Manage Decisions

Highlighted below are some of the leadership practices and questions on which I reflected upon at the end of the course.

-self-awareness (centering, TR)

When I started working on self-awareness, I had absolute lack of knowledge about my own inner self and all my actions were driven by utter disregard for other’s emotions and in conflict with my own ideal self. But as I focused and started introspecting more on my thoughts, feelings and actions, I started getting a grip on the practice. Instead of just being satisfied with the practice, I started applying them to various contexts and started realizing my strengths, weaknesses, and negative predispositions, emotions of anger, envy, jealousy pride and arrogance. I could relate my social acquaintances with people sharing similar viewpoints, found reasoning for my disappointments, disillusions and short-term moody behaviors. I realized how empathy towards others emotions, understanding and appreciating other cultures, values and beliefs brings about joy and happiness in others. Professional conduct with honesty, integrity and commitment helped me strengthen my value system and I had occasions when I lost my temper but thanks to the practice, I was quickly able to regain my control and act in an appropriate way.

-listening

Paying undivided attention and respecting others views, soliciting feedback, open communication and being receptive to new ideas and opinions had really changed my relationship with others. People who feared to talk freely now have vibrant conversations with me. I am able to treat others with due respect and this had instilled confidence, morale and brought in high performance from my staff. Having shown keen interest in discussions, I was able to address many hostile behaviors and resolve contentions.

-embodied presence (centering, blending)

As with self-awareness, I was ignorant about embodied presence and I realized the detrimental consequences of my moody behaviors. I was able to neutralize my fixations on judgments and perceptions of others, be present in the moment, analyze contexts and choices and engage in actions that have greater meaning and purpose.

-blending

Blending was a unique exercise which I employed effectively while negotiating with clients. People have their own unique personalities, behave differently, have their own egos and conflicting opinions, but directing them to a common ground where mutual interests are served; most differences in opinion can be worked out. The blending practice was instrumental in our merger talks with a competitor.

-assessment of  progress on personal coaching objective

I see myself as being challenged take on new responsibilities in a diverse cultural environment. I will find effective use of all the knowledge and experience I had gained so far in this course. Now having developed emotional intelligence, I feel comfortable in connecting with others and able to manage people, culture, strategy and value networks. Though not globally challenged, my new leadership role will definitely alter my leadership style, help me probe, sense and act in complex situations, seize opportunities and explore disruptive innovation as means to sustain competition.

With exposure to such immense learning, I have really broadened my scope of learning and fell confident with my leadership competencies – personal and social and ready to take on new challenges of the real world.

-description of the work and/or life context for the next several years

a)-the uncertainty of the context in which you will be operating (using Snowden’s four distinctions; more than one may be applicable);

The consulting market place is constantly changing and highly unpredictable. Any one involved in this business needs to adapt in an agile way and rapidly jump into opportunities that will lead to business growth. I will find tremendous use of Snowden’s Cynefin framework to act in such complex contexts. I’ve been though disorderly and chaotic situations before but had acted with gut feeling and intuition. Having grasped all this knowledge now I feel more empowered to address uncertainty with positive outcomes.

b)-the EI leadership styles you anticipate will be most useful, whether they are your preferred styles or not, and, if not, how do you intend to prepare yourself to use your less favored styles;

I will not be engaging in any preferred leadership style, but based on the situation I’ll apply the appropriate one which will deliver positive results. I’ve applied the commanding style during the recent economic crisis taking some tough decisions, but now having merged, I would prefer a mix of visionary, affiliative, coaching and democratic styles.

c)-the opportunity for you to lead innovation in that context and innovation “probes” you might consider useful;

Being in IT consulting, I find great use of disruptive innovation. With the recent regulatory mandate on financial reporting in XBRL format, our company had developed low cost software products for small to medium business to conform to this new regulation. We probed the markets, understood competition, and realized the potential opportunities before we went ahead with R & D investment in the product.

