Category: Blog

ETHICS: MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER

On June 13, 2015, Catharyn spoke at TEDx MileHigh. Her talk was entitled “Ethics for People on the Move.” Her message was that none of us have the answers to increasingly complex questions about how to both be effective in our work and live well with others. Thus, studying ethics and developing decision- making skills […]

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.

Ethics: Bridging Culture and Compliance was the theme for EthicsGame workshops at two recent conferences, the 108th Annual Meeting for the National Association of State Board of Accountancy and Corporate Learning Week 2015. Both workshops explored how to help people recognize an ethical dilemma and then use multiple ethical perspectives to resolve the problem. The […]

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

Over the past several months, those of us in academics have had thoughtful—and heated—conversations about trigger warnings. What obligation do faculty members have to warn students that content, in either assignments or classroom discussions, might be upsetting to their learners? On one side of the conversation, faculty members and students assert that trigger warnings allow […]

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

The headline after Villanova beat University of Oklahoma in the Final Four last weekend read—“Moral of Villanova victory: The better team beat the best player”. The game validated the work of neurobiologists who explore the genetic imprints that nudge us toward what we define as ethical behavior. The research of E. O. Wilson and others has found […]

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

In the EthicsGame 2016 Survey of Ethics Educators, 80% of the more than 2300 respondents who include an ethics component in their courses said that teaching critical thinking is the most important learning outcome for their classes. Now, one component of critical thinking is determining the facts and assumptions in the dilemma at hand. Another […]

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

As the Wells Fargo saga continues to unfold, those of us who teach ethics in business schools are mystified. We know that we discussed fraud and misrepresentation—and their consequences. As those who responded to EthicsGame’s 2016 survey reported, teaching ethics is very important. So what happened? The New York Times headline tells all: employees needed a paycheck. Under ordinary […]

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

“What would it look like if…?” That phrase is the mother of all creative thinking. When puzzling over a problem to be solved, asking the question “What would it look like if…?” allows our creative juices to flow and new solutions to persistent problems to emerge. Often, however, we forget to ask that question when […]

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

“What would it look like if…?” That phrase is the mother of all creative thinking. When puzzling over a problem to be solved, asking the question “What would it look like if…?” allows our creative juices to flow and new solutions to persistent problems to emerge. Often, however, we forget to ask that question when […]

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

In an interesting slide-share, Netflix Culture: Freedoms and Responsibility, this fast-rising company presents its core values. as in many tech companies, one of the primary values is hiring the “brightest and the best.” and, if people don’t maintain that standard, they are “given a generous severance” and sent on their way. ouch! Reflecting on that statement, […]

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

One of our hardest tasks is to listen with an open heart and an open mind to someone whose opinions and beliefs are diametrically opposed to our own. And yet, if we’re going to be successful in an organization or in the fashioning of public policy, we have to listen to each other to at […]