This Tuesday I gave my interactive presentation "The Power of Principles" to members of SMEI in Lehigh Valley, PA. This discussion is focused on ethics in sales and marketing.
Always good for debate, we were reviewing Hosmer's The Ethics of Management which discusses three alternative means of arriving at a decision when faced with an ethical conflict.
The ensuing debate considered many applications of the 'Hosmer Triangle' to decision making in sales and marketing management. One member suggested that we consider managing to ethics in the sales arena, not just managing performance on the traditional quotas, lead generation and territory management, but include ethical behavior in the matrix.
This is an interesting concept. What if we managed to ethics? Some companies have their sales force sign an elaborate code of ethics, hard to interpret unless you have legal training, and even harder to apply. Do these companies measure to this or is it purely for liability purposes?
Dear reader, this is where you come in. I would love to hear your comments. How could such performance be measured? What influences would vary the indicators, if any? Other thoughts, pros or con? Perhaps ethical behavior by the sales force could become a measurement in the customer satisfaction index.
The idea of managing to ethics, rather than just the numbers, sounds good on the surface. But, just as people play games with the numbers, "managing" to ethics" can also result in gamesmanship.
I suggest that people already know what is the right thing to do. They go awry because managing to numbers causes rationalizations that get people's priorities out of synch -- and the organization's cultural rewards that behavior.
If one is going to "manage to ethics", does that mean one also has to appraise people on their ethics? How does one determine what an "A" or a "B" or a "C" level of ethical performance is?
Personally, I am not a believer in either formal job descriptions or formal appraisal programs. My experience is that they are misused, create discontent, are often de-motivating and rarely acheive what was intended. But, I am a believer in clearly setting expectations in two areas. The first area is job performance; the measurements that define success - the numbers. The second area is the code of conduct; our values. If you miss your performance measurement, we will work with you to understand why and help you fix the problem. If you violate our values - in Donald Trump's words - you're fired.
Behavior is ingrained into the organzitional culture. Cultures are hard to change - not impossible, just hard. Ethics are a culture issue. Deviation from culture should never be permitted unless we want to change our image in the marketplace.
From an individual perspective, ethics are the courage, and self-discipline to do what is right. Some people have it and, unfortunately, some people don't. Sometimes we can instill it in people through the organization culture (some things are just not acceptable) and sometimes we can't. As has been said, tough times don't make character, they reveal it.
An interesting and comprehensivie recent study shows that integrity is the number 2 critical factor in job success. The first is GMA (general mental abilities) being accurately matched to the job.
How do we know whether the people we are hiring have integrity? Ahhh - a subject for another time.
Posted by: Bernie O'Donnell | January 29, 2005 at 05:01 PM