermining temptation with desserts of an evening. After telling my loving spouse NOT to buy ice-creams, she forgot she’d listened. Still, I could have said, ‘No’, couldn’t I?

I also ran a faster 2 miles, which is progress even if I am a long way of a 10 miler target. and I was nicely productive most of the time.

Don’t Argue for Generals.

The psychologist Dr Leonard Orr postulated that in all of us there are two people – a ‘thinker’ and a ‘prover’. The Thinker within you is the part that thinks up ideas and generates possibilities while the Prover looks for the evidence that supports those ideas. Orr’s Law states, “Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves’.

Consequently, if you believe something to be true based on any number of factors in including upbringing, peer pressures, experience and environment, then your Prover will seek out and identify any evidence that supports that belief – while dismissing anything which counters that belief.

This is a problem. Referencing Covey’s first Habit, we have the ability if we are aware of and wish to use it to overcome that closed thinking. We can choose to look at what we believe, and to question those beliefs. We also have the ability to elect to make those beliefs conditional – that, to accept that our beliefs are not facts, or that they may apply a lot of the time but aren’t necessarily universal.

This came to mind this week because a Facebook acquaintance had circulated a pic supporting of equality in gay marriage, but with an additional barb at the bottom about ‘the church’ being anti-gay. I questioned why a positive message about equality had to end with an attack. Off we went.

The point I wanted to convey (and maybe failed because of the medium or because the other party declined to accept Orr’s Law, I don’t know) was that generalising attacks on any organisation/culture/body/group, undermines the intellectual accuracy of the argument. In fact, it merely demonstrates the stereotyping of whole strata of society. And that stereotyping is often done by those who demand we do not stereotype!

I read about ‘the police did X at Hillsborough’ or ‘the army did that’ in Afghanistan, or ‘all politicians something else’ wherever, and I get miffed.

I get miffed because ‘the police’ is made up of thousands of people who had nothing to do with Hillsborough – I was 180 miles away; ‘the army’ is all over the world and not just in Afghanistan; ‘politicians’ represent society so some are dishonest, some are self-absorbed, and many are trying their best in a warped system (while also being subject to Orr’s Law!). But many ‘police’, ‘army’ and ‘politicians’ are none of those things. Many – no, most – are trying to uphold high personal and professional standards in a system designed (for some reason) to be adversarial. But most can leave the adversity in the workplace. Some, on the other hand, insist on taking it to Facebook.

You can usually tell the ideology of the arguer – their language about the other side will be dismissive, often insulting – but always general, as in ‘all X are Y’. Their language rarely takes into account the nature and size of exemptions that make the original generalisation ineffective.

Try arguing for an idea without attacking, insulting or stereotyping those who hold an opposing viewpoint. It’ll make you clever – er.

A bit more on ‘situational ethics’. Sorry.

28 Sunday Feb 2016

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This phenomenon of one rule for us and another rule for them exists despite all in authority insisting it should and does not.

I have the honour of representing private investigators at a high level. In general, these are professionals who comply with legal rules, which include not harassing people, not bugging them and complying with the data protection act, which means keeping personal data confidential on pain of a fine or imprisonment, which is as it should be. Our work is focused at obtaining evidence for use by a client, often in a court case, and until such a case is heard the information is kept secure and confidential.

But a press reporter? He can camp outside your front door, obtain information almost any way he likes, shout at and bully you in a doorstep ambush interview and then tell millions of people what is ‘allegedly’ true, ruining your life in the pursuit of profit.

Guess which one is supposed to be licenced and regulated, and which one bleats about even signing a charter that would influence his behaviour – and perchance make it as ethical as the other profession?

And my next bleat about double standards probably takes me back to work, but not just mine.

In many organisational statements I have heard, there was a saying. That was ‘Our people are our most important asset’. I have consistently discovered in my own experience that there is a caveat to that declaration that dare not be spoken. The full statement reads, ‘Our people are our most important asset – but we can’t trust them an inch. We have to monitor, measure, threaten and cajole to make sure they do what we tell them’.

This kind of measurement approach has created many amusing and unexpected side effects. In the policing sector they introduced a system whereby a key performance indicator was how quickly a 999 operator answered a 999 call. Easy to establish – just create a computer system which monitors when the phone starts ringing, and when the receiver is lifted. Hey presto, we answer all 999 calls within 2 seconds. Hurrah!

So what happens when the 999 call is picked up in 2 seconds and then the phone is immediately slammed down again? Not that that ever happened, but the original goal remains achieved. Success! More soberly, what happened when a swiftly picked up 999 call was poorly dealt with – major investigation. What happened when a 999 phone call was picked up in the dread 2.5 seconds? Major investigation, disciplinary action, gnashing of teeth, etc. Meetings asking how this could possibly happen, how we can improve the attitude of those damnable staff, how can we automate the sub-2 second method?

