What is your personal ethics "quick test"? 2

[leanne]

I have to make decisions daily that affect my ultimate customer - the end users flying on & off aircraft carriers. Everytime I make a decision that affects my customer, I ask myself if it's the best decision that I could make on the customer's behalf & will I regret it later. Would I be willing to go up in the plane with hardware affected by my decision? Would it bother me if I saw a write-up of my decision in the newspaper the next day - or if my mother read about it in the paper? (even at my age, I still care about my mom's opinion)

So, what are your "quick tests"?

 

[TheTick]

Maybe you could give us some details.

A person's own ethics are not likely to be at issue in court. A person or company's actions with respect to accepted industry ethics could be.

Good and evil: wrap them up and disguise it as people.

 

[IRstuff]

This is also from Dictionary.com:

"Synonyms: moral, ethical,
These adjectives mean in accord with right or good conduct. Moral applies to personal character and behavior, especially sexual conduct: "Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights" (Jimmy Carter).

Ethical stresses idealistic standards of right and wrong: "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants" (Omar N. Bradley). "


Likewise:

"eth·ic
n.

A set of principles of right conduct.
A theory or a system of moral values: "An ethic of service is at war with a craving for gain" (Gregg Easterbrook). "

The end result is that there should be no conflict or confusion between morals and ethics. Ethics is a an attempt to codify "wrong" behavior through a series of examples.

We, in society, like children testing limits, ignore the principles behind the ethics and basically decide that "if it's not forbidden, then it's OK." That's the equivalent of seeing a series of data points and assuming that the ethical function consists only of points instead of the curve that runs through the points.

TTFN

 

[dik]

TheTick
Been pretty lucky, I guess... any firm I've worked for has given me a pretty wide latitude... and, I haven't done many things that could be called into question... and I take a pretty strong position on my integrity, ocasionally to the chagrin of a client...

 

[Maui]

And where does congressional ethics fit into this picture??

Leanne, my father was a test pilot in the military, and refused to allow any mechanic to work on his aircraft who was not willing to sit in the cockpit and fly with him after the repair had been completed. If the mechanic refused, then he was replaced. Sometimes the code of ethics that we work to are not chosen by us, but are imposed upon us. Although yours appear to be self-imposed, it seems to me that you are asking yourself the correct questions.



Maui

 

[leanne]

Congressional Ethics is an oxymoron...

We have an official code of ethics at work as do many companies. It's called the Standards of Conduct. It covers legal compliance, respect for others, safety, trust, meeting commitments, conflicts of interest, business courtesies, global responsibility, fair trade, inside information, intellectual property, resources, being a good corporate citizen. Some of it spills over into legal responsibilities. Some does not.

Not all decisions are black or white - those are the EASY decisions. Ethics has a lot of gray areas & therein, lies the ethics challenge. Some decisions are hard to make. If you haven't been faced with a tough decision yet in your career, count your blessings. Sometimes you have to make the choice between the lesser of two evils (after you identify which one is which) and minimize damage - there is no RIGHT answer, but there is a bad answer & a worse answer.

In the light of recent corporate news, the folks most visible these days in the ethics arena seem to be the ones with access to the money - going out or coming in - the beancounters - used to be the purchasing folks, but the ethics of financial audit records seem to have stolen the limelight. Often when people make egregious ethical decisions, it results in laws being written. We are seeing this today with respect to the business world of corporate audits & such. CEOs must now sign a paper personally validating financial records & they go to jail if they violate the shareholder trust by allowing manipulation of the books.

TI has a code of ethics because the company thought it made good business sense. I spent 14 years of my career there. Our Ethics program was an industry benchmark and first written code of ethics for TI was developed in 1961. I used to team teach procurement ethics classes with staff from the Ethics office. The ethics office part of the team focused on the macro ethics for the morning session & the afternoons were mine focused on micro ethics - procurement specific.

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/company/citizen/ethics/benchmark.shtml

The quicktests we used in our Ethics training program at TI are at

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/company/citizen/ethics/quicktest.shtml

 

[BobPE]

leanne: you know I have to disagree. The beauty of engineering is there is a right and wrong answer (it is black and white). When left with two wrong answers, the right answer for an engineer is to walk away....engineering ethichs permits this...and I have walked away a few times in my career until the people posing the question, posed it in a way that a right answer could be returned to them. Engineers don't give wrong answers, we may make mistakes, that's human. If engineers give wrong answers, they are not true engineers....

just my thoughs....

BobPE

 

[leanne]

Bob, please note that I was not limiting that particular post to engineering ethics, but more on a macro ethics level.

Engineers also make ethical decisions which are not specifically engineering related.

Walking away can be a wrong answer as well.

One of the worst things an engineer can do, IMHO, is to not learn from past engineering decisions.

What went right?

What went wrong?

What can we do better next time?

 

[BobPE]

I agree with you leanne, its just that ethics outside of our own little engineering world scares the heck out of me.....I find myself limited to conversations with many of my non engineering clients that consist of yes or no....The ethics outside of our engineering world are far different as you eluded to...so I make an effort to separate information I get from people into engineering and non-engineering, including ethics...I know that may seem kinda strong, but I do understand that for non-engineers, maybe softer or different ethical values allows them to do their job and make progress...it just doesnt include me.....BLACK and WHITE....LOL....I am really not that bad in person, I have no pocket protector, drive a 4x4 pickup, and drink cheap beer....LOL I put on my white shirt and tie and WHAM...engineer geek....LOL

take care

BobPE

 

[leanne]

LOL. I have a pocket protector - somewhere...I also have a slide rule or two. I drive a Durango, but long for the days when my resto project 65 ragtop pony is in driveable condition, and I don't drink beer - cheap or otherwise - yech!

I have to deal with all kinds of non-engineering types. I have often gone to meetings outisde my normal realm of influence where noone even knew (or cared) about my engineering background, because nothing techy was under discussion. Jack Jill of all trades, master of none...