Thoughts on Agile Ethics

Ethics tend to be stable and sustainable, providing a sense of safety. Yet, as the world changes quickly, the relevance of Ethics depends on its ability to provide help to decision making in new situations and environment. Ethics have to become adaptive and agile.

We as humans need Ethics, because its values and settings represent humanity.

The PMI Ethics System

As PMI members, we all agreed to comply with the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility. This Code has been developed by volunteers over some years and put into effect by the PMI Board of Directors as of January 2007. 

The code is based on four values:

·     responsibility,

·     respect,

·     honesty and

·     fairness.

For each of these, two sets of aspirational and mandatory standards are defined, like ‘we respect the property rights of other’s’.

While this is also a legal standard in most countries, a violator might not be sued in court for a number of reasons. Then anybody could file a complaint against the violator of a mandatory standard and the PMI Ethics Review Committee (ERC) would look at the case, and if there is sufficient reason to believe it may indeed be a violation, a hearing will be scheduled. The ERC hearing panel will issue a verdict and is empowered to issue private or public sanctions, up to stripping the violator of membership and certifications. Public sanctions will be visible to others and demonstrate that the Ethics System of PMI ‘has teeth’. It is able to become a global self-regulating instance while most professions are self-regulating within the legislation of countries (e.g. by licencing professionals within a country).

The Ethics Review Committee is comprised of volunteers, reports to the Board and has assistance from an independent lawyer, so it is widely independent from the PMI organization itself. It gains its permission to regulate by individuals signing up to it.

Besides the code and the ERC, the PMI Ethics System comprises another volunteer group, the Ethics Member Advisory Group (EMAG), recently renamed the Ethics Insights Team (EIT), reporting to the PMI CEO. The EMAG is in particular in charge of promoting and maintaining the code and provides a set of tools to learn about and apply the code. 

Codes of ethics exist for professions, organisations, and other social groups. Most of them are based on a few principles that apply to people that belong to these groups. Some also apply to organizations. Many of us commit to more than one code of ethics, like a MD to the professional code and the code of the hospital they work for, and if the hospital is associated with a church, additional ethic requirements may apply.

Codes of ethics are no laws and they are not generally enforced by courts. They may contain standards that a group commits for their members, while society and legislation do not see a need to establish general rules (laws) about these standards. Often Codes of Ethics are issued by NGOs (like the global charter of ethics for journalists by IFJ, a federation of journalist unions) and many times they are self-regulating their adherence (for example the medical profession). Legislation and jurisdiction are mainly based on national authority of governments, their sovereignty. Ethical standards more and more apply to groups that act internationally. 

Human Values and Group Beliefs

If the principles of codes of ethics are called values, they often are related to a set of eight human values that Rushworth Kidder has found in most cultures he researched in his book ‘Morale Courage’:

·     responsibility,

·     respect,

·     honesty and

·     fairness

(these are in the PMI Code, by chance) and in addition

·     community,

·     autonomy,

·     humility and

·     compassion.

One attribute of these values is that they unite people, as every human can not only agree to them but also is emotionally attached to them. Think about the sad feeling you have if you see an act of unfairness, even against others, or if somebody does not respect another person or if you see somebody selflessly helping other, showing compassion.

Sometimes the principles not only include core human values, but specific joint beliefs of the social group. For example, asking for loyalty to the group might be interpreted to be supported by the values of community, respect and responsibility but can often be seen as a mere power preservation. Other beliefs like respect for the elders can also be seen as limitation of respect to anybody, they are often based on the history of the group and the motivation of being sustained.

Beliefs generally rather divide, they establish boundaries between humans and often result in feelings of belonging and exceptionalism, giving a perception of safety to their members. Tribes, nation states, ethnics are examples of social groups that rely on beliefs like being exceptional and special. There is a high risk though that these beliefs trigger xenophobia, racism and isolationism. Values on the other hand rather define the relationships between humans, not groups. Other examples for a belief are voluntarism and the ‘value’ of hard work. While both can have positive results, they trigger labelling people if not fulfilled, e.g. for being greedy or lazy. ′

From sanctioning to supporting

Most Codes set expected behaviors based on a few principles. These expectations can be seen as limitations to actions an individual is capable of. Ethics limit the use of our capabilities, like using a hammer for putting nails in the wall and not hitting and hurting someone. This limitation is sometimes perceived as countering our autonomy and freedom.

We don’t like limits to our perceived freedom, and we like even less, that if we violate an ethics provision we might get sanctioned or punished. If an Ethics System only has the code and the sanctioning, which basically is a command/control system, it is probably not seen positively by many and its impact is limited. Research supports this: of all surveyed saying that ethics is important, only about half consider ethics part of their actions. Ethics is mainly a lip service.

In many cases, a general code is also neglected locally, for seemingly valid reasons:

Does not work here. Contradicts business practices that demand for bribes. Our company puts profits first. Everybody lies on a bazaar. I have to show a low price to win the contract. This happens when ethical values collide with group beliefs and habits.′

The problem is that people have to be shown to be convinced, how ethics and their application can benefit them, not only how they limit and sanction them. Then they will be motivated to find ways to circumvent local limitations to ethics. A good example of how to make ethics relevant is Accenture’s COBE, a chat bot intended to support ethical decision making in daily situations at the hand of every employee.

What are benefits of applying ethics to your daily life?

·     First, applying ethical values to our daily decision making helps us to make better and sustainable decisions (because ethical values have a long lifespan)

·     Second, people showing ethical behavior are perceived as having integrity (consistent actions), being trustworthy, respectful (listening) – in a word they are seen as leaders, role models and good humans. This helps them to gain referent power, the power of being respected as a leader

·     Third, good examples of ethical behaviors and their results shared with others will induce awareness about ethics and help others to follow. Become an ethical role model.

An Ethics System should be extended to include features to use ethics as a supporting capability and overall turn the command/control system into a supportive, collaborative and networked system. Similar to project teams, a voluntary, trust-based network could be built with a purpose of realizing benefits by applying ethics to real-life situations.

The members of this network are acting as coaches or mentors for others, sounding boards for (ethical) decision making, reviewers of actions involving ethical considerations and navigator for the overall Ethics System. A knowledge base of ethical situations, stories must be maintained and should include localized information and sample solutions. This way, coaches over time influence and enable humans to value and use ethics as enabler rather than punisher. Even if ethics violations happen, the coaches can support by guiding thru the hearing process. The coaches can be trusted if they are embedded in the same cultural environment as the human asking for support.

While a code should be global and sustainable, to be able to sustainable set expected behaviors, ethical dilemmas show up situational and locally. A network of ethical coaches as described above can help to connect the standard with the local needs, along with an ethical knowledge base that adapts to include support for relevant local ethical dilemmas.

In a recent HBR article, the impact of formal corporate policies on actual sexual harassment is analyzed: in a nutshell, it has not shown to reduce sexual harassment. The #metoo movement is just one symptom. Formal policies against sexual harassment and promoting ethical behavior merely protect the organization, not the individual.

Conclusion

The PMI Ethics System has been in place since 2007. Much has changed in the world since then, and only a few would argue it has become more ethical.

If an Ethics System (by PMI or others) wants to be relevant for society, organizations and individuals, it has to include guidance and support in ethical decision making, not only for project managers but all players in the project ecosystem, in society. The Ethics Systems have to morph from today’s prevalent command/control systems into trust-based networks enabling benefits of ethical behavior, in projects and beyond, locally and globally. This way, an Ethics System becomes more impactful, relevant, accepted and adaptive.

It can become a real agile Ethics System, human centric, sensing and responding and delivering continuous value.