Character Counts!
"CHARACTER COUNTS! . . . . . .in the Mid Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce" ™
At one time or another we have all heard phrases such as "business is business," "getting to the top at any price, "the "bottom line is what truly matters" or the "end justifies the means," meaning that ethics should have little to do in business decisions. Past and recent history attest to the fact that American business has gone intermittently through periods of widespread ethical lapses and that ultimately have had an adverse impact on the economy and a devastating result on people's lives, usually when they could be most vulnerable to economic setbacks, such as sending their children to college or planning for or during their retirement.
In the past 30 years alone, news headlines across the country have documented widespread instances of extraordinary organizational dishonesty with far-reaching repercussions. Sometimes unlawful activity has been committed by an individual, e.g., investor Bernie Madoff and his $50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme. At other times, dishonesty has been institutionalized in so many sectors of the American economy such as real estate agencies, auto dealerships, mortgage banking, financial advisors, etc., that law-abiding Americans are left wondering about what has happened to our core values of mutual trust and respect. Unethical firms have preyed on unsuspecting Americans with too-good-to-believe offers such as no-down-payment mortgages, no-deposit-down, interest-free loans, etc. Corporations such as Enron, Arthur Andersen, Clear Channel Communications, Silverado Savings and Loan, Global Crossing, Goldman Sachs, MCI Worldcom, Tyco, Quest Communications, Merryl Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Lincoln Savings and Loan, etc., have either disappeared or their pieces have been acquired by other businesses after fraudulent behavior was discovered, thus creating huge losses for the original stakeholders or significant hardships on their customers and taxpayers at large.
Our Board of Directors has taken the position that ethics in business is crucial to the long-term interest of small and large businesses. Organizational dishonesty, be it in the form of malfeasance or criminal conduct in areas such as accounting practices, advertising misrepresentation, regulatory evasion, corporate governance, securities transactions, etc., may yield short-term gains but dishonesty and a bottom-line-above-all policy undermine individual and corporate values and ultimately, it consumes the organization with ruinous consequences for all the stakeholders.
Unfortunately, even within purported ethical business organizations, we often find enployees who condone dishonest business practices whether it be due to pressure to meet unrealistic objectives or deadlines, concern to protect one's livelihood or a desire to climb the corporate ladder faster. The Savings and Loan's (&L) crisis of the 1980s and 1990s teaches us very important lessons about the critical importance of conducting business in an ethical manner. Responsible parties for the collapse were the savings and loan industry itself, the U.S. Congress, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), state regulators and a assortment of politicians who from time to time intervened on behalf of troubled S&Ls. Between 1986 and 1989, this crisis resulted in the failure of 296 S&Ls and an additional 747 S&Ls by mid-1990s, and it cost the American taxpayers in today's dollars hundreds of billions of dollars.
The S&Ls crisis was caused by a number of factors. In 1980, the U.S. Congress granted all thrifts, including savings and loan associations, the power to make consumer and commercial loans and to issue transaction accounts, thus giving them many of the capabilities of banks but without the same regulations as banks.
In an effort to take advantage of the real estate boom and high interest rates of the late 1970s and early 1980s, many S&Ls lent far more money than was prudent. A new generation of opportunistic, "high rollers" executives and owners, some of whom operated in a fraudulent manner, came to control many S&Ls. Regulatory relaxation permitted lending, directly and through participations, in distant loan markets on the promise of high returns. Lacking significant experience in outside markets, many S&Ls made unsound commercial real estate lending. Moreover, Federal and state examination and supervisory staffs were insufficient in number, experience or ability to deal with the new deregulated world of savings and loan operations.
Fraud and insider transaction abuses were the principal cause for some 20% of savings and loan failures; and dereliction of duty on the part of boards of directors permitted management to make uncontrolled use of operating authority, while at the same time failing to control expenses and prohibit obvious conflict of interest and other questionable situations.
As indicated on the original (2004) and subsequent 5-year revisions of our Strategic Plan, we encourage our members to conduct business in accordance with the highest legal, ethical, and moral standards. Many organizations have policies and standard operating procedures but instilling ethical behavior throughout an organization is generally a time-comsuming effort. However, the consequences of procrastinating or skimping over ethics training or leaving it up to the employee to learn more about it simply entails flirting with risk that may result on adverse publicity, loss of business, legal liability, injury to employees or customers and possible disclosure of sensitive data or proprietary information.
As an organization serving the public interest, the MAHCC must be above all a transparent, accountable and ethical business entity:
"There can never be a justifiable reason to compromise the integrity of the Mid-Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, our businesses, or our own personal ethics as Chamber officers or members."
Board of Directors, 2004
National Character Counts! Coalition
Because of our deep-seated belief that all businesses should conduct their operations in an ethical and legal manner, the Mid-Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is proud to be a member of the National “Character Counts! Coalition. Also, since its inception the Chamber has adopted as its own the "Character Counts!" Six Pillars of Character. In addition and to reinforce the "ethics in business" concept, we are long-standing partners with the different Better Business Bureaus throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.
Six Pillars of Character
The Six Pillars of an Upright Person's Character
and of a Healthy Business Culture
Note: The "Six Pillars of Character" section has been reproduced in its entirety with permission from The Josephson Institute of Ethics, Los Angeles, CA.
As a Character Counts! organization, our corporate and personal behavior (and hopefully, that of our members) rests upon six pillars: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship.