d)-how you expect to address the development needs of your employees and/or teams (ex., Blanchard, Vision (grounded in strategic assessment and intrinsic motivation), culture (key values and addressing appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, as in our class discussion of Gerstner’s assessments and actions)

As a key executive, I will discourage dysfunctional behaviors persistent in the new organization. This will take time and I’ll have to meet with people, gather feedback and evaluate the organizational culture, the readiness of people to adopt to change etc. before I transform processes, culture and behaviors. In order to motivate people, I’ll have to understand what really inspires and encourages them to do a great job and accordingly will formulate strategies and introduce reward systems. I will have to calibrate my leadership style according to response from people. Emotional skills combined with left brain thinking will be helpful in instilling right motivation.

e)-Your emotional state (transitory, related to a specific event) or mood (a persistent background emotional state not necessarily identifiably related to a specific event) at the time you completed the first self-assessment and when you completed this revised self-assessment; what dispositions to action and constraints on action were created by those emotions or moods; your assessment as to whether those emotions/moods were helpful in your completion of the assessment; if so, why and if not, why not and what could you have done to approach the assignment with a more productive emotional state or mood.

Before I started the course, my emotions were momentary, highly unreliable and had loss of faith and trust from some employees. But with the EI practice and gradual improvement in leadership skills, I have become easily accessible to everyone, others treat me with respect, I regained lost faith and trust and I feel more confident to take on new challenges.

I would suggest role playing in leadership and excerpts of real world application of EI practices will definitely help students complete the learning loop. This will greatly provide them a complete understanding of the leadership competencies and the relevance of emotional intelligence for primal leadership.

Managing interest rate risk is very crucial for any institution whose balance sheet has a mix of Assets and Liabilities with different maturities. The recent financial crisis has demonstrated the grave interest rate risks that play havoc with the financial health of a company. The capital formation class has really helped me establish a broad based opinion on financial markets, their inner workings, influential factors (economic & non-economic), term structure of rates, long and short term debt instruments – treasuries, money markets, corporate and municipal bonds, Asset-backed securities, A/L management and various hedging mechanisms (derivatives) to reduce risk exposure, financial reform and future outlook for the markets. The class material was exhaustive, taught with current crisis perspective and allowed us to think beyond traditional ways. As part of this class, we did a paper on forecasting interest rates for a hypothetical company with a simple balance sheet (various short & long term securities), assessed Asset/Liability  risks, measured rate risk using GAP, duration, scenario analysis (including Black Swan events) and Value at risk methods and recommended hedging strategies to alleviate rate risk.  It was a very challenging engagement and I’ve really enjoyed every moment of it.

Paper1 – dealing with interest rate forecast for Hatchet Financial Co.

Risk management application provides the ability to identify risks, determine characteristics of risk emergence, allow measurement through control systems, and apply enhanced project management methods for improved achievement of project and stakeholder goals throughout the life of a pipeline project. Risk reduction and risk management both are the key to improving project management and developing success metrics.

Listed in the excel sheet are some of the risks that I’ve identified for Daniel Sports Company. Daniel Sports is a growing company which supplies cricket bats to customers in greater Washington DC area. The company imports the readymade bats from Barbados and makes use of student labor for receiving, and delivering to clients. I have classified them based on project specificity and context and assigned them a probability, impact, risk exposure, mitigation approaches and contingency plans. Listed below are the risks identified: After identifying all the potential risks, I quantified the risk based on probability of occurrence and impact and then proposed strategies for responding to risk and finally a plan to monitor them. I’ve assigned only 3 scales 1 being VH (very high), 3 being MH(medium) and 1being LH(lowest).

Probability-Impact matrix

Project Specific factors

Delivery/operation risk: The ability to overcome the risk of delivering and operating the project as conceived.

Technology risk: The ability to overcome the technological risks of the project.

Financial risk: The ability to overcome the financial risk of the project through to final completion and operation.

