Presentation on Ethics in Project Management Between

Implementation and Obstacles

Prepared and Presented By Sally Al-GazzarFebruary 2013

Contents1. What are “Ethics” and “Morals”?

2. Role of Ethics in Project Management Profession and Examples of Ethical Behavior

3. Why Ethics: How do “Ethics” Impact Organizational Success? Relationship between Ethics and Organization Social Responsibility? Why are “Ethics” Ultimately Essential in our Lives?

4. How to Design and Enforce “Business Ethics Program” or “Code of Ethics” in an Organization? How to Make Ethical Decision? What are the Obstacles Against Ethics Enforcement?

5. Case Study and Lessons Learned

Why Did I Decide to Select this Topic? Usually ethics and morals are overlooked in our lives. Most

people deal with ethics and morals as unquestionable concepts that they subjectively think or want to believe they apply in their daily business and social practices.

Most people do not appreciate the detrimental impacts of unethical behaviors on their own and others lives and community.

1. What are “Ethics” and “Morals”?

General

Ethics originates from (Greek tà ēthiká, ) and morals from (Latin morālis ) but are exactly the same in English. 

The Greek word “Ethos,” meaning character or personal disposition (nature) while the word moral is derived from the Latin “Mos,” meaning custom (tradition, norm, habit).

What is“Ethics”?

Ethics has several definitions but all have the following in common:

Ethics is a set of standards that tells us how we should behave. Ethics involves seeing the difference between right and wrong. It's a commitment to do what is right, good and honorable.

In other words, ethics is the body of principles used to decide what behaviors are right, good and proper.  It provides a means of evaluating and deciding among competing options.

More simply, ethics is the set of rules, standards or principles for deciding the correct conduct (sense of right and wrong).

In the world of business setting ethics represents the rules or standards which govern the conduct of employees.

A profession is formed on the basis of a generally accepted body of knowledge, a standard of achievements and code of ethics that must be strictly enforced. Despite the fact that, codes of ethics may vary from one organization to another, a code of ethics is said to be a crucial element in the foundation of any profession.

Relationship between “Ethics”, “Self-Control” and “Personal Character”

Ethics is about putting principles into action after classifying what is right and what is wrong.

In reality, this is not always easy or pleasant to do.

Ask yourself if you are willing to pay the price for making an unethical choice. Are you willing to sacrifice pride, integrity, reputation and honor by making an unethical choice? Are you willing to suffer the consequences of a bad (unethical) choice?

Ethics is more than doing what you must do. It's doing what you should do. Because acting honorably sometimes means not doing what we want to do, ethics requires self-control. 

This is why ethics is about self-restraint, i.e., preventing ourselves from doing what we should not do:

Not doing what you have the power to do.  An act isn’t proper simply because it is permissible or because you got the power to do it.

Not doing what you have the right to do.  There is a big difference between what you have the right to do and what is right to do.

Not doing what you want to do.  An ethical person often chooses to do what the law requires and not what he/she wants to do. Highly ethical people usually do more than what the law requires and less than what the law allows.

Because doing the right thing can cost us more in friendship, money, prestige or pleasure than we may want to pay, practicing ethics takes courage.

This is because the right thing to do isn't usually the easiest thing to do, but learning to say “no” when you feel like saying “yes” builds character.

Eventually, no person with strong character lives without a code of ethics either within one’s workplace (organization) or community.

The following list of principles incorporate the values that most people associate with good character and ethical behavior: Honesty  Loyalty Promise Keeping Fairness Caring for others Respect Abiding to Law Punctuality Respect of Others Privacy Welcoming Newcomers

How are Morality and Ethics Different?

Whereas most people use the two terminologies “Ethics” and “Morals” interchangeably, there are clear differences between them:

Ethics is about the behavior of a collection or group of people that an individual belongs to.

It can be a professional group, an organization, a Government, political party, family, society or a country. The point is that all individuals of a collection or group live within a certain code of conduct that they are not allowed to breach. Within which, the individual’s behavior is acceptable.

