Business and Personal Ethicsbusiness ethics

To Lie or Not to Lie that is the Ethical Question

By October 16, 2015 No Comments

Do you consider yourself an honest person? My hunch is you would answer yes.  But think for a moment.

When was the last time you told a lie?

Hum… to lie or not to lie – that is the ethical question!

LiePeople lie for a variety of reasons, all of which aren’t necessarily bad. You may tell a lie to avoid confrontation or to spare someone’s feelings. Perhaps you don’t want to admit a small discrepancy in your normal behavior. But sometimes it goes deeper. In the workplace, dishonesty can be disastrous.

So where is the line between a harmless lie and the beginning of a slippery slope?

I call the ripple effect of poor choices the Unethical Continuum. At its outer rings, the continuum shows small infractions that most companies overlook or even accept as the norm. They aren’t necessarily even against company policy. Compounded, however, they can lead to illegal activity and ethical failures.
To avoid the bulls-eye, educate employees to recognize their place on the continuum. Then give them tools to make wise choices. Good decisions don’t happen by chance. Why wait to see how you or those in your organization will fare in an ethical dilemma? Prepare for how you will react, and you are one step ahead of a bad decision.

To lie or not to lie; there will always be room for debate on that question. Arm yourself with training and knowledge and you will be in a healthy place from which to join the conversation.

To learn more about the Unethical Continuum and how to put your company on the path to success, give me a call.

By the way…just want to say that I’m creating a videoblog that will be available soon.  I’m putting past editions on a memory stick and got a great deal from https://www.usbmemorydirect.com/ – highly recommend them!

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