"Others are doing it" is not a reason but an excuse.

One of the recurring issues in engendering ethical (responsible) business decision-making is how to counter “it must be OK- others are doing it”. This is even more difficult in this world of behavioural economics (see “Nudge” written by Thaler and Sunstein) where peer pressure (or “following the herd”) is actively used to encourage a wide range of actions ensuring that decision making for the individual is easier with the perceived endorsement of others.

This herd instinct is a pervasive trend being used not only by the big corporates like Amazon for example “people who bought X also bought Y” but also charities and lobbying groups with their real-time updates eg “Jenny has just donated £10”, “48,345 people have signed the petition”. In the post-truth world there is also the additional issue that because thousands believe a particular (false) news item, this also makes it true.

Business ethics is simply about decision making too and different types of “nudges” can be useful here and tend to be much more individual “would my family and friends be proud of my decision”  “would I mind this decision getting into the press?” Even though these simplified short-cuts might help give guidance, business leaders need also to encourage their teams to seek out a diversity of views (ideally including stakeholders) which challenge thinking and assumptions so that their decisions are soundly based in the real business context on first-hand knowledge and deep and extensive critical thought.

When is a falsehood not a lie?

A rose by any other name still smells as sweet, a lie by any other name still stinks. The way to build trust in business is to be consistently honest, truthful, fair and transparent.  It is even more important in our post-truth world that stakeholders know and can spot the difference between a lie (a false statement with the intention of deceiving) and a genuine mistake.  It is absolutely critical that leaders demonstrate and engender ethical behaviours in their organisations to challenge and counter the growing trend, temptations and sloppiness of communicating falsehoods.  Having organisations that can be really trusted will help them to attract both employees and customers, building the bedrock for future business when the house of lies collapse.

  .