Catharyn A. Baird

Educator, Ethicist, Founder and Speaker

Catharyn A. Baird, J.D., is the CEO and Founder of EthicsGame® and Professor of Business, Emerita, Regis University, Denver, Colorado.

Dr. Catharyn A. Baird is one of America’s foremost authorities on personal and business ethics. A lawyer and professor emerita of business at Regis University in Denver where she taught for 22 years, Baird became fascinated with ethical decision making while representing children and parents in the juvenile justice system and observing how they struggled to make good ethical choices. That led to her focus on teaching ethics in business, and in 2005 becoming founder and CEO of her own company, EthicsGame, a leading online provider for teaching ethics at colleges and universities using proprietary simulations and assessments to help users evaluate and resolve ethical dilemmas.

Her eponymous techniques have been adopted by more than a half million admirers to identify their ethical preferences and leadership profiles. She is the author of two books, including “Everyday Ethics: Making Hard Choices in a Complex World,” and is a popular speaker in academic and business circles.

Video Blog

Episode 1: Ethical Person

What does it mean to be an ethical person?

Episode 2: Embedding Ethics

How do we incorporate ethics into all we learn?

Episode 3: Derek Bok

Dr. Baird weighs in on Derek Bok’s position on students taking Ethics.

Episode 4: Why We Need Ethics

What is the benefit of mastering ethics skills?

Episode 5: Ethical Maturity

What does ethical maturity mean?

Episode 6: Assess Yourself

How well do you know yourself?

Episode 7: Line in the Sand

Ethical maturity: How do you know where to draw the line?

Episode 8: Leveraging Imagination

Why do we need imagination in ethics?

Episode 9: Imagination in Action

How is imagination used in business?

Episode 10: Fear and Ethics

How does fear undermine ethics? Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses fear and ethics.

Episode 11: Ethics Playbook

An ethics playbook: 5 steps for behaving ethically.

Episode 12: Avoid The Orange Jumpsuit

Learnings from the fall of former crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried.

Episode 13: Giving Something Up

To achieve ethical action, every stakeholder must give something up.

Episode 14: Ethical Failure

Dr. Catharyn Baird breaks down forms of ethical failure and how it can be overcome.

Episode 15: Ethical Blind Spots

Sometimes, our biggest pitfalls come from where we’re not looking.

Episode 16: AI Considerations

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses technology in the new frontier.

Episode 17: Ethics vs Compliance

Dr. Catharyn Baird breaks down the difference between ethics and compliance.

Episode 18: Judicial Ethics

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses the importance of impartiality in the American judicial system.

Episode 19: Power of Leaving

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses the importance of having your exit strategy ready.

Episode 20: Interfacing with AI

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses important considerations for how we deploy and interact with generative AI.

Episode 21: Satisfaction of Ethics

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses how to find fulfillment in the human journey through ethical behavior.

Episode 22: Moral Character

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses strategies parents can use to raise ethical children.

Episode 23: The AI Generation

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses how parents can guide children in the age of AI.

Episode 24: Great Ethicists

Dr. Baird reflects on her favorite philosophers for facing the challenges of today.

Episode 25: Gender Divide

Dr. Baird shares data from nearly a quarter-million participants revealing a gender divide.

Episode 26: Top Ethics Question

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses the top question asked when delivering ethics presentations.

Episode 27: AI-Ethics Playbook

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses a guide for using AI responsibly and ethically.

Episode 28: Ethics Czars

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses the importance of having an organizational ethics overseer.

Episode 29: Learners & AI

Dr. Catharyn Baird discusses how AI can be used to support students in the classroom.

The Ethics Question

Bite-sized guidance for professional and personal ethics in your everyday life.

with Catharyn A. Baird

Article Blog

Ethics Making: How to shape expectations, commit, and be accountable. 

Battling bias: What causes people to discriminate against others or behave unethically?

The ethical egg: What is an ethical journey and how does it apply to the larger adventure of life?

Microaggressions: What is ethical maturity and how can we use it harmoniously to resolve conflict?

Facts, meaning, and implications: How understanding this can help tone down the rhetoric.

Ethical maturity: Ethics are not limited to our actions but show up in our words. Consider the impact they have on others.

Reaching common ground: Navigating tension is the most difficult part of the ethical discernment process.