And all the time, people try to find ways of making the goal appear achieved, without doing the work that was intended. I remember that as a result of some sterling police work in one town, no bicycles were ever stolen. No crime complaint was ever submitted to show a bike had been nicked. That said, people in the area lost hundreds of bikes. A different matter altogether and one which was never, ever measured.

Ultimately, all that I have said so far is about ethics, how people behave, or are supposed to behave.

I have a theory, and it is this. When you put an adjective in front of the word ‘ethics’, you immediately declare you have no ethics at all. For me, ethical behaviour means telling the truth, being open and honest and above board, and seeking the truth. Putting the word ‘legal’ in front of it allows you to vehemently protect a dodgy client from the truth, and even use disingenuous terms – no, let’s call it lying – to further hide it. Let’s not talk of banking ethics, where HSBC protected drug lords and terrorists until caught out. Let’s not talk of press ethics, where ‘freedom of the press’ is confused by the press ‘taking liberties’.

However, on that last point, the one thing that really dismays me is that without those what I would call ‘breaches’ of ethics, the systems within which those common ethics are breached wouldn’t work. If lawyers couldn’t pretend their clients were innocent the courts would clog up because no criminal would use a lawyer. The banks wouldn’t be used by terrorists and we’d have no way at all of finding their money. The press wouldn’t, on the rare occasions that they do so, be able to open our eyes to matters of true concern – as opposed to what Kim and Khloe are wearing or not wearing this week.

Readers – when it comes to fairness and ethical behaviour, sometimes I reckon we are too clever. And at other times, I reckon we just aren’t clever enough.

 

 

 

Ethics. Qualify your actions and you may not have any.

14 Sunday Feb 2016

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“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do, and what is right to do.” Potter Stewart.

Something that really irked me towards the end of my career was the sense that the game had changed. When I started in the police force we were instilled with an ethic I could best describe as hard but fair. We weren’t there to go around forcing our will on people, except to the degree that a situation warranted the use of our statutorily-sourced powers. Those powers, provided to us by Parliament, were designed to allow us to maintain order and the free movement of traffic – and to investigate crime in a fashion that enabled objective assessment of evidence. One way of doing the latter, amongst others, was to seek and execute search warrants where we had reasonable grounds to believe evidence was at a specified location, if we believed that asking nicely to come in, or giving notice of a visit, would likely result in that evidence going ‘walkies’. It was a power designed to do two things – if it was there, we found it and used. If it didn’t exist, we couldn’t. In essence, the power and its execution allowed an objective assessment of the suspect’s guilt. But if we told them we were coming and the stuff wasn’t there, we didn’t really know either way.

But towards the end, I was starting to notice that line managers were starting to get soft. Instead of arresting and searching, we would ‘invite the suspect in’ and then search. Giving them time (at least twice in my own experience) to try and hide the evidence. If a decision made by one manager was shown to be wrong, a new manager would be reluctant to change it as it reflected badly on the predecessor and/or the organisation. If I wanted to force a door to execute a warrant, they’d try to stop me.

People who had earlier proved stalwarts of the profession started looking not at what we could do – legally – and started doing something else. They started looking out for themselves, preferring the non-complaint status quo. Suddenly, their work ethic was ‘avoid conflict.’

(Not to mention the senior officers sitting in judgment on colleagues who hadn’t done anything their judges hadn’t done years before. But that’s another issue.)

When you are truly a person of character and competence, as proposed and achieved through execution on the Second Resolution, you know what you can and cannot do, both legally and morally. You adhere to the influence of your conscience on the morality of what you are doing, and the legalities, technicalities, systems and processes are so well known to you that you comply almost without thinking. Particularly when those competencies are tried, tested, proved and effective.

You don’t have to worry about the effect on the organisation, or what people will think of you and of what you did. You know because of your ethics and skills that what you are doing is right, that it will likely bring the desired, objective result, and that no ethical individual or organisation can in any way take you to task. They may try, but they will fail.

That, to me, summarises what is sadly wrong with some senior managers in many organisations. They’ve lost the ability to stand up for what is right in preference for what they think they have a right to do.

A good manager does what is right, in the right way for the right reasons. All three apply. A poor manager, an unethical manager, only has to fail on one of those – wrong thing, wrong way or wrong reason – for the results to be tainted, or to fail.

Interestingly, while simultaneously demanding that all those below them do the former.

Is a puzzlement.

 

For more on The Second Resolution, go to The Books and find out how to buy Kindle and paperback books on the subject of The Three Resolutions.

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Legal ethics – aren’t ethical.

21 Sunday Dec 2014

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“Principles are the simplicity on the far side of complexity.” Stephen R Covey.

