by milkdaddycool

Created on: February 12, 2009

"Profits or Ethics matter more in Business?" is that the question at hand?! Well, it's quite a controversial topic, nowadays. This usually implies that there's plenty of opinions on the matter, something which would discourage me in most cases from stepping up. But this particular question is an exception.

The very fact that it is being discussed vigilently suggests that there hasn't been reached a common understanding yet. I'm a bit disappointed but not that surprised. The bare-naked truth about this matter is that the answer lies within the mindset of the person contemplating this issue. What this statement means, broken down, is the following:

"Profits" and "Ethics" should not be evaluated as being of equal essence. "Profits" is an ambiguous concept, dependent entirely on the person's value and belief system. There are many entrepreneurs who would use the term, to mean not only monetary value, but altogether growth along the criteria which they have established to be crucial to their business. In the case where this question is debated by someone who hasn't put in the time and thought into delineating such criteria for themselves, and their business, than they simply need to step back and do just that, before continuing with the argument. A most prime directive in Project Management is the tenet that "You can't control what you can't measure" This applies especially for one's enterprise. In order for it to grow and prosper, the entrepreneur must be perfectly clear, even intimately comfortable with the nature of the key factors which generate "Profits". In it of itself this means that they must be perfectly clear with what "profits" means to them, the direction in which they want their business to evolve, ... and the rest of that whole tactical exercise.

While "ethics" - well, ethics are rather uniform in their meaning. Of course, if two or more parties' interests were concerned, than they would sit down and pretend to have diverging viewpoints on what "ethics" are, but to everyone else, the meaning of the word is pretty clear. Ethics are the core foundation of any business relationship. Were they void from one, wouldn't that constitute an intended usurpment of the agreement. Anyone involved extensively in trade, commerce, business will agree that enduring expansion of the business activity is closely dependant on the mutually benefitial (called 'symbionic' in biology) relationship between everyone involved. (vendors, customers, producers... everyone). How could

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