Ethics Articles, I

 As of this writing, more than three months has passed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The struggle to comprehend this national cataclysm continues. Every day, we learn more about the heroism and sacrifice of those who perished in the twin towers of the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania. Many of those heros and victims were professional licensees going about their normal routines on those fateful days.

 For example, approximately 30 mechanical engineers were employed by companies that had offices in the World Trade Center. Most of them were employed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. At least three of those members are among the thousands who remain missing and are presumed dead. Seven mechanical engineers worked at the Pentagon in the Defense Department and for the U.S. Navy. (All of them survived.) Many of these engineers had arrived at work or were on their way when the terrorist-piloted planes struck.

 The total immediate loss of World Trade Center property amounted to roughly 15 million square feet. Another 2.3 million square feet was damaged or declared structurally unsound from fires, falling debris and building collapses. Meanwhile, more than 10.7 million square feet of property sustained damage. About 5 million square feet of that will be taken out of the market for at least one year for extensive repairs and reconstruction. Civil engineers and contractors have been working 16-hour workdays at Ground Zero to develop a plan to clear the debris and overseeing significant health and safety issues. Architect and engineers have been working with New York City officials to discuss the future of the World Trade Center area and to re-engineer public buildings for safety and security.

 Manhattan real estate agents had to quickly scramble to relocate residents in the area and displaced commercial tenants to other areas of New York and New Jersey. In the meantime, home builder groups have raised over $9 million dollars and Realtor groups have raised over $4 million for September 11th victims.

 Professional licensees were also among the heros of the doomed flight from Newark. Rich Guadagno was an enforcement officer with California’s Fish and Wildlife office. Linda Gronlund was an attorney. Both of them were aboard doomed Flight 93 which crash-landed into a Pennsylvania farmland. Both had been trained in self-defense. It is likely that they were among those who fought the terrorists on that flight.

 Many licensees performed invaluable services after the tragedies. Dentists from all of the country flew to Washington and New York to use their forensic skills to identify victims who would otherwise remain anonymous in death. Funeral directors had the terrible challenge of consoling thousands of families who were affected by these tragedies. Teachers had to cope with their students’ overwhelming feelings of fear and anxiety and loss while also making sense of a confused situation. Professional counselors continue to work with victims and their families to help them work through their losses.

 Professional licensees are often members of our society’s working and middle class. They are rarely the stuff of which celebrity is made. They get up every day, go to work, contribute to their employers and to society, and go back home, exhausted but still ready to contribute to their families at night. The media rarely lets us know of the ordinary person’s quiet moments of daily heroism. September 11th changed that. We now know that celebrities may be people we want to meet, but the heros are the people we want to be. We also have learned that the role of professional licensees is critical to a functioning society, not only during good times and ordinary days but especially during times of tragedy and crisis.

 I just returned from providing an ethics workshop to accountants. Most likely, it was the MCI WorldCom, Enron, and Arthur Andersons scandals of recent years prompted the accountants to ask me to lead a workshop on ethical decision making skills. Nevertheless, as I provided them with a litany of multi-trillion dollar (yes, trillion) losses wreaked by these firms, I was regaled by audience members vociferously stating, “Well, the executives of those companies lied to their auditors,” and “The accountants were just following their clients’ directions to be aggressive,” and “The auditors followed the appropriate accounting guidelines; they didn’t break any laws.”

 I wasn’t shocked to hear these comments. After all, I’ve heard similar excuses from other licensed professionals as well. For example, an interior design profession told me he was once directed by a client, a hospital administrator, to substitute less-expensive emergency room curtains (used to separate patients from one another) for the ones recommended by the designer. The designer pointed out that the recommended curtains were bacteria-resistant, thus much less likely to spread virulent strains of staphylococcus in the emergency room, which was why the recommended curtains were so much more expensive. Contrary to the designer’s recommendation, the hospital administrator went to the local bed and bath shop, purchased ordinary household shower curtains and told the interior designer to “go along or get fired.” The design professional went along.

 I also teach real estate agents locally and often hear a similar refrain: “But my client told me to …. I have a fiduciary responsibility to do what my client tells me to do.” Included in the mantra are stories from agents whose clients directed them to commit loan fraud, fair housing violations, and other misdemeanors and felonies.