Racial Discord: A Teaching Moment

The butterfly effect: As the caterpillar morphs into the butterfly, change is inevitable. It’s critical to maintain values in times of upheaval.

When systems fail: How small acts of moral courage helped address the ethical lapses in the Michigan State University gymnastics scandal.

The power of imagination: To become ethically mature, imagination is our most powerful ally.

Acountability for Actions Long Past

The forgiveness dilemma: There’s a pathway to bounce back from an unspeakable ethical lapse.

Ethics and Humilities: A virtue of true leaders is humility. We need more of this kind of ethical maturity.

Ethical discernment: The perennial problem of being ethical is learning to exercise self-control.

Avoiding the ethics blues: If we ethically commit to being civil and respecting people, we can build bridges across differences.

Managing implicit bias: We have blind spots and developing strategies to overcome them allows us to live effectively and ethically with other people.

The ethics playbook: Here are the five core skills for teaching ethical decision making

Lessons from The Lego Movie: An ordinary Lego figure who acts courageously and ethically teaches we can make a difference.

Bubble of trust: Ethical behavior is a community standard that must be practiced over and over to win and maintain trust.

Structured controversies: We can effectively teach ethics by formulating policy arguments and then drafting resolutions that honor both positions.

Policing biases: An ethical dilemma often requires harmonizing conflicting values such as protecting one’s tribe versus inclusion of all.

Stiffening ethical will: To achieve ethical action, every stakeholder must give something up for the good of the whole.

Compassionate detachment: Seeing a situation clearly without adding or eliminating details is critical in making ethical decisions.

Ethical lenses: Tips on becoming more ethically mature and working with others.

Right kind of success: For companies to thrive, organizational values and interpersonal values must support an ethical, productive culture.

Rocks in the river: Facing rapid change, how to avoid losing our ethical center and capsizing.

The ethical question: When times get tough, asking “What would it look like if…?” can lead to a satisfying ethical solution.

The power of fear: Organizations overly focused on results can create a culture where unethical behavior metastasizes.

Moral reasoning matters: We must help students determine standards for ethical behavior and analyzing ethical failure.

Ethical agility: Civilization depends on humans determining the boundaries of cooperation and competition—the very study of ethics.

Compliance vs. ethics: Five key steps to distinguish following rules and maintaining core values to build an ethical framework.

Living right: Your ethics – how you translate values into action – will determine how far you go and how satisfied you will be on your life journey.

Books

Purchase Textbook
Textbook
EVERYDAY ETHICS: MAKING WISE CHOICES IN A COMPLEX WORLD
3rd Edition
Discover a groundbreaking method for solving the ethical dilemmas that emerge in daily life. Everyday Ethics is a journey down four paths exploring four major schools of ethical thought that shed colorful light on seemingly black-and-white problems. The destination: ethical maturity and agility—the ability to use the best of all four perspectives to create balanced solutions to life’s most complex problems.
Textbook
THE ETHICAL SELF: A JOURNEY
TOWARD ETHICAL MATURITY
3rd Edition
The Ethical Self will help you make sense of the variety of ethical theories that define appropriate behavior and equip you to become an ever more effective and ethical person-in-community. As we strive to “do the right thing,” in our complex and ever-changing world, the question often becomes — how can I figure out how best to live? Used with the Ethical Lens Inventory.
Purchase Textbook

Long Video Blog

Ethics for People on the Move

Catharyn Baird | TEDxMileHigh

Ethics for People on the Move

Catharyn A. Baird | TEDxMileHigh

Ethics, AI and Free Will

Ethics as a Way of Life

Session 1: Intro to Ethics_EthicsGame

Ethics as a Way of Life

Session 2: Ethical Lens Inventory_EthicsGame

Ethics as a Way of Life

Session 3: Baird Decision Model_EthicsGame

Ethics as a Way of Life

Podcast

E1: Ethics in the boardroom
E2: Checks and balances for CEOs
E3: When your boss says…
E4: Examining drain in the supply chain
E5: When your boss says…
E6: Examining the supply chain
Guest Appearance: Ethics of Hiring and Retention
E7: Checks and balances for CEOs

EthicsGame®

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ethicsgame.com

Contact

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Ethicsgame.com

Email address for all inquiries:

[email protected]

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© Catharyn A. Baird, LLC, 2024