Ethicists on the board as the conscience of the organisation?

“Organisations often face difficulty in managing ethical dilemmas because they are designed as profit-maximisers” states Drs Paul Baines and Howard Viney in an article for Cranfield University alumni. They go on to say that “to overcome this, there needs to be a commitment on the part of organisations towards openness”.

It is worth continuing to quote them directly “Organisations could take the extra step to build confidence by introducing an ‘ethicist on the board’, appointing a non-executive director whose sole responsibility is to offer advice on the ethical aspects of any organisational decisions. The non-executive ethicist would act as the conscience of the organisation, tasked with the responsibility to act as a devil’s advocate, challenging major decisions to ensure they are defensible on ethical grounds and anticipating public responses to actions so that they may be communicated to stakeholders without reputational damage.”

Many/(most?) NEDS have been taken from financial backgrounds reflecting the importance of sound financial decision making in running a business. While two of the key qualities for NEDs are independence and challenge it is becoming clearer, as this blog site has tried to illustrate, that significant sums can be lost if the main NED challenge is focused predominantly on the short-term requirements of one stakeholder, the shareholder. It would be good to see boards, head-hunters and recruiters looking for a new pool of NEDs where evidence of real ethical challenge in decision making is given priority, reflecting the longer-term impact on all stakeholders.  This would surely help to build trust and confidence in business generally.