In this context, ethics represents the social system in which behavior rules of individuals are applied.

Whereas, morals are highly individualistic and personal in nature. They represent the individual character. Morals arise more as a set of rules passed down by society that we must conform to, in order to be accepted by our society. Such rules are accepted differently from one person to another forming one’s morals.

Also, principles of ethics are more fundamental and stable, hence ethics is more general than morality.  Whereas ethics may change very little over time, ethics are able to call morality - into question, and cause morality to change.  Hence, morality is more frequently changing.

In other words, ethics=moral principles/moral codes over longer periods of time.

Examples Showing Relationship between Ethics and Morals:

As an example, consider slavery.  Once it was considered moral to own slaves.  Over time, ethics called the morality of slavery into question and the eventual result was that slavery was no longer considered moral.

Another example: fox hunting in England was ethical because that was the tradition, and there was no law against it. But the recent legislation banning it made it illegal, and the widespread protests against the evil nature of the sport caused an end of the tradition supporting it, and therefore it became immoral.

So, in general: Both Ethics and morals relate to “right” and “wrong”

conduct or what is “acceptable” and what is “not acceptable”. However, ethics refer to the series of rules or standards provided to an individual by an external source (or group). On the other hand, morals refer to an individual’s own principles regarding right and wrong or what a person follow independently.

Since code of ethics is fundamental in building a profession, it is common to hear about professional ethics, but seldom to hear about professional morals.

Accordingly, if you accuse someone of being “unethical”, it is equivalent of calling him/her “unprofessional” and may well be taken as a significant insult and perceived more personally than if you called them “immoral”.

Comparison Chart

Ethics Morals

What is it? The rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular collection/class/ group, culture, etc. It defines how things are according to rules.

Principles or habits with respect to right or wrong conduct.It defines how things should work according to an individuals' ideals and principles.

Source: Social system (External) Individual (Internal)

Why we do it? Because group/society says it is the right thing to do and individuals are expected to adhere to.

Because we believe as individuals in something being right or wrong which matches with our characters and principals.

What if we don't do it? We will face peer/social disapproval, or even be fired from our job in case of profession.

Doing something against one's morals and principles can have different effects on different people, they may feel uncomfortable, unhappy, depressed, etc.

Flexibility: Ethics are dependent on others for definition. They tend to be consistent within a certain context, but can vary between contexts or groups.(example, the ethics of medical profession are generally consistent and do not change from hospital to another, but are different from the ethics of legal profession).

Usually consistent across all contexts/groups, but can change if an individual’s beliefs and values change over time.

From All Above, Could There be Conflict Between Ethics and Morals?

The answer is “YES”.

Examples of conflict between Ethics and Morals: A criminal defense lawyer: Though the lawyer’s personal moral

code likely finds murder immoral and reprehensible, ethics demand the accused client be defended as robustly as possible, even when the lawyer knows the party is guilty and that a freed defendant would potentially lead to more crime.Legal ethics must override personal morals for the greater good of upholding a justice system in which the accused are given a fair trial and the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

In some societies, abortion is legal and therefore medically ethical, while many people find it personally immoral.

2. Role of Ethics in Project Management Profession and Examples of Ethical Behavior

Role of Ethics in Project Management

One of the most important issues faced by Project Managers is ethics. The deadlines, budget concerns, profit, time and cost uncertainties, staff motivation, management requirements and customer satisfaction are factors that lead to situations in which the temptation to commit unethical practices is strong.

Abiding to ethics hence is not always easy for Project Managers especially in case of large-scale projects involving international teams. For such projects, cultural differences might become a dominating factor. What is acceptable and common practice (or ethical) in one country might be unethical in another.

When it comes to project management, ethics are extremely important in gaining the support of the project team. Ethics then become the values, standards, and rules that one –as part of the project team-upholds to ensure right from wrong practices.