The Six Pillars of Character are ethical values to guide our choices. The standards of conduct that arise out of those values constitute the ground rules of ethics, and therefore of ethical decision-making. There is nothing sacrosanct about the number six. We might reasonably have eight or 10, or more. But most universal virtues fold easily into these six. The number is not unwieldy and the Six Pillars of Character can provide a common lexicon. Why is a common lexicon necessary? So that people can see what unites our diverse and fractured society. So we can communicate more easily about core values. So we can understand ethical decisions better, our own and those of others.
The Six Pillars act as a multi-level filter through which to process decisions. So, being trustworthy is not enough — we must also be caring. Adhering to the letter of the law is not enough — we must accept responsibility for our action or inaction. The Pillars can help us detect situations where we focus so hard on upholding one moral principle that we sacrifice another — where, intent on holding others accountable, we ignore the duty to be compassionate; where, intent on getting a job done, we ignore how.
In short, the Six Pillars can dramatically improve the ethical quality of our decisions, and thus our character and lives.
When others trust us, they give us greater leeway because they feel we don’t need monitoring to assure that we’ll meet our obligations. They believe in us and hold us in higher esteem. That’s satisfying. At the same time, we must constantly live up to the expectations of others and refrain from even small lies or self-serving behavior that can quickly destroy our relationships.
Simply refraining from deception is not enough. Trustworthiness is the most complicated of the six core ethical values and concerns a variety of qualities like honesty, integrity, reliability and loyalty.
Honesty
There is no more fundamental ethical value than honesty. We associate honesty with people of honor, and we admire and rely on those who are honest. But honesty is a broader concept than many may realize. It involves both communications and conduct.
Honesty in communications is expressing the truth as best we know it and not conveying it in a way likely to mislead or deceive. There are three dimensions:
Truthfulness.
Truthfulness is presenting the facts to the best of our knowledge. Intent is the crucial distinction between truthfulness and truth itself. Being wrong is not the same thing as lying, although honest mistakes can still damage trust insofar as they may show sloppy judgment.
Sincerity. Sincerity is genuineness, being without trickery or duplicity. It precludes all acts, including half-truths, out-of-context statements, and even silence, that are intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading.
Candor. In relationships involving legitimate expectations of trust, honesty may also require candor, forthrightness and frankness, imposing the obligation to volunteer information that another person needs to know.
Honesty in conduct is playing by the rules, without stealing, cheating, fraud, subterfuge and other trickery. Cheating is a particularly foul form of dishonesty because one not only seeks to deceive but to take advantage of those who are not cheating. It’s a two-fer: a violation of both trust and fairness.
Not all lies are unethical, even though all lies are dishonest. Huh? That’s right, honesty is not an inviolate principle. Occasionally, dishonesty is ethically justifiable, as when the police lie in undercover operations or when one lies to criminals or terrorists to save lives. But don’t kid yourself: occasions for ethically sanctioned lying are rare and require serving a very high purpose indeed, such as saving a life — not hitting a management-pleasing sales target or winning a game or avoiding a confrontation.
Integrity
The word integrity comes from the same Latin root as "integer," or whole number. Like a whole number, a person of integrity is undivided and complete. This means that the ethical person acts according to her beliefs, not according to expediency. She is also consistent. There is no difference in the way she makes decisions from situation to situation, her principles don’t vary at work or at home, in public or alone.
Because she must know who she is and what she values, the person of integrity takes time for self-reflection, so that the events, crises and seeming necessities of the day do not determine the course of her moral life. She stays in control. She may be courteous, even charming, but she is never duplicitous. She never demeans herself with obsequious behavior toward those she thinks might do her some good. She is trusted because you know who she is: what you see is what you get. People without integrity are called "hypocrites" or "two-faced."
Reliability (Promise-Keeping)
When we make promises or other commitments that create a legitimate basis for another person to rely upon us, we undertake special moral duties. We accept the responsibility of making all reasonable efforts to fulfill our commitments. Because promise-keeping is such an important aspect of trustworthiness, it is important to:
- Avoid bad-faith excuses. Interpret your promises fairly and honestly. Don’t try to rationalize noncompliance.
- Avoid unwise commitments. Before making a promise consider carefully whether you are willing and likely to keep it. Think about unknown or future events that could make it difficult, undesirable or impossible. Sometimes, all we can promise is to do our best.
- Avoid unclear commitments. Be sure that, when you make a promise, the other person understands what you are committing to do.
Loyalty
Some relationships — husband-wife, employer-employee, citizen-country — create an expectation of allegiance, fidelity and devotion. Loyalty is a responsibility to promote the interests of certain people, organizations or affiliations. This duty goes beyond the normal obligation we all share to care for others.
Limitations to loyalty. Loyalty is a tricky thing. Friends, employers, co-workers and others may demand that we rank their interests above ethical considerations. But no one has the right to ask another to sacrifice ethical principles in the name of a special relationship. Indeed, one forfeits a claim of loyalty when he or she asks so high a price for maintaining the relationship.
Prioritizing loyalties. So many individuals and groups make loyalty claims on us that we must rank our loyalty obligations in some rational fashion. For example, it’s perfectly reasonable, and ethical, to look out for the interests of our children, parents and spouses even if we have to subordinate our obligations to other children, neighbors or co-workers in doing so.
Safeguarding confidential information. Loyalty requires us to keep some information confidential. When keeping a secret breaks the law or threatens others, however, we may have a responsibility to "blow the whistle."
Avoiding conflicting interests. Employees and public servants have a duty to make all professional decisions on merit, unimpeded by conflicting personal interests. They owe ultimate loyalty to the public.
More under this Section
