A balanced diet improves decision making

Just in the same way that one food group won't keep you healthy neither will one news group help you make the best decisions. This is one of the suggestions from the  EdX "Teach-out" course held over the weekend on "Fake news, facts and alternative facts".

The course highlighted a number of logical fallacies and cognitive biases including:
 "group bias"- a bias towards people who think like us
"strawman fallacy"- an oversimplification of the other side's view which is then easier to reject without full understanding
"bandwagon fallacy" - because lots of people believe something then it must be true.
 So, to ensure that we all successfully counter our own biases  and make better decisions, we need to actively seek out different views,opinions and a variety of perspectives as well as being open to challenge and being prepared to change our minds.
While this may seem to only apply in the political arena the recommendations are relevant to the world of business ethics which is simply about decision making too. Taking the time to check out the view of the stakeholders in your organisation and really understanding their perspectives will help build relationships, support for ideas and ensure your decision making is based on the firmest foundations.

Blowing the whistle on the "Barclay's Way".

The best way to deliver a change strategy within an organisation is to get the full support and backing from the CEO and the Board.  The banks and financial services industry generally have been working hard to put strategies in place to change their cultures and conduct to rebuild trust in the sector and their organisations. Barclays had also set on this path with its values of “respect, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship and its “Barclay’s Way”. 

 Page 20 of the “Barclay’s Way” document is about “speaking up and raising concerns”. It states that employees need “courage to challenge actions” and that they need to “act with the highest standards of integrity and honesty in all that they do”. It is likely to be quite confusing for the employees of Barclays to discover that their CEO, Jes Staley, hasn’t complied with the letter or spirit of this policy as he investigated who spoke out about a senior manager, doing extensive damage to the trust of stakeholders (or reinforcing what many still think, “one rule for them another for us”). 

The Board has cut Staley’s variable compensation as punishment and there is now an investigation into the systems, control and culture of the organisation by the regulators. This example surely builds the business case for ethical decision making as the costs are just too high, both personally and organisationally, to just pay lip service to such an important issue . To quote the Barclay’s Way further “sometimes the actions of a few may put our reputation at stake”.  The CEO has proved this is the case. It is a shame that he didn’t also take their "stewardship" value more seriously ie being passionate about leaving things better than he found them”.