Procurement-contractual risk: The ability to overcome the risks associated with the procurement of, or contracting for, the execution and operation of the project.

Project Context Factors

Political risk: The ability to overcome the political risk of the project, including local, state, and national political opposition and code and regulatory impediments.

Environmental risk: The ability to overcome the environmental risks of the project.

Social risk: The ability to overcome the social risks of the project.

Economic risk: The ability to overcome the economic impact risks of the project.

Identifying key risks associated with the achievement of all project objectives in terms of cost, time, quality, environment and safety is very critical for any project success. A properly planned risk management plan will help reduce the likelihood of risk from occurring and put the project on the path to successful delivery.

This a classic case that is predominantly faced by global project managers who work with culturally diverse project teams with whom they share no similarities. According to PMBOK, a global project manager must require an ability to communicate, facilitate, negotiate, plan, budget, organize, motivate, manage, measure, monitor, think laterally and make decisions, which are predominately social activities. So before venturing out on any project a global PM must do a complete scan of social, economic, political, cultural and technological factors so that he is better prepared to mitigate challenges posed with global projects.

A careful analysis of this case reveals a gross lack of cross-cultural knowledge, personality stereotyping, miscommunication and poor decision making ability. The level of cultural awareness shown by Fred was not high enough to identify some of the more prominent cultural challenges, which were also consistent with the cultural dimensions showing the greatest gaps. Recent research has shown that it is not only important to try and understand the local culture, it is also important to identify the differences between that culture and the project manager’s own. During this process, the manager must be fully aware of the differences with cultural dimensions of environment, action orientation, emotion, language, space, relationships, power, thinking and time. The greatest problems and challenges reported were associated with the four cultural dimensions of thinking, power, time and emotion.

In terms of culture and diversity, the following factors are of great importance. They have to be understood in great detail, must appreciate the dissimilarities and leverage them as opportunity to build a culturally diverse team capable of achieving the project goals.

• Universalism vs. Particularism

Fred seems to share the belief that rights of the organization prevail over rights of a specific friend. In a predominant particularistic society like Japan, the rights of a friend i.e. employees is taken to be more important than the rights of the larger community.

• Individualism vs. Communitarism
  Fred belongs to a highly individualistic culture where people are expected to make their own decisions and to take care only of themselves and their close family whereas the Japanese Communitarism societies are firmly integrated into groups which provide help and protection in exchange for a strong sense of loyalty.

  Specific vs. Diffuse
  Fred seems to be very specific with whom to build contacts and less explicit of what he or she expects from the work relationship.

  Neutral vs. Affective
  Fred was inadvertently neutral and reluctant to show what he felt while the Japanese being affective prefer to show spontaneously how they feel and to act accordingly.

  Achievement vs. Ascription
  Fred believes in achievement, a social status resulting from the individual´s success in building up a life of his / her own while the Japanese believed in ascription social status dependent on one´s descent, sex, age, or affluence.

  Time Orientation – Past, Present, Future
  Japanese culture is rooted in past and bases its future on past events while Fred comes from a culture oriented towards the future.

Internal Control vs. External Control
Fred has a predominantly mechanistic view of nature, people are seen as influencing the environment and not vice versa. Whereas the Japanese believe in an organic view of nature, meaning men / women are subjugated to nature´s dynamics & forces.

I will base my solutions on the analysis above since it reveals the fundamental root cause for the failures encountered so far by Fred.

1. I. You are Fred, what should you do now?

Solution: The Japanese assignment is a big career jump for Fred that comes packaged with tremendous benefits and a promotion as managing director of Tokyo operations. This is an incredible deal and Fred has to make best use of this opportunity. Apart from the dissatisfaction from his wife and ongoing setbacks at office, Fred had not lost the game totally. He still can turnaround the situation and can position himself as a successful project manager as he proved before. So, in my opinion Fred should undertake this challenge and work hard to resolve the pressing issues at office and at home. Since Fred left the United States without much orientation or understanding of the Japanese culture, he had to face difficult situations on an on-going basis. He felt helpless and thought he was interacting with people from outer planet, could not openly communicate and understand their motives or thought processes. All this happened due to lack of cultural awareness, work ethics, and too much indulgence in task-orientation and not relationship building. When communication modes cross, miscommunication, unintentional messages, misunderstanding and frustration often result.

