The Ethics Advantage #71: Confidence, compliance, and comeuppance

There can be a thin line between confidence and arrogance, between brazenness and resolve. Sometimes we have to flirt with that line. And doing it right might be the secret to success.

Of course, we have to know where we're going. And that's often easier said than done. Sometimes we're farther away when we're right next door than we are when we're in a different time zone.

Boundaries are there for a reason. But if we make ourselves irrationally dependent on them, we might end up blurring them beyond recognition.

Those are a few of the thoughts addressed below.

In this week's edition:

• The Ethical Lexicon 71
• Anywhere is my Destination
• Grappling with the Gray 99

Enjoy!

??In the opening episode of the hit series Suits, Mike Ross bluffs his way into Harvey Specter’s office, then proceeds to land a job as associate in a prestigious law firm despite never graduating from law school or officially passing the bar.? The ruthless Harvey can’t help being impressed by Mike’s brazenness.

Brazen is one way to describe Harvey’s future protege.? Another might be audacious.? Also: ?bold, brash, insolent, cocky, shameless, cheeky, spunky, or unabashed.

But there is one word that includes all of these, and more.? Which makes it a fitting choice for the current entry into the Ethical Lexicon:

Chutzpah (chutz·pah/?ho?otsp?) noun

Confidence or courage bordering on arrogance, roughly equivalent to “nerve”

Please click to read this week's column in Fast Company:

??It was a spectacular November morning, the high desert air clear and sharp, the sun ablaze in a cobalt sky. The future was mine for a song.

It was my first day on the road, the beginning of my grand adventure. It was my ultimate break with the past, my rejection of the familiar, and my repudiation of the predictable. There I was, on the cusp of metamorphosis, about to tear through the walls of my cocoon and take flight into a brave new world.

I was terrified.

It had seemed like a good idea, leaving everything and everyone behind to hitchhike across America. But that first morning out, standing on barren stretch of New Mexico highway 650 miles from where I’d started, all I could think of was getting back on the train to Southern California and slinking home to confess my reckless folly.

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??Can compliance demands undermine a healthy and ethical culture?

That's the question driving the conversation when ?? Carolyn Lebanowski , Toni McLelland MSc FRSA , and Colin D Smith join the ethics panel for a special transatlantic episode of Grappling with the Gray.

Here is our topic:A recent post on Reddit recounts how an employee found themselves reprimanded by their manager for taking 45 minutes for break one day instead of 30 minutes. The employee recalled taking 31 minutes that day, because someone stopped them on their way back with a concern that took time to resolve.

It seems that the company punch clock rounded to the nearest 15 minute interval, thereby inaccurately recording the break time, but the manager refused to accept that explanation.

From that day forward, the employee would go on break exactly seven minutes after the cutoff time and return within seven minutes of the cutoff on the other end. For instance, punching out at 10:08 would get rounded up to 10:15, and punching in at 10:52 would get rounded back to 10:45. In this way, a 44 minute break would be recorded as exactly 30 minutes.

When a supervisor told the employee that it seemed they were gone longer than usual, the employee simply said, “Check the record.”

Novelist Robert A. Heinlein coined the term “white mutiny,” which means following the letter of the law so literally that you subvert the spirit of the law, Amelia Bedelia style. The contemporary term is malicious compliance.

When bosses or managers demand strict compliance to the point where they end up punishing employees because of inequities in their company system, are employees justified in exploiting loopholes in the system to their own advantage?

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#ethics #culture #leadership #accountability #mindset