The legal system is a poor example of principles in action, even though you will often hear it quoted as such.

I say this because of the (money-generating, anti-justice) focus on the observance of process over the principle of truth.

UK readers will know of Nick Freeman, ‘Mr Loophole’, whose expertise is on getting people found not guilty of things they did, on the basis of – well, loopholes. For example, a drunk-driving client who was charged by a civilian and not a police officer, so the court erroneously let them off even though I can’t find ANY legal requirement that a police officer read the charges out. Charge-reading is no more than a means of bringing a suspect to court. The message, “My client did what is alleged but you didn’t dot a t and cross an I” does not serve justice, it serves the procedure – and the lawyer’s pocket.

They call this ‘legal ethics’. They are the ethics that allow lawyers to NOT ask their client if they did it because to do so might prevent them defending that client. But here’s a question – if you have to pre-describe a term, doesn’t the term become redundant. In other words, doesn’t the word ‘legal’ before the term ‘ethics’ mean that they aren’t ethical at all?

For me, the overriding question in all human endeavour should be – what is the ultimate purpose of this process? If the process has not been followed, can the principle still be achieved reasonably fairly?

Such a question would rule out the use of deliberate or even grossly negligent errors in convicting people who endanger society, while still allowing us to prevent ‘honest error’ letting criminals and other dangerous offenders getting away with it.

Alternatively – some courts, judges, magistrates and prosecutors should just stand up and be counted.

Deadly Sin – Number Four

13 Saturday Dec 2014

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“Economic and Political systems are ultimately based on a moral foundation.” Stephen R Covey

The fourth Deadly Sin is ‘Commerce (Business) without Morality (or Ethics)’.

The common view of any corporation is that it is corrupt on the basis that it makes profit. That is lefty, socialist ideological dogma. If corporations did not make profit, they would dwindle and die away, and those who work there would have to seek survival through other means.

However, those which pay poorly, and I include those who pay on zero-hours bases with a clause that the employee cannot seek work elsewhere, do fit the immorality ‘bill’ when it comes to the way they do business. On a similar vein, those who take advantage of customers are just as morally bankrupt – and this includes any business that has such a complicated tariff system that no-one knows how it works and trusts the corporation to deal with them fairly, and to promptly address concerns when they are raised.

(Utility companies take note – a 30 minute wait listening to a ‘we value your custom but can’t be a***ed to adequately man our phones’ message suggests you are LYING.)

Some companies, successful and profitable ones strangely enough, manage to conduct business in such a fashion. They last a fair while, too, and the people that work there are almost invariably happy. (There’s always one……) But they rarely get the publicity, do they?

(I originally added political parties to that paragraph but to be frank I couldn’t, in all conscience, do so. That is because I have yet to meet a prominent politician that has impressed me with their willingness to stand up for their values at the potential expense of their position. I know in my heart that they exist, but they must be hidden because they don’t follow a party line and so don’t get the rewards of power.)

But never forget. It is individuals that set the culture. An ‘organisation’ is not corrupt unless someone with power within that organisation legitimises it. But that is not all. And you might like this next sentence a bit less.

In order for that someone in power to create a culture of immorality and corruption, quite a few other people have to either support them, or stand by doing nothing about it.

Don’t be in that list. Be of good character and stand up for what your conscience and values tell you is the right path. Even if it initially costs you there is always a happy ending when you know you have stood up for the ethical route.

Is it just me, or is it wrong?

27 Thursday Nov 2014

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The paper and internet press obtains video of someone being shot, or someone dying in tragic circumstances. In the public interest, they elect to show the video, or part of it, on their website. At the moment it is the shooting of a 12-year old boy brandishing what looked like a pistol, a while ago it was the shooting of Michael Brown. I’ve seen it on the MH-17 flight reports, any racing crash and so on. It’s the norm.

Convention appears to be that they ensure the placement of an advertisement, one that can’t be bypassed, before the video that is the source of the story.

My quandary is this – who is the sickest? The press for trying to make commercial gain from the ‘death video’, or me for trying to watch it in the first place?

Discuss.

The truth is we are all intrigued, interested or infatuated by death and injury, provided it isn’t our own. So it is (almost) inevitable that we would watch at least part of something like that. Maybe not you, but most people. There is also a ‘safe distance’ between us and a video of events that took place thousands of miles away.

But adverts? They aren’t an essential part of such an experience, and I must question the morality and ethics of s business that insists on trying to sell me alcohol, a car or a Sky channel on the back of a tragedy.

Am I Competent?

13 Saturday Sep 2014

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No, I don’t mean me, specifically. It’s a question I often asked myself in times of doubt, and I’m sure it’s a question you may have asked yourself. It is something I know I’ve asked myself when a colleague has pulled some masterful piece of work out of his or her bag, a piece of work I either should have considered or could have considered – but didn’t.