Since ethics of a Project Manager can reflect upon a project. They can reflect upon the department and the company. Ethics or the lack of ethics thereof can even reflect upon an entire profession.

That is why the Project Management Institute (PMI) have developed a Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. This code is important enough that a Project Manager must agree to the Code before receiving their credentials, such as the Project Management Professional (PMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP) and others.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) seeks to establish better business ethics globally.

Regardless of location, the Project Management Professionals must follow the higher ethical standard (higher than normal).

Guidance from PMI:Professional and social responsibility includes the following categories that represent the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct: Responsibility Respect Fairness Honesty

Admission of WrongdoingSometimes it is difficult for people to admit that they have done something wrong. This is especially true for a Project Manager, who may be responsible for a large project and for overseeing a staff. However, ethically, if the Project Manager is at fault for the unsuccessful venture of project completion, then that Project Manager must be able to admit this wrong. Not admitting wrongdoing can greatly damage the team relationship and ruin the trust of team member in the Project Manager.

Focus of BlameWhen a project fails, it is so much easier to point the fingers at this person or that person. However, ethically, no person should be singled out for project failure unless it is the Project Manager. In the end, he or she is the one assigned the ultimate task of ensuring the project is completed. However, there is no “I” in team. Although the Project Manager is in charge of ensuring the task gets completed, sometimes a task can fail despite the Project Manager’s best efforts. In these cases of project incompletion or failure, it should be said that the team failed. This is the most ethical outcome in this sense because it points the blame for failure on the team as a whole instead of just one or two persons.

Examples of Ethical Behavior in Project Management

Hiring and firing (or staffi ng and un-staffi ng)Project Manager has ethical responsibility of hiring and firing staff from project team.Project Manager should always be targeting the benefit of the team and success of the project.There could situations where some team members might be added to or removed from project team due to personal reasons relating to the Project Manager or sometimes direct instructions from higher Management.Team stability is one dominant factor in motivating the team, improving inter-cooperation, reducing conflict, getting higher quality and minimizing unexpected delays in project schedule. Hence, the overall project success.

3. Why Ethics: How Do “Ethics” Impact Organizational Success?

Relationship between Ethics and Organization Social Responsibility? Why are “Ethics” Ultimately Essential in our Lives?

Ethics is something of a subjective topic, but it is nevertheless of immense importance across all areas of business. From the way in which sales and marketing is handled through to product development and customer service, ethics has a significant role to play in ensuring business success and ultimately living up to the corporate social responsibility.

A company's ethics will have an influence on all levels of business. It will influence all who interact with the internal and external environment of the company including shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, competitors and the community at large. All of these stakeholders will have an effect on the way a company's ethics are developed. It is a two-way street; the influence goes both ways, which makes understanding ethics a very important part of doing business today. Ethics is very important, as news can now spread faster and farther than ever before. Ethics will determine an organization’s reputation and will have direct impact on society. This is the so called “Social Responsibility of an Organization”:

How do “Ethics” Impact Organizational Success and Organization Social Responsibility:

Business ethics is especially important in dealing with customers. Maintaining integrity and support in the customer facing side of a business is crucial to building client relationships and trust. Likewise, it's an important step in minimizing drop backs and protecting business goodwill, which will have a tangible effect on the success or failure of any business.

Thus adopting an ethics-specific approach to doing business is critical towards ensuring a legitimate business model with long term potential.Implementing an ethical program will foster a successful company culture and increase profitability. Although it takes time and effort, developing a Business Ethics program will do more than improve business, it will change lives. 

Examples of impact of ethics on business success: Public Image (Organization Reputation): Each corporation has a

particular public image, which represents the way in which the public views the corporation. These public images are primarily the result of a corporation behavior or business ethics: corporation's environmental policy, the way they treat their employees and the way they treat the communities they exist in are all part of their overall behavior and this in turn is the principle factor in determining their public image and reputation.

Attract more professional job seekers to work for the business, reduce recruitment costs and enable the company to get the most talented employees.