 Now come the photos from Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison where international audiences recently saw jarring images of prisoners being abused and humiliated by U.S. and British troops. Attorneys for some of the Army reservists charged with the abuse say “the reservists were just following orders. “ Accused American soldier Lynndie England’s family claimed she was following orders from her violent lover when she abused Iraqi POWs. England's best friend insisted that the soldier had been ordered to pose for the shocking photographs. Her friend also stated at a press conference, "Certain people in the army told her to do what she did. She follows orders. That's what her job is…She's always been obedient; that's why she's perfect for the military."

 These soldiers and reservists certainly do not represent mainstream military personnel. But the excuse, “I was just taking orders” is a cliché’. Nazis accused of war crimes said it at Nuremberg — “I was only following orders.” Soldiers like Lt. William Calley accused of atrocities at My Lai in Vietnam tried it, too. But they got it wrong. Both military law and international law require subordinate soldiers to obey the lawful orders of their superiors.

 Licensed professionals who do something immoral or illegal because their client or boss told them are similarly wrong-headed. In fact, in the case of accountants, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled some time ago that in a conflict between the public’s interest and the client’s interest, accountants must protect the public. Codes of ethics state that design professionals must guard the public safety, regardless of the client’s budget. Real estate professionals, yes, must honor their fiduciary duties to their clients, but when their clients unintentionally or deliberately tell the agent to disobey the law, agents must turn them down.

 In 1961, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted what some experts say was the most important psychological experiment of all time: he wanted to test the limits of authority in a supposedly civilized country to see just how much cruelty would average people inflict on their fellow citizens just because they were told to. In the famous electroshock experiment, 65% of the volunteers believed they were torturing Milgram's test subjects, and did so just because a man in a lab coat told them to.

 Milgram commented: “Obedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the person dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, with defiance or submission, to the commands of others. For many people, obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct.”

 While some may argue that the very fabric of society is threatened by disobedience, licensed professionals should not and cannot “just follow orders.” Their professional licenses give them special obligations, including that of critically examining their clients’ and supervisors’ orders. Their professional status clearly makes them the experts in the relationship between themselves and their clients and requires that they guide their clients toward appropriate choices. If the client refuses such guidance, that the professional should withdraw from the relationship. The late senator Patrick Moynihan once said in reference to the demands placed on professionals that A[they] need to say "no" to requests that will make life worse.”

 According to Milgram’s results, we know it takes a great deal of courage to say “no” to authority figures. Not only must we cultivate that courage in ourselves, we must honor, encourage, and promote individuals who have the ethical strength to refuse orders that violate professional standards, personal codes of ethics, and basic morality.

 One of the toughest attitudes to address about ethics is “You can’t teach ethics to adults. You either have them or you don’t.” Ironically, I sometimes hear this view from individuals who are responsible for continuing education or professional development programs–in other words, people who are responsible for the character education programs of licensed professionals. Those who espouse this attitude have essentially given up on the notion that adults can be taught new skills or improve the ones they have. While it may be true that is difficult to change attitudes once they are ingrained, research studies indicate it is entirely within the realm of possibility that we can learn new skills and behaviors, including ethical decision making skills..

 Psychology professor Lawrence Kohlberg studied moral development. He theorized and later demonstrated through his research that ethical decision making skills can be not only be taught, but can also be developed and enhanced. His theory suggested that there are at least six stages of moral development:

 • Stage 1 moral thinkers believe that you should do the right thing because otherwise you will get in trouble.

• State 2 thinkers believe you should do the right thing so that others will give you something in return.

• Stage 3 thinkers believe that you should do the right thing so that people will like you.

• Stage 4 thinkers emphasize the importance of laws and rules and believe that following those guidelines is important for an orderly society.

• Stage 5 thinkers are critical thinkers who believe that a society’s laws may be flawed. They believe in possible exceptions to the rules.

• Stage 6 thinkers believe in universal ethical principles that go beyond a particular society’s rules.

 Research studies indicate that while it is difficult to bring about a significant change in an adult’s level of ethical reasoning in an artificial environment, such as a classroom, it is, nevertheless, possible. Business and education college majors, for example, experience the largest gains in ethical reasoning skill development when exposed to appropriate ethics education programs.

 Researchers have also determined the following:

 • Individuals must go through stages in sequence. Individuals do not skip from Stage 1 to Stage 3, for example. This finding is true regardless of the cultural or regional background of study participants.

 • Generally, stage development is not reversible. Once individuals have reached Stage 4, as an example, they will use Stage 4 as their dominant navigational style for handling ethical dilemmas. Stage 4 thinking, by the way, is the typical navigational style for adults.