Fred in order to salvage himself out of this mess must work hard and take time for looking at possible differences and their consequences during the Start-up phase. Learning about cultural differences takes place at several levels: at the organizational, project level and on a personal level.

Typical activities could be:

• Developing an understanding of each other’s cultural perspectives,
• Must develop consciousness of the roots of cultural differences, to assess their impact, and to build structures, procedures and a working environment which promotes cultural synergy.
• Breakdown hierarchical management style and concentrate more on relationship building. Avoid generalizations.
• Finding out risks to avoid and opportunities to exploit,
• Jointly defining project goals and schedule,
• Defining an organizational structure for the project that takes cultural differences into account.
• Delegation of authority, responsibility and power is central for motivating and engaging project teams.
• Open up channels of communication, loosen control and solicit feedback from employees. Share business values with Japanese clients – of maintaining a peace and harmony rather than a candid exchange of opinions, arguments or confrontation. It was for this reason that the client sent their human resources head to develop that bonding initially.
• Arrange for additional meetings two or three meetings to understand the honest opinion of the other party. Agree up front on the rules of engagement and policies to do with managing mutual expectations and managing changes.
• Fred was trying to implement task-driven project management style in relationship-oriented cultures, since he was more concerned with schedules and results than creating time and opportunity for building personal relationships with other project participants. He should concentrate more on harmonious relationship building exercises.
• Eliminate uncertainty from employee tasks and responsibilities. Japanese prefer uncertainty avoidance.
• Understand the different perceptions of fundamentals of project management, especially time. Seek honest feedback about timelines and readiness before thrusting tasks on employees.
• Establish clearly defined roles and structure. Have social interactions with employees, better understand their preferences and perceptions deviate from individual achievement and instead recognize group effort. Make effective use of American employee who can understand and speak fluent Japanese.
• On the home front, he can hire some domestic help with sound English speaking skills who can act as a language interpreter, has rich local knowledge of shopping for groceries cheaply; can provide insight for outdoor activities and social events.
• Hire a language expert as coach who can train both Fred and his wife on Japanese language skills, customs and generally acceptable “behavioral” skills.

II You are Dave; Fred called you to discuss the situation. What should you do now?

Solution:

Dave has strong faith and trust in Fred’s abilities as a successful manager. It was this confidence that made him offer this challenging assignment. Fred has a proven track record of successfully managing projects earlier and so should approach Dave with lots of optimism. He should not be weathered by the initial setbacks and instead should provide confidence and faith in meeting the project goals. Some of these actions include:

• Keep Dave abreast of the developments taking place in the Tokyo office. Provide him a detailed report of the progress made so far and the obstacles he has been facing.
• Inform Dave of your sincere efforts to win the new client deal and the lack of response from the client.
• Let Dave know of the cultural polarization existing in the Tokyo office and his inability to break the communication barriers
• Make Dave aware of the lack of formal training in Japanese culture, language and work ethics. Talk to him about the social isolation faced by his family and the difficulty in procuring basic grocery items.
• Request Dave to provide a global coach who can assist him with understanding the cultural differences, negotiation tactics and advise him of “do’s and dont’s” in Japanese culture and society. This can be useful for his wife too.
• Update Dave on the process improvements being made at organization and personal levels to improve communication, his efforts to learn and respect the cultural differences and his efforts to breakdown cultural challenges he is facing now.
• Seek complete support and backing from Dave, any additional resources who have been in such situations for knowledge sharing and any kind of external help which might help him in his efforts to lead successfully.

