Prof. James l. Heskett, Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School, writes an hbs working knowledge paper on how managers like to think they act ethically, but at the end of the day, their ethical action is subjective.
Umpires and referees favour the home team. That’s the conclusion of research by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Werthheim that appeared in their recent book, Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won. It was a biased judgment on the part of supposedly unbiased referees and umpires.
They hypothesise that the cause is a natural tendency to avoid excessive booing by the home team crowd, particularly in the later stages of a contest in which unbiased behavior is most necessary. Of course one could ask, “Are they cheating, especially when they are probably unaware of what they are doing?”
In a new book Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It, authors Max H. Bazerman, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, a professor of business ethics at the University of Notre Dame, argue that something they call bounded ethicality leads “even good people to engage in ethically questionable behavior that contradicts their own preferred ethics.”
We do it when it is easy to do, when it is hard to verify, when we have insufficient time or information. We may do it in ways that allow us to preserve our perception of ourselves as an ethical person. Doctors experience it when they make diagnoses and prescriptions biased by their special training while maintaining their belief that they are putting their patients first.
It helps explain why people systematically regard themselves as being much more ethical than they really are. And it supports a conclusion that, unless ways can be found to reduce bounded ethicality, most ethics-based “education” is missing a large part of the problem. In fact, one study found that ethicists who teach the subject are less likely to return library books associated with their research than the general public is to return books that it borrows.
Why should this matter to us? Employees tell us in one way or another that the single most important characteristic of their job is “a boss who’s fair,” who hires, promotes, and recognises the right people. Nearly all bosses think they’re fair, a much larger proportion than is perceived by their employees.
As antidotes to blind spots, Bazerman and Tenbrunsel argue that we can change ourselves, in part through awareness of the phenomenon itself, putting in place “precommitment devices” that seal you to a desired course of action – imagining your eulogy, or reviewing decisions with a friend. For organisations, greater transparency and fewer silos, among other things, can help (as opposed to such things as signing codes of conduct et al).
How do we address these problems? Do we just hire more ethical people? Or do we help people see how they act in ways that are inconsistent with their more reasoned ethical preferences? What can organisations do to increase the likelihood of employees acting ethically? And, what can society do to change the institutions that guide individual and organisational behavior? Or is the problem beyond us? After all, how ethical can we be?
Umpires and referees favour the home team. That’s the conclusion of research by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Werthheim that appeared in their recent book, Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won. It was a biased judgment on the part of supposedly unbiased referees and umpires.
They hypothesise that the cause is a natural tendency to avoid excessive booing by the home team crowd, particularly in the later stages of a contest in which unbiased behavior is most necessary. Of course one could ask, “Are they cheating, especially when they are probably unaware of what they are doing?”
In a new book Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It, authors Max H. Bazerman, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, a professor of business ethics at the University of Notre Dame, argue that something they call bounded ethicality leads “even good people to engage in ethically questionable behavior that contradicts their own preferred ethics.”
We do it when it is easy to do, when it is hard to verify, when we have insufficient time or information. We may do it in ways that allow us to preserve our perception of ourselves as an ethical person. Doctors experience it when they make diagnoses and prescriptions biased by their special training while maintaining their belief that they are putting their patients first.
It helps explain why people systematically regard themselves as being much more ethical than they really are. And it supports a conclusion that, unless ways can be found to reduce bounded ethicality, most ethics-based “education” is missing a large part of the problem. In fact, one study found that ethicists who teach the subject are less likely to return library books associated with their research than the general public is to return books that it borrows.
Why should this matter to us? Employees tell us in one way or another that the single most important characteristic of their job is “a boss who’s fair,” who hires, promotes, and recognises the right people. Nearly all bosses think they’re fair, a much larger proportion than is perceived by their employees.
As antidotes to blind spots, Bazerman and Tenbrunsel argue that we can change ourselves, in part through awareness of the phenomenon itself, putting in place “precommitment devices” that seal you to a desired course of action – imagining your eulogy, or reviewing decisions with a friend. For organisations, greater transparency and fewer silos, among other things, can help (as opposed to such things as signing codes of conduct et al).
How do we address these problems? Do we just hire more ethical people? Or do we help people see how they act in ways that are inconsistent with their more reasoned ethical preferences? What can organisations do to increase the likelihood of employees acting ethically? And, what can society do to change the institutions that guide individual and organisational behavior? Or is the problem beyond us? After all, how ethical can we be?
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