CONSULTING

We can partner for particular projects, answer particular questions, or provide advice on particular issues. We're happy to help, or to be on call for when your organization needs another informed perspective.

Can we help you? If your answer to the following questions is 'No,' we can help:

  • Does your organization show its people that it's serious about ethics?
  • Does your organization maintain a culture of ethical thinking?
  • Do you know what small systemic changes would make the biggest difference to your ethical culture?

We work with organizations to develop methods that both communicate to employees that the company takes ethical behavior seriously and motivate their people to act ethically. We use our expertise to provide organizations with a new perspective that helps them explore alternatives that they had not previously been considered.

We've found that it's easy to talk about the importance of ethics, but employees need to be shown that ethics is as important as a strategy pivot, new product launch, or management change. Ethics needs to be embedded in the culture, and we can help businesses do that. Sometimes organizations' ethics initiatives need revitalization; we can help with that, too.

We think from a design and systems perspective. We will help you effectively communicate to your team that ethics is important and create an environment and system in which they can practice ethical behaviors.

Our methods will help your organization's people internalize ethical thinking, act from an internal sense of purpose for the company, receive input from the company that ethical behavior is valued, and to operate in a system in which they are encouraged to continue acting in ethical ways.

To be sure, ethical lapses are inevitable. Organizations and individuals should be able to move on in spite of these lapses. Sometimes ethical issues require creative solutions. Whether a solution is appropriate involves an understanding of the complexity of the underlying issues, the nature of the standard that was breached, the implications of the action, the reasons for the lapse, and the context in which the lapse occurred. Often it's true that if one individual were not to have violated the standard, someone else would have, due to the system in place, so in addition to helping to remedy on issue, we help affect systemic changes to address future issues of the same type.

We help companies investigate the causes of the lapses and recommend remedies that both help companies to recover from losses and prevent future lapses in way that do not cause disruptions to other business systems. Often these remedies involve operational or procedural adjustments, individual education and/or training, and communication with affected parties. We will work with corporate teams to discover of the best (sometimes creative) ways address these lapses.