 • Individuals can't comprehend moral reasoning at a stage more than one beyond their own. For example, a Stage 2 adult (“I will do this for you if you do something for me”) may understand Stage 3 reasoning ( “What will the neighbors say?”), but they will not appreciate or understand Stage 4 (“If everyone just did what they wanted, our society would fall apart.”) It is best to reason with individuals based on their own level of development.

 • Stage development occurs when one's cognitive outlook is inadequate to cope with a dilemma. Bonafide change occurs when we confront real–not hypothetical–ethical problems at home and at work. We realize that our former method of dealing with problems no longer resolves the problem to our satisfaction. For example, teenagers who typically use Stage 3 thinking “I wonder what my friends would think” may not find Stage 3 reasoning appropriate or satisfying when their friends ask them to experiment with drugs. As another example, Stage 4 scientists who are on the verge of human cloning (“I must follow the law”) may find that level of reasoning inadequate when there are no laws or guidelines to follow. What we can do in the classroom and at the office is orient and train adults to be ready for ethical dilemmas by giving them many opportunities to learn discuss ethical decision making strategies.

 • Individuals are cognitively attracted to reasoning at one level beyond their own. In other words, while we may be unable to mimic the conduct of individuals more advanced in their reasoning skills, we can still be inspired intellectually by those who are more mature in their judgement and in their behavior.

 It is this last finding that is most compelling. Our attraction to ethically superior people suggests not only that we are capable of being taught, inspired and led, but also that individuals who are more advanced in their reasoning skill have the obligation to speak up, teach, and lead.

 Issues of ethics and etiquette are commonly confused, particularly when describing the behavior of professionals. Ethics has to do with following the morality of a society or group. Etiquette deals with behaving in accordance with prescribed social standards. So there’s no question that issues of ethics and etiquette can be very similar.

 However, do ethical individuals always follow the best etiquette? No. We can all think of examples of brusque, abrasive, ill-mannered people who have nevertheless acted morally. Do people who behave in accordance with prescribed social standards always act ethically? No again. Very polite people can act immorally. The Nazis, as an example, were very mannered individuals who emphasized protocol and social standards. Yet their actions were immoral.

 As professionals, we strive to be follow standards of both ethics and etiquette. Early in our careers, we are introduced to concepts and models of professional conduct and practice. However, it is assumed that we don’t need any courses in professional etiquette, since these matters are largely common sense and were taught and modeled for us in the home and at school.

 It’s this assumption that professionals are familiar with common-sense etiquette that is apparently getting licensees into more trouble with their licensing boards than we might expect. A recent study of complaints filed against real estate licensees provides some surprising insights.

Mr. Clark’s analysis of these complaints is incisive. He suggests that “ the 50-40-10 numbers tell us that the vast majority of complaints reveal no substantive violations of the license law. Why? The vast majority of all licensees want to be in business tomorrow.... Even if only minimally competent, they are all smart enough to know that violating the law or deliberately harming a consumer means that business is likely to dry up tomorrow. Thus, very, very few of them deliberately set out to violate the law or to harm someone.”

 Moreover, he adds, “...Almost all of the people we regulate want to do right. The morally and ethically corrupt are the rare exception, not the rule. Therefore, almost all of them will do right, if they know what right is.... Most violations are the result of simple, unintentional error.”

 Considering the fact that only 50% of all complaints were investigated, Mr. Clark’s staff decided to determine what actions really caused consumers to lodge a complaint. Here is what they found:

 Most of the complaints were filled with such statements as:

 1. “He wouldn’t return my telephone calls.”

2. “She didn’t address us as Mr. and Mrs.”

3. “She stopped by our house unannounced.”

4. “I don’t know why she waited two days to present our offer.”

5. “He showed up in a running suit.”

6. “She talked down to me.”

7. “He was late for every appointment.”

8. “She turned me over to someone else for everything.”

9. “He didn’t explain what that meant.”

10. “She was rude about everything.”

11. “He wasted our time showing houses that we had no interest in.”

12. “We never could reach her.”

13. “He never seemed to care about the problem.”

 In other words, these complaints were initiated because of a problem with etiquette–not with a breach of ethics or of law. While instructors spend countless classroom hours reviewing licensing law and lecturing on practices and principles of the profession, Clark concludes, “What may be more help in reducing the number of complaints is an instructional module on manners, dress, and communication.” (Ironically, few regulatory agencies would provide continuing education credit for such a course.)