The above efforts will reinforce the confidence in Fred and Dave will definitely acknowledge and appreciate the efforts being made in this direction.

1. II. Turn back the clock to when Fred was offered the position to Tokyo. What should have been done different, and by whom?

Solution:

As evident from the case, Fred seems to have lacked any exposure to cultural diversity going by his recent project accomplishment in San Franciso. So Fred’s beliefs on cultural dimensions were in direct conflict with the Japanese and he had no clue about it.  The initial analysis discussed in this paper clearly shows how from the get-go Fred was unfit to manage a culturally diverse group of individuals.

So when he was offered career promotion and benefits, it was a deal he could not refuse. He had some resistance from his wife, but finally accepted the offer assuming that the assignment would not be so difficult.  So in haste he had to make arrangements for the transfer move and he had no time to learn about the Japanese culture, traditions, work ethics and their perceptions towards management. His only source of information was the encyclopedia. His family too was abruptly disrupted leaving no time to build expectations from this new move. All this eventually turned into a big frustration for Fred. His efforts to establish the new business was in vain and he received no co-operation from the Japanese staff. He was helpless and desperate to find answers to his situation.

From the onset when he was offered the position, a lot could have been done to overcome the grief he was in. Some of my suggestions include:

• Fred could have delayed his posting date until he felt ready to undertake this challenge. This delay would have provided him the opportunity to plan the big move, research and learn about the Japanese culture, request local expertise to help out with language interpretation, grocery shopping and exploring western social joints where they can spend some quality time without getting bored.
• Fred must have undergone some training on negotiations and dealing with Japanese businesses. This could have helped him understand the client expectations and in building mutually compatible business values.
• Fred must have thought of looking out for some part-time job opportunities in Tokyo for his wife Jennifer so that she is busy with her lifestyle in Japan. He also could have arranged in advance for some American cable channels at home so that they stay in contact with happenings at home.
• Fred must have held some initial consultations (over phone or virtually through we conferencing etc.) with overseas staff so he has a feel for their priorities and commitment.  He should have contacted the American staff with Japanese skills so that he can understand in depth the work ethics of his Japanese counterparts.
• Fred should have developed a clear understanding of the various cultural dimensions and how his beliefs fit or differ with those of the Japanese. He must be aware of the dimensions of environment, action orientation, emotion, language, space, relationships, power, thinking and time.
• Fred must do a complete scan of social, economic, political, cultural and technological factors so that he is better prepared to mitigate challenges posed with global projects.

These are some of the prerequisites which must have been met before Fred embarked on this exciting undertaking in Japan.

1. I. Make a list of reasons when you would or would not accept a foreign assignment for one year or longer.

Solution:

Reasons to accept a foreign assignment

If I put myself in the shoes of Fred, I would be terribly excited about this new assignment. Though my decision will benefit me the most, it may or may not have the same degree of acceptance from the family members. Here are some reasons to accept this assignment:

1. A great career move – incredible compensation, benefits and the lure of promotion to a Managing Director position
2. Opportunity to acquire and build new skills and experience of working in a global environment
3. Exposure to deal with challenges in culturally diverse groups , interact with stake holders and clients from different cultural backgrounds
4. Children will be exposed to diversity – a new school environment, new friends and adaptation to new culture and society
5. Experience new culture, food and overall the excitement to be with doing the abnormal way.

Reasons not to accept the assignment

Though the assignment looks exciting and quite appealing, it comes with its own baggage of problems.

If I were to reject the assignment it could be for the following reasons:

1. Disrupting family life and ending up scrambling to re-settle lives in a completely, strange new country
2. Fear of failure due to lack of cultural awareness and hidden risks. May ruin the reputation and credibility built so far.
3. Lack of preparedness and inability to put in new efforts and hard work to learn new language and culture
4. Strong resistance from family members to relocate
5. Inability to meet expectations of a smooth and decent life in the foreign land.

