- Everyone rationalizes — including you.
- There are lots of things you don’t know and lots of people who hope you don’t find out. (The most dangerous problems are the ones you don’t know about).
- Complacency and overconfidence about ethics is a major vulnerability. (Everyone says it can’t happen here until it does).
- There’s never just one bad employee – there’s always at least two: the poor employee and the supervisor who fails to fix the problem.
- What you allow, you encourage.
- The law of big numbers: in any organization of size there are bound to be some crooks and psychopaths. (You’ve got to try to screen them out or weed them out.)
- Hire for character, train for skills
- A hold is a buy – treat probation as an extended job interview; before you finalize employment ask: knowing all that I know now about this employees competence and character would I hire him/her?
- The higher the stakes– large financial incentives, relentless pressure, fear of losing job — the greater the cheating
- Individuals judge themselves by their best intentions, most successful projects and most noble acts, but the world judges them by their last worst act.
- Its on your shoulders – creating and preserving a values driven ethical culture, making the company a destination employer, assuring that ALL managers (top to bottom) are held accountable usually falls on the shoulders of HR
- Doing nothing is doing something — the consequences of inaction are as real and potent as any action
- You can’t escape moral judgment through a legal loophole. (Behavior is always judged through the lens of ethics).