 In a telephone call to a number of other licensing boards in my own state of North Carolina, regulators not only agreed that their experiences with complaints fits the Georgia Real Estate Commission’s 50-40-10 profile, many concurred that most of the complaints are initiated or deal with matters of rudeness, poor manners and poor communication rather than with violations of the law.

 Assuming this profile is widespread among regulatory agencies’ complaints, imagine the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars and licensing board time spent on dealing with matters of etiquette rather than more “serious” issues of misrepresentation and consumer fraud. Real estate commissions in the U.S. alone report over 25,000 complaints a year.

 What is the solution? Managers, employers, and educators should integrate discussions of professional or business etiquette into their staff meetings and classrooms. Punctuality, appropriate dress and language, sensitivity to cultural differences in business customs, and listening skills would be a good place to start. And it would probably be a good idea to remind everyone not to chew with their mouths open and to keep their elbows off the table, too!

 Emily Post, the foremost authority on etiquette and manners, once wrote:

 "...Best Society is not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it seek to exclude those who are not of exalted birth; but it is an association of gentle-folk, of which good form in speech, charm of manner, knowledge of the social amenities, and instinctive consideration for the feelings of others, are the credentials by which society the world over recognizes its chosen members. Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics as well as manners."

A Lasting Legacy

(© August, 1999, Deborah Long)                

 On August 7, my dear father-in-law passed away. A few days later, over 250 family members and friends gathered in a small but stately church in Tryon, North Carolina, to say goodbye to a man who had lived, by many definitions, a somewhat conventional life. George Long served his country during World War II; was a civil engineer who spent three decades working for one firm in Greenville, South Carolina; married for 44 years; he raised a fine son and daughter; and retired at 62 to enjoy golf, the view from his mountain home, and his four grandchildren.

 All of this a stranger could have gleaned from in the obituaries that appeared in various newspapers around the state. "An ordinary life," you might have commented upon reading the flat prose of the death notice. But the tributes paid to my father-in-law during the following Tuesday afternoon service illustrated a most extraordinary and wonderful journey. I remembered my father-in-law's unconditional love and tolerance for those whose background and ideas were different from his own: this conservative Southern gentleman welcomed me--a Yankee and a lifelong Democrat--into his family without hesitation or an unkind word. His stock broker remembered George's good humor in spite of what was happening to his stock portfolio during Black Friday in 1987. George's physician wept openly while he read a tribute written by my sister-in-law. Many spoke afterward's of George's commitment to his work; his enviable marriage; his many expressions of generosity, integrity, and friendship. The minister added her recollections of George's integrity and fondly remembered his love of baking pies, exceeded only by his love of relishing the consumption of his own pastries. While some might think it unseemly, there were many moments of gentle laughter in the church pews as we were reminded of George's many endearing qualities. My father-in-law's funeral was truly a celebration of his life.

 Over the next week, friends and family continued to visit and write and phone. So many people commented that they hoped, when it was their time, that their friends and family would say the same kinds of things about them as had been said about George. Many had clearly taken this time to reflect on the quality of their lives so far. It would be difficult not to consider one's legacy at such a time, especially compared to the one that George left behind. His was a life of dedication, responsibility, commitment, integrity, tolerance, devotion, laughter and love. Who would not want to be described in such glowing terms? Some of us took quick stock of our shortcomings and made some immediate and tangible --and hopefully, lasting--differences in how we treated each other.

 In his first bestseller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey wrote about a valuable exercise to determine one's priorities: imagine your funeral and what you would want your friends and family to say at such an auspicious occasion. And then to live your life so that your friends and family will say them when your time comes. It is doubtful, Covey suggests, that we would want our best friends to say, "Well, he sure had a nice, expensive car when he departed, " or "She really had a nice figure all of her life, didn't she?" or "He spent a lot of time at the office." We don't want to be remembered for the expensive toys we owned or for the 70 hour workweeks. We all want a legacy that matters. We want to be remembered for the good things that we did, the noble character that we had, and the way we treated others.

 Thomas Mann once wrote that a man's death is more the survivors' affair than his own. I think he was right. While my father-in-law's death leaves a huge void, I thank him for setting an example for all of us and giving us an opportunity to reflect on how we can become better at what we are and what we do. Even if consider our lives as average and ordinary, we have the opportunity and challenge to live in a most extraordinary and phenomenal way.