According to PMBOK guide, Project quality management includes “all activities of the overall management function that determine the quality policy, objectives, and responsibilities and implements them by means such as quality planning, quality assurance, quality control, and quality improvement, within the quality system”. Quality planning has quality policy, scope statement, product description, standards and regulations and other process inputs. But unfortunately in international projects, culture plays a critical role in influencing quality objectives. People’s perceptions about quality is not universally similar, instead they tend to differ from country to country and within a country among various regions and amongst various projects. So as a global manager, there is a greater need to understand these perceptions of quality devise standard quality processes and monitor them on a regular basis in order to succeed. The recent recall of Toyota has been attributed to lack of quality management owing to the company’s failure to integrate various quality check points due to global procurement from many vendors. Corporate governance was lacking and there was no standard message that was communicated across all subsidiaries within Toyota.

In a project context where you find differing perceptions towards quality, the Johari window is a tool that can be used to measure 4 different possible states with regard to knowledge of one’s culture, and the understanding of other cultures in the project team.

In the IPMA article , “Managing cultural boundaries in projects”, the author Susan Vonsild has clearly stated how when people of different cultures meet in projects, they will have differing perceptions of authority, responsibility and accountability; sense of urgency and attitude to planning, commitment, conflict, risk-taking and agreements, and contracts. However, few of us are completely aware of how our actions – and ways of thinking – are dictated by more hidden or in fact unconscious values. Those differences arise because of the specific cultural experiences we grow up with. For example the quality check for a completed task may just mean conducting unit testing for someone in one country while the same task may imply unit testing, application testing and system testing for another person in another country. So these perceptions need to change so that the global team can deliver the desired product according to the customer’s expectations. In order to achieve that objective, the global manager must do the following:

• Understand the client’s requirements for quality and then meet those requirements. Define the meaning of quality that defines the characteristics of quality on your specific project and works universally. Pay attention to the distinction between the objective and subjective aspects of the quality definition.
• Create a “transcendant” culture for their organization that sits above regional or national culture. Ensure that excessive perception gaps do not exist between management, supervisors, and stakeholders. Try to bridge the gap by holding virtual meetings, discussions and open feedback.

• Define the detailed components of the transcendental framework with some defined locally.
• Identify business methods or practices that unify people in the face of cross-cultural diversity. Appreciate cultural diversity, specifically values and beliefs, and underlying assumptions
• Recognize that local cultures are really expressions of how people think, work and act with respect to each other. Tap into that and accordingly establish quality standards.
• Use cultural diversity to meld together into a global presence that presents a consistent ‘corporate image’ recognizable everywhere. Also accept local diversity, respect it and look for other sources like gender, age, differences in personalities and institutional environments
• Individual and team activities and the attitudes of people toward service of customers must align with the local culture to achieve harmony in the alignment with the external stakeholders: customers, suppliers, partners, and local governments.
• Establish Governance so that you make sure people follow quality standards in the framework defined. Develop metrics to measure progress of quality initiatives. And establish performance benchmarks that measure cross-discipline and cross-divisional perceptions as a baseline for cultural change

• Conduct training so that all team members have the necessary skills to understand, apply and monitor the quality standards. Communicate goals and objectives in a consistent manner throughout the quality planning phase.
• Coordinate information exchange and work progress with team members. Keep employees motivated and engaged.  Ensure communication is clear, concise and open so that all views, opinions and ideas expressed are acknowledged and discussed in a candid way.
• In instances where perceptions don’t change, then change has to be introduced through external stimuli. Adequate reward and recognition systems must be in place to encourage adherence to quality framework. Anyone exceeding the set standards should be recognized and rewarded so that it sets an example for others to follow.

By placing emphasis on understanding and respecting cultural roots, a global PM must assume a delicate balance in communicating project goals and quality objectives and at the same time must exert influence to change their deep rooted perceptions. This can go a long way in creating an effective quality plan which will ensure the success of any global project.

