The relationship between business and ethics continues to be a relevant topic, particularly in the last few years with the Enron and Worldcom scandals. As with other relationships, business and ethics can work hand-in-hand harmoniously, or it can have a somewhat tenuous relationship. Business and ethics can be "in sync", but most often this has to be careful planned. The reason is that business is about making money, and money is often more tempting than anything else. With stockholders and other constituencies involved, it is easy for people to focus on the money and set ethics aside, or at least put it in the background. Here are some ways to make business and ethics function in a workable relationship.

Remember that ethics must be defined

Ethics is often about values, such as "making the world a better place", or "being an honest business person". Those are nice aspirations, but often people do not define them for their particular organization. When things go undefined, they are easier to set aside or justify from a behavioral standpoint. People who violate ethical "principles" may not be "bad" people overall. Rather, they allowed the goals of the business to overrun a flimsy definition of ethics which was never clarified. In order to avoid this, companies that want to follow ethical principles must put specific practices in place for accounting, marketing, and management. In addition, they must continually look to hire people who mirror the ethical principles that the organization wants to advance.

Be comfortable with your level of success

In order to be profitable, you must keep your revenue high and your expenses low. If you want to profitable faster, you must innovate, find an untapped market, implement quick cost-saving measures, or find ways to cut corners. If an organization sets unrealistic goals for themselves, they may put their employees in situations where they become desperate, and turn to means of attaining profit that are borderline or blatantly unethical. It is difficult to ask a company to make less money, because that isn't usually the point, but it does behoove the organization to know what expectations will do employee behavior. Without giving people specific guidelines on how to navigate ethical, they may be forced to search for their own means of success without supervision.

Set your ethical standards in advance

Too often the financial goals are set first and then ethics are added as an afterthought in order to make leadership feel like they are doing the "right thing". By setting ethical guidelines first, or continually reminding employees of company values, the leadership will help to dictate the goals of the company and keep the organization within ethical boundaries. Ethical principles must be constantly referenced if the organization wants them to actually be implemented. If all that is talked about are financial goals, then the ethical principles will not even register on the employee radar.

Talking about business and ethics will continue to be a topic, but it must be respected that oftentimes they are competing goals. We live in a country of profit and commerce, so behaving a certain way is not necessarily of paramount importance because it doesn't pay the bills. Or, it doesn't pay fast enough. The company that wants to stay ethical must plan, implement, and review in order to truly maintain their values over time.

Learn more about this author, Todd Pheifer.
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