A recent commercial showed three twenty-something roommates cooking dinner together and then sitting down for a meal. Before anyone picked up a fork, the three placed their cell-phones face down in the middle of the table. One of the roomies took a bit longer, and the other two waited patiently—knowing dinner could not start until they had accounted for all the phones.
That small incident is an example of what ethicists call creating micro-social norms. Nested within larger agreements about ethics—our agreements about acceptable behaviors in community—are myriads of tiny understandings among families, friends, and communities about how those larger questions will be resolved in various particular contexts.
For the example at hand, I assume that at some point, the three people sharing the apartment had a conversation about what it meant to live in community. What would be done about meals? About cleaning up? About paying bills? Anyone who has ever lived with another human being can create the list.
We generally do not think of those ongoing conversations as ethics. We don’t name those situations where we have to figure out the unspoken rules—the culture of the organization—as conversations about our value commitments and appropriate behaviors. What exactly is the dress code? How late can I be without being rude? What are the understandings about our cellphones during our time together?
In those moments, a gift we can give to ourselves and others is mindfully engaging in the conversations where people create expectations—the shared understandings about life together.
Shaping expectations
We enter new situations and begin to make sense of the culture by observing what others are doing. Those situations we name as good cultural fits are those where the agreements of the group mirror our personal expectations for behavior. As each of us wanders through this life, we create and modify a set of expectations about our own behavior in relationship with others. We label those behaviors as our ethics. Often the expectations are not explicit. A common saying is “my gut” just told me the behavior was unacceptable.
Our baseline “gut” understanding of acceptable behaviors is developed over a lifetime and reflects our habitual way of responding to various situations. As children we both rationally and emotionally absorb understandings for “how things are done” as a member of a particular family and community. As we grow older and move into new situations, we have to make sense of what we already know intellectually and experientially and what the norms are for the new groups and then resolve any differences. If we are lucky, we might have a formal or informal mentor who can answer questions for us as we learn to move effectively in a new context.
One face of ethics is ethics taking where we identify and adopt explicitly or implicitly the expectations of the community. As we are able, we make small modifications to our behavior to be accepted by a particular group, ensure a fit, and perhaps move into leadership roles within that community.
Another face is called ethics making, participating in conversations to explicitly modify or set expectations for behavior—the micro-social norms for the group. The need for ethics making may arise because of a new situation (the quarantining required during the COVID epidemic is a prime example) or because of upset and frustration that erupts when people don’t have the same understanding of acceptable behaviors.
An important skill set is learning to facilitate and participate in conversations to uncover implicit expectations and then explicitly re-articulate and establish shared behavioral micro-social norms. Because people have different value and ethical commitments, based on their personal expectations and experiences, learning how to share and then harmonize agreements about behaviors is useful. What are our agreements about time? About electronic devices in the space? About talking in a meeting? Is interrupting acceptable or not?
The point of the exercise is not to have everyone agree on exactly the same behavior, but rather to help people understand what range of behaviors will be acceptable in the group. How late can one show up to class and not be disruptive? When is looking at a cell phone acceptable? What are acceptable topics of conversation at a cocktail party? How aggressively can one seek out new business at a networking event? As the parameters of behaviors are set—often roughly—people can determine whether they wish to commit to those agreements and participate in the group—or not.
Committing to agreements
Having members of a group commit to the agreements is essential for creating a healthy community. We all have the power of voting with our feet: if we are not going to keep the agreements, if we can’t live with the expectations, we can leave. If we choose to stay, the expectation is that we will embrace the agreements with minimal prompting.
Now, leaving a community when one is a volunteer or a participating member in a social group is relatively easy. Those who are leaders in non-profits and voluntary organizations are mindful of the need to ensure participants live into the culture—the agreements—of the organization at the same time that the circle of acceptable behavior is drawn broadly enough that people don’t leave unnecessarily. The delicacy of the situation is seen as many leaders in non-profit settings attend seminars on how to create a healthy culture at the same time they don’t alienate those who have volunteered to participate in the shared enterprise. The answer is often emphasizing a shared commitment to the mission of the organization.
Leaving a situation when one is a not a volunteer is a bit more difficult. Students are enrolled in a university, want to graduate, and find themselves in a class where they don’t like the teacher, the subject, or both. People find themselves working for a new team or a new boss and the expectations change but one is not really ready to find a new job.
In a very real sense, the mark of ethical maturity is being willing to live with rules one would not necessarily choose or engaging in thoughtful conversations about changing the expectations. One sign of ethical immaturity is flaunting the agreements—either actively or passively—and daring anyone to do something about it. Another is demanding that everyone live into your understanding of acceptable behaviors—no questions asked!
Being accountable
Problems arise when people find themselves involuntarily in a group and really don’t care whether they are accepted or are seen as a leader. In these situations, behavior may be influenced by guilt (pointing out that the behavior goes against the person’s own core values), shame (pointing out that the behavior goes against the norms of the group), punishment (having some consequence flow for failure to follow the norms), or exclusion (inviting the person to leave the group).
The first layer of behavior modification happens through gossiping—people talking about others who do or don’t meet the group expectations, subtly insinuating those who don’t fit within the community will be the subject of the next get-together. The next layer of modification comes through peer influencing—someone who is respected modelling the behavior while explicitly commending people for living into the group norms. Next comes coaching, where someone in a position of authority counsels the one whose behavior is unacceptable and supports them in changing their behavior. The final step of accountability is inviting the person to leave the group—or actively disfellowshipping them.
We as humans like to be admired and don’t like to have guilt-trips laid on us, or to be shamed, punished, or thrown out of community. And so the tools of accountability can be useful for shaping the culture of a group. However, those engaged in ethics making need to be clear about not giving mixed messages. Many organizations have been tripped up by stating they don’t tolerate harassment and yet promoting or giving financial rewards to those who bring in the bacon even though that cracker-jack sales person is known for treating others badly.
The behaviors seen in an organization are those that are actually tolerated or rewarded, not those necessarily described on a poster or in the ethics code. Thus the need for moral courage.
The first indicator of moral courage is personal accountability, where we keep the shared agreements within the delineated parameters, even if no-one else is watching. The second indicator of moral courage is the willingness to speak up, first privately and then perhaps publicly, when someone hits the edge of acceptable behaviors.
As we become willing to engage conversations about creating an inviting culture, and develop our own moral courage, we are able to become ethical influencers and engage in the ongoing task of ethics making—being an active participant in shaping the ever evolving and fluctuating understandings of micro-social norms, how one should behave in a very particular situation. Our lives are not static. People come in and out of our lives depending on the situation. As we learn to respond with integrity and grace and actively engage in conversations to shape the ever shifting boundaries of our lived experience, we can create communities where everyone can thrive. And that is very satisfying.