What IS Competence? In my book I define it as “the ability to get things done in accordance with the technology, methodology and ethics of the role being undertaken”. That general definition covers a multitude of professions, trades and pastimes. The ‘things to be done’ are the results expected from the individual that relate to the objectives of the organisation – it may be sales, it may be production, it may be distribution, it could be the provision of any services you can think of. But if you disagree with the definition just apply your own – it’s your understanding of competence that is important, and even more so when you apply it to your own work.

The chances are that having obtained a ‘job’ you either got training, or were expected to already know what it was you were supposed to be doing. Even in that latter situation I’d imagine there was some tempering of what you knew in the sense that it had to be applied to the specific situation in which you found yourself. I know, for example, that after 14 weeks Police training my naïve colleagues and I underwent a Force-level ‘local procedure course’ where we were enlightened as to “how we do it ‘round ‘ere”, followed by another “how we do it ‘round ‘ere” inflicted on us when we got to our first station. Then there were to be many other “how we do it ‘round ‘ere” courses as we were to transfer between stations and departments. I probably inflicted a few rounds of “how we do it ‘round ‘ere” myself. (What do you mean I still do?)

And on each of my subsequent HWDIRH courses I probably discovered that either I was not competent in the eyes of new ‘trainer’ because of the way I HAD been doing it, or the ‘trainer’ was evidently incompetent because I could see (having got older and wiser) that s/he was incompetent. Such incompetence, by the way, was often the reliance on HWDIRH being set in stone – it was ‘the ONLY way’.

It is clear to me that no matter where you go and whatever you do, there is a ‘window’ that exists, through which you will be viewed as competent or otherwise, and this is called the ‘AYNOBETA WINDOW’.

Someone, somewhere, will always know better than you. It is plain if you are wholly new to a field and are completely uninformed that people will see you through this window, and they will be right. On such occasions, suck it up, accept the impatience as a sense of urgency that you learn the new things being taught. (Particularly if you’ve just joined the Marines.)

But in progressing along a ‘training continuum’ where you’ve already gained some competence in your field, the situation may be a bit different with the other party’s AYNOBETA WINDOW. If they DO know better it will be evident the moment that they take the time to explain their thinking and you discover a new perspective. If they DON’T know better, that will become evident the minute they shout you down, refuse to listen to you, or call you an idiot for your failure to succumb to their greatness. Avoid these people like the plague. And don’t become one.

A friend of mine from the Covey ‘stable’ suggests that when we disagree with somebody, a great sentence is this: “Ah, you see things differently – tell me more.” It’s seldom easy to remember to use it, but there it is. Another Coveyism in any difference of opinion is, “What is your underlying concern?” They both send the same message – ‘your opinion is important to me and may be correct – tell me more’, and it actually invites the respondent to review their own understanding of the situation. This practice may well develop BOTH parties to the conversation.

Competence can be learned and incompetence can be unlearned. And in the great continuum of life, skills applicable today may no longer work tomorrow and our competence needs to take new possibilities, and the subsequent need for new learning, into account.

We’re only competent until something changes, but after that change we are only incompetent as long as we are unable or unwilling to learn the new skill required. Once we take the time to be retrained, or to train ourselves, we resume our journey through competence to expertise. And that is a place many of us would like to be.

Weekly Challenge

Is there something you do in your trade, profession, community work or relationships that needs work? How up to date are you with the codes of practice governing your activities? How proactive are you about discovering what your training department still hasn’t told you? What ‘soft skills’ aren’t you applying that you know you should, but haven’t yet applied because you fear your lack of skill will be seen as duplicitous or insincere?

Take the time to either learn what you don’t know, or properly apply what you DO know. For me, that’ll mean exercising much more patience (MUCH more) with family members!

Blog Part

Disappointing weight loss this week, but I suspect there were some environmental factors which warped the weighing scale experience and I hope that the balance will be redressed next week. I’m still on track with the running programme (eh?) and even ran a bit further than I should have one day, just to see if I could. It built a bit of self-confidence in me, so it did.

My book is expanding exponentially – every day something comes up that makes me think “that’ll be great in that chapter”, which means I develop my thinking as much as I hope to help you develop your own.

I also attended a professional seminar yesterday, and some interesting legal and ethical questions arose which are also going to lead to me gaining new competencies, and to taking further opportunities to provide a service in accordance with my Mission Statement. There was also a moral/ethical dilemma – do I challenge a speaker on his ethics in front of a crowd of people? My answer has always been the same – when invited to someone else’s party, don’t criticise the host. And there’s also another perspective to consider – ‘did I hear that right?’

Occasionally you need to keep your mouth shut out of respect – because doing so may also protect your own reputation!