Sure, in the fight for profits, competitive advantage and keeping pace in this crazy world, you could argue ethics are a luxury you just don’t have time for. But you can create sustainable companies (not just fast ones) through the power of trust. Here’s why being ethical can even give you a leg up.
1. The Superpower You Didn’t Know You Had Trust
Knowing that your employees, customers and other stakeholders are going to trust that you’re going to be honest, fair and transparent with them makes everything you do more seamless, cost less and happen quicker. Break that trust and rebuilding it will cost a fortune, if you ever can.
2. The Short-Term Miracle: Long-Term Costs
What you do to cut corners today (e.g., bending the truth in ads, taking the letter vs spirit of the law, short-changing on quality and safety) inevitably catches up with you and can result in costly investigations, fines, law suits, damage to your brand at the worst time imaginable.
3. A Market for Everything and Everyone If You Don’t Cut the Cheese
A market works far more efficiently and profitably if firms compete on the basis of merit rather than on price gouging, underpaying workers, or manipulating the market. When that occurs, the entire market is sabotaged.
4. Your Employees are Your Barometer
If your organization gives as much concern to the fair treatment of your employees as it does to its clients you’ll build more committed, engaged and resilient employees and if your leadership demonstrates consistent integrity you’ll find the employees will follow suit.
5. Transparency Is Your Resilience Factor
Businesses that communicate open their intentions and even acknowledge their failures weather the inevitable bumps much better and enjoy higher stakeholder loyalty when the chips are down than businesses that conceal things.
6. Profits Don’t Contradict Ethics: The Synergistic Bond
Despite a prevailing wisdom that ethics and profits do not go hand-in-hand, the long-term, sustained, profitable success of companies is directly linked to ethical practices. In today’s environment, customers will happily pay a premium for companies with the highest ethical standards and sustainable sourcing practices.
7. Leaders Drive the Bus…
Business culture is set from the top. Leaders must model the behavior, standards, and policies that are transparent to the workforce and be prepared to make hard decisions in favor of integrity and for the overall health of the company, not in favor of immediate profits.
8. Complying vs Operating with integrity
One of the greatest contributions you can make to your business is to determine the appropriate action not on the basis of minimum standards of legal behavior, but on what you feel is the right thing to do, where the standards have not been provided by external governing agencies.
The Choice
As you said yourself –whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right. And if that sounds too clichéd for your high-speed business environment it just might be too much to bear. The truth is that in the long run, businesses with strong reputations built around high standards of ethical practice can produce a stronger yield
than many a corner that can be cut for a quick, cheap win.
Thanks