Attract customers to the firm's products, thereby boosting sales and profits.

Investment: A company that would like to encourage extra business investment is a company that has a strong sense of business ethics. Part of business ethics is responsibility to the investor and for that reason companies with strong reputations in the field of ethical business behavior are also companies that tend to attract more investment from people that are new into the market. Investment is most definitely important to success.Hence, a company business ethics attracts investors and keep the company's share price high, thereby protecting the business from takeover.

Encourage existing employees to stay with the business, achieve their satisfaction, reduce labor turnover and therefore increase productivity.

Partnerships: In the business world, joint ventures happen all the time because they are ultimately of great importance to all partners. A business can be made or broken on just one joint venture and part of the reason that joint ventures are successful is that they combine the forces of two powerful companies on one or more fields.If an organization is seeking a good opportunity of a joint ventures, with good and powerful partners, then it must have a good reputation both in terms of a track record and overall business. The best way to get a good reputation (public image) is to have a strong tradition of ethical business behavior.

Support healthy competition and stop business malpractices thus maintaining entire profession reputation and development.

Unethical behavior of an organization and lack of social responsibility -on contrary- would lead to following adverse impacts:

Internally within the organization:Missing trust in ManagementLoss of employees motivationNegative employees inter-relationshipsLess organization productivityHigh employees/manpower turn-over

Externally in the business market:Bad company reputation and imageLoss of business opportunities and profitabilityFailure of business.

How Important are “Ethics” in Our Day to Day life?

Individuals should have a code of ethics in order that the individual’s behavior will be right, good, and proper.  This can provide individuals with the following benefits (on personal level):

A personal advantage:  It is wise to be ethical. Being ethical leads to self-esteem.

Approval:  Being ethical leads to the admiration of loved ones, respect of peers, and fewer conflicts with others.

A religious benefit:  Good or ethical behavior can please or help serve one’s religious beliefs (religious satisfaction).

Consequently, ethical individuals build ethical society.

Societies require a code of ethics in order to provide for order, minimize conflicts within society, reduce fighting between individuals, and to provide a basis for settling and managing conflicts between competing values.

This is because even with law enforcement, law cannot save the society and the environment. Nevertheless, ethics are the real guarantor for the security of communities and societies.

Ultimately, ethics act as a safeguard for any organization and eventually any community.

How to Design and Enforce a “Business Ethics Program” or “Code of Business Conduct and Ethics” in a Workplace?

4. How to Design and Enforce “Business Ethics Program” or “Code of Ethics” in an Organization? How to Make Ethical Decision? What are the Obstacles Against Ethics Enforcement?

Ethics is no doubt an important business subject. However, it is mostly subjective. An individual’s concept of what is ethical and for the best may be completely different from other’s concept. This is why it's important to establish a collective set of ethics that represent the entire organization rather than just adopting a individual approach.

Creating “Business Ethics Program” or “Code of Business Conduct and Ethics” is mainly the responsibility of the organization’s Management with direct involvement of the HR.

To ensure the ownership and commitment of employees to the “Code of ethics”, the following mechanism would be useful (for ethics enforcement within an organization) :

Communicate the company's ethics policy clearly to the employees. Posting it around the office and distributing it to employees is great, but you should have regular meetings in which everyone spends some time discussing ethics. Ask people to talk about examples of different ethical decisions. Review the rules and the reasons for them. Make it clear that the company won't tolerate unethical conduct and outline the consequences for it.

Make it easy for employees to seek guidance when they need help making a decision. Employees may not always be sure what the ethical solution is. Therefore, it's the company's responsibility to provide the resources that they need to make the right decision. Someone should be available at all times with whom employees can discuss these issues. This is usually the HR Director, HR Manager or HR Department in general.

Create an atmosphere in which employees can trust their supervisors and managers and know they can report violators of the ethics policy. Supervisors and managers should keep employees who report violators anonymous and not make them face penalty. However, employees shouldn't feel like it's their responsibility to report violations.

