In previous lessons, we've discussed the importance of projects and project management.
In this lesson, we're going to discuss professional ethics.
Ethics is a key attribute to success in most organizations.
In engineering, and particularly project management, it's critical
that we understand the key concepts associated with
ethical decision making.
In this lesson, we're going to be able to define ethics,
identify the sources of professional ethics,
describe the content of a professional code of ethics,
follow the steps to making an ethical decision.
So, what is ethics?
Unfortunately there's no one set of ethical rules that can guide us all.
Ideally we'd love this to be true but, in reality, it's not.
Ethics vary by culture, by region or organization, even by family.
What's acceptable in one location and one situation
may not be acceptable in a different setting.
If this is so,
then how can we be guided to do the right thing and act with professional ethics?
This is a key question.
This is something we all need to answer.
So, what is ethics?
Ethics is a system of moral principles that we all live by.
It's the rules of conduct.
At the end of the day, it's the way we treat other people.
For most people, we associate ethics as typically the right way to do things.
So, how do we know
what areas of ethics we should be concerned with?
Well, most companies and most organizations address key typical areas
that they consider important to ethics.
The first of these is conflict of interest.
As a professional, we're obligated to avoid the appearance of,
or the actual conflict between competing requirements,
or competing organization.
This means keeping the information confidential,
and not providing a competitive advantage
to one group over another.
We have an obligation to
avoid conflicts of interest.
Environmental and safety are another area.
There's an obligation to safeguard the environment
and create a safe working environment, the obligation not to put others in harms way.
Quality and product liability are important.
We have an obligation as professionals
to be open about defects which may be inherent in a work product.
The requirement to be transparent on issues involving quality and fit for purpose
is important.
Honesty and truthfulness, the obligation to represent the facts as we see them
and not to purposely deceive others.
Treating others fairly.
This includes fair employment practices, creating a harassment free environment,
diversity, inclusion, and respect for personal information.
Bribery and compliance is another area.
We're obviously obligated to maintain compliance with rules, laws and standards.
Lastly, ownership.
And what does ownership mean?
It's, really, respect the rights of ownership including designs,
proprietary information, licensing, copyright and other similar issues.
So, really, how do we know that we're acting and operating in an ethical manner?
From my perspective, there are four key questions
that we must ask ourselves to understand whether our ethics,
standards and subsequent actions
can be considered correct.
If we can answer yes to each one of these questions,
then there's a good chance that we have a well-developed set of professional ethics.
As part of the discussion today,
we want to explore guidance on answering yes to these questions.
These questions are: Are our ethics based on a set of personal values?
Are they benchmarked against socially acceptable norms?
Are our values and standards consistent with our chosen environment?
Do they match the organization and the situation we find ourselves?
Are we different and outlying?
Do we consistently apply these values and standards in all situations?
Do we have one set of rules for one place,
and a different set for the others, or we consistently apply our standards?
If we can answer yes to all of these four questions, then we're well on our way
to having a good set of professional standards.
So, what values should we be looking at?
What's the basis for building a good set of professional ethics?
As we talked about, personal values are the foundation of all professional ethics.
Our decisions should be based on a consistent set of personal standards.
These standards typically come from family, culture, the way we've been taught.
They're basically who we are.
On top of this, we layer legal codes and standards.
We're obligated to follow the standard
to the extent they do not violate our persona values.
We need to understand the local laws and regulations that we must follow,
and incorporate them into our ethical standards.
Next, every professional society, organization, publicist status, ethical standards.
The way we should act when we're actually working in these professions
is outlined in this guidance.
These standards help us understand what's acceptable behavior,
and it can inform us on how we should act.
We need to apply these standards, as long as they do not violate the legal
and standards and our own personal standards.
Finally, most organizations publish their own ethical standards.
These include the expectations of how we should act when conducting business
in this organization.
So, what does all that mean?
How do we know if we're at, if we're applying ethics properly?
Well it's difficult question again
because most ethical tradeoffs are conflicts between two desirable ends.
Usually, there's a economic benefit.
It's got to be balanced against social performance.
Where is that line?
That's a difficult question that each one of us must ask.
So, what ethical values and personal values should we have?
Different organizations have different views, but at least one includes
integrity, which means exercising good judgment
and professional practice;
adherence to ethical principles; honesty, we've talked about honesty before.
It means truthfulness, fairness, sincerity.
These are all important.
Fidelity, fidelity to clients,
allegiance to public trust,
loyalty to our employer, firm, agency, organization, and loyalty to the profession.
We need to include fidelity in everything we do.
Charity.
Charity really involves how we treat other people.
It involves treating others with caring, kindness, goodwill, tolerance.
It involves adherence to the Golden Rule, treating others the way we want to be treated.
Self-discipline,
acting with reasonable constraint, not indulging in excessive behavior.
We should be responsible and self-disciplined.
And reliability and dependability.
We should be accountable for our actions, trustworthy and following up
and doing whatever we've been told.
All of these values should be incorporated into a good professional code of ethics.
So, what professional code of ethics should we be looking at?
Here's a list of common professional codes of ethics the engineers and project managers
are expected to follow.
Each one of us should pick the ones that are relevant
to our work environment and what we're doing today.
The good news is that when you compare these standards,
they all address very similar issues and take similar positions on these issues.
So we're not looking at different standards to be applied in different situations.
We're really looking at different interpretations of the same rules.
With all of this information, why do we even really care about ethics?
First, because we're expected to act this way.
Our organization has set forth their expectations,
and if we want to get ahead, we need to follow these guidance.
Second, as a project manager, we need to lead by example.
If we want our team
to behave in an ethical manner,
we have to model that behavior and have others behave the way we are.
Finally, history has taught us that good ethical behavior pays off in the long term,
and that bad ethical behavior,
while in the short run may be beneficial, eventually will catch up with us
and make things difficult.
So, in the next lesson, we're going to take a closer look
at a set of professional code of ethics.