As part of our term paper in Business Ethics, we researched the Satyam Scandal, the largest corporate accounting scandal to date in India, to find out the ethical and moral collapses that occurred, the psyche of the key executives and what we can learn from it. It is amazing to know that in spite of all these scandals brought to limelight there has been little evidence to suggest that change has taken a strong foot hold. Executives still indulge in gross ethical violations and we hope the reinforcement of ethical code of conduct and fostering a culture of trust and integrity will bring about the much needed change in organizational and executive behaviors.

Research paper - The Satyam Scandal

Values and ethics are a part of our everyday lives. We wake up to these values and beliefs each day as they are the “rules” that govern us. Ethics is not just about morality; it is a complex dimension of personal and corporate life that can lead to higher performance by both business and society. Individual experiences of values and beliefs stem from the personal point of view, a cultural perspective all the way to an organization perception. Although we hear a lot about immoral and unethical practices from various quarters – corporate, societal and personal, I am lucky to have worked with some great managers who stood by their value systems and challenged unethical behavior risking their own jobs. In this paper I will focus on an ethical action taken by Mr. Madison, Director of Higher Education Consulting, XYZ Corporation to illustrate how possessing good ethics can have a positive effect in the workplace. XYZ Corporation was known in the industry for fairness, integrity and credibility. I was part of the team managing the project schedule and implementation effort on this project.

While heading the implementation of a new financial application at Oregon University in 2001, Mr. Wilson faced a difficult ethical dilemma. As part of the new IT infrastructure, a web based application was developed using a new programming technology. The company engaged consultants and utilized most of the funds allocated for building this application. The software was not yet proven to work seamlessly as per the client’s requirements. In addition, there were many quality issues – design flaws, programs failures under simulated conditions, data corruption etc. If the software got deployed to production, there would be major operational issues and severe financial damage to the client. The client was deliberately insulated from these issues to prevent any re-work connected with quality issues. Because of the over-extended commitments made by XYZ corporation during the contracting process, the company was obligated to deliver this application on the agreed upon date and the date was nearing. The company vice-president gave the approval to go ahead with the deployment. At the time this decision was made, XYZ Corp. was struggling with falling revenues and shrinking markets due to the dot-com bust. The company could not afford to lose any existing contracts to competitors, but at the same time executives were instructed not to exceed any estimated budgets and look for additional revenue generation. Mr.Madison was surprised to hear this decision and knew how it would violate the company’s ethical principles and negatively affects their client relationship, employee productivity, job satisfaction and trust in other fellow employees. A devout Christian with strong cultural and family values, Mr.Madison felt that the decision also conflicted with his own personal morals – of being truthful, honest, caring, fairness and loyalty.

Being a certified project manager, Mr. Madison has to abide by the code of conduct from the Project Management Institute. Turn a blind eye to evil, and you may not be an accomplice. But you’re an enabler. Regardless of how the decision impacted, Mr.Madison could not compromise his principles. He took on the challenge of questioning the executive management about the unethical decision made and was willing to risk his job than act unethically.

After repeated attempts to convince his company not to deploy the software, Mr.Madison ended up disclosing the serious flaws prevalent in the web application to the client. He brought this matter to the immediate attention of the client since it violated contractual terms and his professional ethics. XYZ executives were more interested in the financial stability of the company and ignored the calls for strict quality checks. Mr.Madison took the decision in the interest of his company and moral self –to withhold company’s ethical values, maintain credibility and stay true to his personal values. The client immediately responded with a thorough review of the application development process, forced the company to fix the design issues and perform joint integration testing with the client. Even though the experience initially was uncomfortable, by complying with the client requirements and being outspoken about the glaring defects and taking the client into confidence, the project got extended and the contract was renewed for two more years. We often make small ethical compromises for “good” reasons: We lie to a customer because our boss asked us to. By relying on his moral principles and professional ethics, Mr.Madison prevented XYZ Corp. from ending up having a sour business relationship with the client. The company was able to reinstate trust and confidence among employees and adherence to ethical code of conduct was made mandatory.

