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Ethics

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You can look at the ethical considerations of a business in a macro sense and the benefits are immediately obvious. Bluntly speaking, clients like to feel good about their purchases ergo if you can help to make them feel better about buying from you and - by trading in an ethical manner say - then they are going to come back for more. It's a fundamental branding concept and just good common sense. And taking on green initiatives, charitable work, doing things that let your customers know there are some decent human beings sitting behind the corporate website is not only beneficial to their conscience and your bottom line - they greatly improve the quality of your sleep as a manager or business owner too.

But what about the micro effects of ethical trading, the little things that the client often doesn't see? How you develop your staff for instance and the internal culture that you generate. The effects of an unethical work culture don't just directly affect your business, (although they very much do), they radiate out amongst the workforce and echo into the world beyond like a bad case of head lice. Most full time staff spend at least a third of their lives in the workplace, and long-term they are bound to be affected by its internal ethos; their behaviours and life strategies are going to shift and morph towards the qualities of that culture through simple osmosis. When these inherited traits are exacerbated by a strong corporate culture where common beliefs and practices are held up like golden chalices, the result can be positively demonic, and horribly destructive where there are a shortage of fundamental human values being taught.

As a director of one of my former companies where there was a strong ingrained culture of creativity and personal achievement, I was dismayed and disheartened time and time again at bringing young talent into the firm - always bright, smiling, enthusiastic and willing to learn - only to see them turn over the course of a year or so into arrogant, self centred popularity seekers who would, for the most part, sell their best friends if only to get a leg up or some personal credit from the managing director. In one case a member of staff was ostracized and subsequently driven out of the company only because he lacked the natural talent of a few colleagues and his personal ethics dictated a reluctance to work for a particular client - a big tobacco company. His impeccable work rate, great personal skills and willingness to

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