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.

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Courage to be a core value

Integrity, respect and trust are common core values in organisations but few seem to have "courage" as L'Oreal has. Courage is a key requirement of an ethical organisation because doing the right thing,everyday, basically takes guts. Making ethical decisions often means challenging the status quo and standing up for your ideas.Telling the truth when faced with the opposite, breaking away from "group-think" and "group-speak" all take courage.

So, to paraphrase Winston Churchill:
"courage is what it takes to stand up and speak"
"courage is what it takes to sit down and listen and hear views that challenge the outlook".
Leaders keen on running responsible businesses therefore need to ensure that their organisations are built on a deep core of courage reflected in their values and behaviours; and that they themselves are brave enough to think beyond their own career and tenure to leave a worthwhile legacy.

The in-human touch

A recent article in the CII's latest edition of the "The Journal" describes the benefits of using of robots in the insurance industry eg improving efficiencies and effectiveness, improving risk selection and assessment. The use of robots is clearly inevitable in business but at what point do we (society, globally) question the ethical use of robots to replace the human workforce and the social and economic consequences of this. The article states AI could replace 30-80% of all current jobs in the insurance industry in the next five to 20 years.

We can rejoice in the creativity and imagination of the human mind but just because we have the capability now to do certain things it doesn't mean we should. Where is the global check in our competitive world to these developments? Should there be international standards, and if they already exist, how are they being applied and monitored from an ethical point of view.?

Why cyber security is an ethical issue

The Panama Papers leak earlier this year caused tremendous fall-out around the world with the political class and the “establishment”.  It also helped to galvinise all organisations to tighten up their privacy protections as a key factor in engendering customer trust.  But perhaps what has been missed in all this is the actual motivation behind the hacking.  The goal was not to deny the use of the computer system or to use it for direct financial gain (well from what we know).  It appears this was more “hacktivism”, an action driven by moral outrage.

With cyber security more prominent on the board agenda now, this example does help to provide another building block in the business case for more ethical cultures and responsible business practices.  If all stakeholders in an organisation are identified, treated fairly and proportionately, surely this will help to reduce the risk of cyber security attacks from connected, aggrieved parties at least, and help to build a company’s reputation to help it withstand the fall-out from any subsequent damage?  Cyber security must now be part of a company's risk mitigation strategy. One of the best ways of maximising this investment and improving all risk defences must surely be a grounding in solid ethical behaviours?