Set an example. Supervisors and managers cannot expect employees to respect them if they don't follow the rules that they set. Model decision-making that embraces the ethical values that the company embraces. Employees will respect their supervisors and managers more and will likely follow their example.

Ethical Decision Making Model (How to make an Ethical Decision?)

Ethical decision-making refers to the process of evaluating and choosing among alternatives in a manner consistent with ethical principles. In making ethical decisions, it is necessary to perceive and eliminate unethical options and select the best ethical alternative.

The significance of making an ethical decision is that decisions happen so quickly but the consequences can last a lifetime. That's why careful consideration is important especially in regard of the social responsibility of an organization towards community.

There is no unique model that applies to all cases. So, there could be several models or frameworks to make an ethical decision.

Below are two of them:

MODEL-1

The "Character-Based Decision-Making Model" model, developed by the Josephson Institute of Ethics (develops and delivers services and materials to increase ethical commitment, competence, and practice in all segments of society) , can be applied to many common problems and can also be used by most individuals facing ethical dilemmas.

It involves three steps:

1. All decisions must take into account and reflect a concern for the interests and well being of all affected individuals ("stakeholders").

The underlying principle here is the Golden Rule — help when you can, avoid harm when you can.

2. Ethical values and principles always take precedence over non-ethical ones.

Ethical values are morally superior to non-ethical ones. When faced with a clear choice between such values, the ethical person should always choose to follow ethical principles.

Perceiving the difference between ethical and non-ethical values can be difficult. This situation often occurs when people perceive a clash between what they want or "need" and ethical principles that might deny these desires.

3. It is ethically proper to violate an ethical principle only when it is clearly necessary to advance another true ethical principle, which, according to the decision-maker's sense of right and wrong, will produce the greatest balance of good in the long run.

Some decisions will require you to prioritize and to choose between competing ethical values and principles when it is clearly necessary to do so because the only viable options require the sacrifice of one ethical value over another ethical value. When this is the case, the decision-maker should act in a way that will create the greatest amount of good and the least amount of harm to the greatest number of people of concern (stakeholders).

MODEL-2

1. Identify the problem or dilemma: Root cause(s) of the problem not only the symptoms.

2. Identify the potential issues involved: Evaluate the rights, responsibilities, and interests of all relevant stakeholders.

3. Review and adhere to the relevant ethical codes of your organization: This includes understanding and validating the truth of all input information.

4. Know and adhere to the applicable laws and regulations that have a bearing on the situation under consideration.

5. Consider possible and probable courses of action: Brainstorming different courses of action (different alternatives).

6. Evaluate the consequences of potential decisions/courses of action/alternatives.

7. Decide on what appears to be the best course of action: After carefully considering all the information you have gathered, deciding what seems to be the best action to take, soliciting feedbacks from key stakeholders and following-up to assure the effectiveness of the decision being made.

Conclusion:

After all these steps, if you are still unsure of what to do, go with the choice that will produce the most good for the most people (stakeholders). To make tough decisions, eliminate choices that have nothing to do with ethics (like power and authority). Then pick the most ethical option left.

What are the Obstacles Against Ethics Enforcement in Workplace (Ethics Pitfall)?

1. Conflict between organization “ethics” and the individual “morals”:

A clash between ethics and morals can occur at the workplace where company ethics can play against personal morality. Corporate greed that blurs its own ethical lines coupled with unreasonable demands can lead to having to choose between a stressful, demanding and consuming work ethics, and family obligations seen as moral obligations to spouse and children.

Conversely, people lose jobs every day because of poor personal morals, employee theft being a common reason for dismissal.

2. Relationship between “ethics” and employee position Rationalizing ourselves out of good moral decision-making:  It’s easy to

convince ourselves when we are powerful that we can do what we’d like. 

Lack of supervision over Top and Senior positions in a work place: Giving the feeling to Top and Senior positions of being “untouchable”.

Obedience to Authority: We tend to obey those in authority, including when authorities direct us to perform actions we believe are unethical especially when being in entry-level or a junior employee.

