The Ethical Barometer

Oh, how we love those dashboards!  Run those surveys!  Get those numbers!  Show how well we are doing on “the ethics thing.”  You would be foolish not to have the surveys, but those numbers may not be telling you what you need to know.

 Add to those qualitative surveys this question:

 Describe something that you did at work during the past year that still bothers you.

 The Barometer has run this qualitative survey at a number of companies and in training sessions.  The companies’ numbers on their dashboard surveys are terrific, but when those descriptions of what bothered employees came in, the response from managers was the same, “I can’t believe this is going on at this company.”

 Something is lost in translation between those survey questions and employees’ decisions and actions.  Use this little exercise to zero in on what’s actually happening.

Here’s an interview question that provides a window into the soul:  Describe an ethical dilemma that you have faced (in your life, your last job) and explain how you resolved it.  If your interviewee struggles to come up with one, well, trouble may lie ahead.  That blank look and stymied expression could be the result of any of the following: Read more »

The two men from Houston whisked by me as I waited for the TSA agent to use her highlighter and give me entrance to the innards of the Atlanta airport.  They had the attitude of those who travel sockless in expensive loafers. Indeed, they had their expensive loafers on, sans socks. The TSA agent was struggling because I had a boarding card, an increasing rarity these days.  I lacked the ubiquitous one-sheet print-out from the home or hotel computer.  Our TSA agent did not know where to swipe her orange highlighter Read more »

Mark S. Kirk is a candidate for the U.S. Senate in the grand state of Illinois.  He has been spinning some yarns about, what else?  Military Service.  His Naval Reserve service statements have raised some fact checkers’ eyebrows. Big deal, take a number on telling stories about candidates “misspeaking” about their military service.  Yes, but Mr. Kirk had more. His tales of working in a nursery school found the fact checkers wagging a finger and shaking their heads. So, the little senate candidate who cried wolf or coyote or really big dog one too many times had skeptics emerge with demands for proof of the tale of his boating accident in 1976 Read more »

Hell hath no fury.  Never mind that. No fury needed here — just cull through your ex’s e-mails during divorce discovery!  Karen Kaiser used to be married to David Zilkha who used to work for Microsoft who then went to work for Pequot Capital Management, which was founded by Arthur Samburg who agreed to pay the SEC a$28-million fine to settle charges that he obtained inside information from David Zilkha who was married to Karen Kaiser, oh, and there you Read more »