Ethical Dissonance

In this particular case, Madison’s ethical principles were in conflict with the organization’s policy. His decision to expose the quality flaws were based on his own value system and ethical principles rather than on the organizational norm. Hiding the truth, lying blatantly and deceiving someone are gross violations of good practices. His belief in right or wrong can be traced to his family roots, religious and cultural influences. As a loyal employee bent on upholding the company’s reputation, he revealed the problems to the client because any reconciliatory measures taken as a consequence will create positive outcome for the company. Though in the near term the company will be forced to spend more to fix the software which will put additional financial stress on a struggling company, but in the end, being fair, honest and candid led to a sustainable business relationship.

On the contrary, the executives argued that their actions too were in the interest of the company. They were under tremendous pressure not to exceed budgets and not to incur any additional costs due to quality issues; they tried to hide facts and instead pushed for delivering a faulty software product. To them, saving the company from additional expenses was the right thing to do. They turned to unethical behavior and denied their own moral principles to take effect. Their perception of “good” has a different meaning and they tried everything in their means to oppose the views of Mr.Madison. Instead of contradicting Mr.Madison, the company should have addressed this issue on ethical terms and changed the way it does business in this situation. Minor ethical lapses can seem harmless, but they instill in us a hard-to-break habit of distorted thinking. Ethical decision making is the foundation for any sustainable business that will help realize the best values present in employees and transform business relationships.

Many people find their personal, cultural and/or organizational ethics conflicting and must reconcile a course of action that will mitigate cognitive dissonance. To uphold these values, one must reconcile these conflicts on a daily basis and continually move forward while maintaining personal integrity and balance. Ethical decision making provides opportunities to most affect our own happiness and to have the most positive effect on those around us and achieve the peace and happiness that are so threatened in these tumultuous, ethically-challenged times. In the long run, a company will reap great profits from a customer base that feels it is being treated fairly and truthfully.

As part of our course exercise on business sustainability, I went to Banshee Reeks again to capture some of the species diversity existing in the preserve. I had to identify an ecological enterprise and report on its ecological footprint and role in the community.

I was fortunate enough to capture some of the wonderful animal life on my camera which is available through the link below:

Wildlife exploration at Banshee Reeks

Short videos of my trail walk are available here:

Along Spring Trail in Banshee Reeks

On way to Goose Creek

My goal in the business program has been to see how individual endeavors undertaken by companies eventually rollout at the macro level and contribute to the overall business growth in challenging and competitive environments.

I have been really excited with the ongoing debate about the ethics and moral reasons behind running some of the large business sustainable initiatives at US Corporations. Though there is some credibility to the initiatives, I suspect whether the triple bottom line of “people, planet and profits” is exactly balanced. In fact, I look at some programs as blatant “greenwashing” spoofs. With the shifting economic dynamics towards emerging countries, the next age of environmental destruction will come from the rapidly industrializing and resource hungry nations of the developing world. The lack of agreement on Kyoto treaty, weakening carbon emission and renewable energy initiatives owing to falling oil prices, lack of commitment on sustainable practices from developing world are areas which need immediate attention. 

Though I am not an expert to evaluate anyone’s judgments and the success measures, I am in this class to learn about the future corporations and their role in leaving a planet healthy enough to sustain not just the next generation, but for multiple generations to come. I want to learn about the ecosystem and how the natural processes carry life forward retaining the delicate balance and harmony amongst the various inhabitants of this planet whether living or non-living.  I want to understand the various perspectives of business sustainability with a global focus subject to strong criticisms. I am also interested to know what transformations have to take place in individuals (behavioral, cognitive and emotional capabilities) especially in dilemmas where nature is in conflict with individual or company’s interests. I truly believe in the words of Edward O. Wilson in his book The Diversity of Life,

“There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us”.

Short video recorded in Banshee Reeks Preserve.

Banshee Reeks Preserve