Perception that we have little influence over events when we are not powerful or in key positions:  The more control we believe we have over an event, the more we tend to perceive ourselves as responsible for the events we bring about or allow to happen.

3. Technical Experience or Know-How:

Usually there is a trend to “exempt” the expertise in an organization from the ethics of the workplace applied to other employees.

Technical experts are always given the feeling that they are “untouchable and protected” as they represent a valuable asset for their organizations that could not be sacrificed. Without them, the business might fail.

The worst impact is witnessed on the juniors and subordinates as they will always be willing to “obey” their technical supervisors or leaders for the sake of learning and gathering information.

For theses juniors and subordinates, their technical supervisors & leaders satisfaction always comes first.

4. Obstacles to Good Ethical Decision-Making

Poor moral awareness: Poor moral awareness can either result in a failure to perceive the problem as being an ethical problem at all (in which cases one does not go through the steps of good ethical decision making).

Failure to gather relevant facts: Good ethical decisions require that we know important facts relevant to the decision, such as those facts that help us determine the likely impact of the action on stakeholders.  

Insufficient attention/time given to ethical decision-making process: Some people think that they do not have to follow an ethical decision model as they are capable of making the “best” decisions.

Slippery Slope: People are willing to do unethical things because they have already done smaller, less extreme acts that make the bigger choice appear less (or not at all) unethical.

False necessity trap: If you have to do it, it’s ethical to do.

Legality: If it’s legal, then it’s ethical and allowable.

Conflict between personal morals and job ethics: It’s just part of the job.

Ends-justify-the-means: It’s all for a good cause. Or, it's necessary so it's ethical. Conflicts of interest, favoritism, and violations of established rules and procedures can then be absorbed.

Fighting fire with fire: misconducts are justified if they are practiced by those with whom you are dealing.

No direct or immediate harm is perceived : This is used to excuse misconduct when violating ethical principles so long as no one is hurt.

Everyone’s doing it. I am not the only one.

Benefiting others of organization: It’s OK as I don’t benefit personally. This justifies improper conduct for others or for institutional purposes or someone else’s sake.

I deserve it. This is common rationalization usually throughout all employees levels: Powerful employees think that they deserve benefits due to their previous services without which their organization would collapse. On the other hand, employees who feel overworked and/or underpaid rationalize that minor "perks" (acceptance of favors, abuse of sick leave, overtime, personal use of office supplies) are nothing more than fair compensation for services rendered.

Lack of experience:  All of the above can be improved with practice and gain of experience.

Lessons learned from this case study are the direct violations by the

Management for following rules:

Failure to create well-defined relationships between different organizational departments.

Failure to manage conflicts between organizational staff: Ruining the Maintenance Manager’s reputation within the organization. Failure to be fair in giving opportunities to all parties to introduce their

justifications and acting without favourism. Failure in validating and investigating claims from all sides of conflict

(understanding the truth). Failure in transparency and honesty in transferring accurate information to

Top Management. Failure in maintaining the stability of the maintenance team, their

motivations and reducing their high turnover.

5. Case Study and Lessons Learned

Case Study:

Lessons Learned:

Failure to uphold to organizational Code of Ethics in general and in treating others, regardless of position or title, with professional respect and courtesy in particular:

Failure to keep respect of subordinates for their managers. Conveying a message –in particular to junior employees and new

joiners- that commitment to ethics is sometimes dependant on the employee’s position.

Using power to influence employees to do what their Management wanted (unethical) not what they should do.

Ethics create a sense of right and wrong in organizations and societies and often when the law fails, it is the ethics that may stop organizations from harming the society or environment and prevent individuals from harming their communities.

Ethics always wins.

Power and technical knowledge do not warrant long term success neither in organizations nor in societies.

The cost of being unethical is always much higher than the cost of being ethical especially on the long term.

No ethics means no real success neither in business (profession) nor in life (society).

Conclusion: