Rationalization. It is an unethical character trait that can happen in most any for profit, or nonprofit organization or trade association. Rationalization need not apply to a single employee who has an ethical fall, it can just as easily apply to sales and 
marketing departments of major corporations – in fact, it often does.
Under the banner of rationalization (“Everybody does it!” – the foundation for an ethical fall), many sales and marketing departments, believing they were terribly clever, began to name illegal cash awards and prizes within the organization to hide what they were doing. For example, they use terms such as “project consulting fees,” “slotting fees,” “SPIFFS,” or other names to illegally bribe customers to take their products.
Several years ago, an acquaintance of mine was a sales representative to a large food distributorship. The food distributor had a reputation for being highly socially responsible and always above board in their business dealings. The company often sponsored road races and ski outings. I once asked him how he had been so successful in selling to the company. Without blinking an eye, he said: “We have something we call the Olympics Fund.”
“Oh,” I asked, “do you sponsor one of their employees so she can train for the Olympic Games?”
He laughed, “No Chuck, we know which of their purchasing agents are runners and who are the golfers. Every so often, maybe twice a year, we send running shoes or golf shoes to their offices. Every so often we drop off vouchers for tickets to Vail so they can go skiing. Oh, we also buy the banners and supply the prizes for their events.”
Gifts? The Ethical Fall Foundation…
I had trouble processing what he was telling me. At first, I was mildly shocked. I don’t know why, because companies have been hiding bribes and cash payments for years. I must admit I never heard the bribes called by such an insider name. My friend told me that with another large client, the “Olympics Fund” routinely supplied the company’s Little League team with uniforms, baseball gloves, baseballs, bats and other equipment.
In order to keep the secrecy of their bribery practices, secret, they never identified who sent the goods. It was a silly little game that every knew and everyone “winked at.”
Trade Practices
The inner circle of the innermost ring loves to make up buzzwords for unethical practices. It’s a pointless game that rationalizes unethical behavior or hides the potential for an ethical fall. Sooner or later, people get greedy, people take chances and the end result are stiff penalties and fines. Unethical behavior is neither clever, nor in the long run is it ever advantageous.
Eventually competitors are tipped off that buyers, executives and managers can be bought. What invariably occurs is that’s the stakes are raised; for example, Company “X” is buying us championship tickets; if you want to keep our business we want tickets and air fare. As with unethical behavior, it taints everyone involved in addition to the fact that it is illegal due to trade laws.
Invariably, companies rationalize their behavior after they are caught. However, prior to being caught they believe that no other business in the industry could possibly understand what they are doing. As the old expression goes, there really isn’t very much new under the sun. One company’s “Olympics Fund” is another company’s “World Series Challenge.” They are simply names and they are unethical.
Several years after my acquaintance told me about the “Olympics Fund,” I happened to see him at a keynote address I was going to deliver. I asked him whatever happened to his company’s rationalized behavior to influence buyers and executives. He told me that several of those very same buyers had been terminated for taking gifts as it was well against their company policy.
I asked him as gently as I could if anyone in his company felt badly that their strategy had backfired.
“Oh, not really,” he said. “If we hadn’t have done it, someone else from another company would have done the same thing. That’s just the way it is.”
Well, I thought, not really. Taking bribes under the guise of a rationalization, helps no one, and influences no major decisions over the long haul. It may cause a temporary spike in sales, but ultimately no one wins. The “most clever” of all people in a scandal caused by bad ethics invariably turns out to be law enforcement as they shutter the doors of the offending company.
-YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!
