The Conscience Code

How to Advance Your Career by Keeping Your Values

G. Richard Shell

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781400221141
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

The Conscience Code is a practical guide to creating workplaces where everyone can thrive.

Surveys show that more than 40% of employees report seeing ethical misconduct at work, and most fail to report it--killing office morale and allowing the wrong people to set the example.Collegiate professor G. Richard Shell has heard work misconduct stories from his MBA students which inspired him to create this helpful guide for navigating these nuances.

Shell created?this book?to point to a better path: recognize that these conflicts are coming, learn to spot them, then follow a research-based, step-by-step approach for resolving them skillfully.?By committing to the Code, you can replace regret with long-term career success as a leader of conscience.

In The Conscience Code, Shell shares tips and facts that:

• Solves a crucial problem faced by professionals everywhere: What should they do when they are asked to compromise their core values to achieve organizational goals?
• Teaches readers to recognize and overcome the five organizational forces that push people toward actions they later regret.
• Lays out a systematic, values-to-action process that people at all levels can follow to maintain their integrity while achieving true success in their lives and careers.

Driven by dramatic, real-world examples from Shell's classroom, today's headlines, and classic cases of corporate wrongdoing, The Conscience Code shows how to create value-based workplaces where everyone can thrive.

RULE #1:

FACE THE CONFLICT

“The world is a dangerous place. Not because of those who do evil but because of those who look on and do nothing¹.”

—Albert Einstein

This book began with a story.

The students in my “Responsibility in Business” course at the Wharton School had an assignment: come prepared to share a value-based personal conflict they or someone close to them had faced at some point in their lives. As class got underway, a student named “Sarah” (not her real name) raised her hand.

Sarah was a lawyer prior to entering business school. She had been working in the general counsel’s office of a small California company when she was offered a higher-paying associate position in a prestigious Los Angeles law firm. It was, she told the class, her dream job —exactly what she had hoped to achieve with her law degree.

A few weeks after starting, she was approached by a senior partner who asked her to do some research on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the major US anti-corruption law. The partner explained that the CEO of a Chinese company (and a prospective new client) wanted the law firm to hire his son for a summer position. The partner was eager to accommodate— landing this client would be very lucrative for her and the firm. But she needed Sarah to investigate if this action would be legal under the FCPA. Oddly, the partner insisted that nothing about this assignment be put in writing. Sarah was not to consult with anyone else at the firm.

Sarah did a thorough job on the research, then met with the partner to explain that, contrary to expectations, there appeared to be substantial legal risk if the partner hired the client’s son. A recent corporate scandal had rocked the financial world when federal regulators fined a major US bank for hiring the sons and daughters of Chinese government officials to smooth the way for future business deals. Although the partner’s case did not involve a government official or a full-time job, Sarah reported that the same FCPA ban on hiring could very well apply. The CEO’s firm had close ties with the Chinese government, and the son would be a law firm employee, even if only on a temporary basis.

After Sarah reported her findings, the partner told her in no uncertain terms that her job was to “find some way to make this work.” She ordered Sarah to go back and reexamine the cases. Sarah did so, even reaching out (in a roundabout way) to another lawyer known to be her firm’s most experienced expert on the FCPA. But nothing she learned changed her conclusion. She told the partner that her analysis stood: hiring the son could well be illegal. This prompted a furious response from the partner. Her voice rising, she warned Sarah she had “one more chance” to get the right answer. When Sarah attempted to explain her position, the partner shouted her down. People walking nearby could hear the ruckus and stopped to see what was going on. It now began to dawn on Sarah why she and not the firm’s FCPA expert had been picked for this troublesome assignment: Sarah was a new hire, and the partner felt she could be bullied into compliance. Worse, Sarah feared she was being set up to take the blame if the issue blew up.

Sarah finished her story this way: “I was literally shaking when I left her office. I was so upset that I decided to take a walk outside to clear my head. It was lunchtime anyway, so I grabbed my purse and headed out. By the time I finished my second lap around the block, I knew what I had to do. I just kept on walking and never went back. That was the last time I set foot in the place. If this was what the big-time practice of law was about, I wanted nothing to do with it. I figured I might as well go to business school and start over. So here I am.”

The class buzzed when Sarah finished. I suspect some of them had harbored fantasies in past jobs of doing exactly what Sarah did, but they had never heard from anyone who had actually done it. I capped off the moment by complimenting her for standing up to her bullying boss, but I noted that a future in big business might be just as ethically challenging as she had found “big law” to be. Other hands went up, and other stories were shared (some of which you will hear in this book).

After class, I reflected on Sarah’s situation. She was young and smart; she had options. She might have channeled her outrage into a formal complaint against the partner’s behavior, but she probably saw her chances of success as low. She had only been at the firm a few weeks and would be confronting a senior partner who would doubtless deny her allegations. I understood why she headed for the exits.

I have heard enough stories like Sarah’s to make me a sober realist about the professional environments many of our young people experience. I even have a name for MBA students like Sarah: I call them “ethics refugees.” Unable to stomach what they are asked to do or how they are being treated, they elect to reset their careers by going to graduate school.

From where I stand, I see the best of the current generation demanding more from their working life than money. They want work that means something. But even more fundamentally, they expect their employers to uphold basic values of fairness, honesty, and integrity. I drew a clear moral from Sarah’s sad tale: many employers are falling far short of these standards.

During my years as a business school professor, I have listened to more than my share of pious speeches by business leaders who say that creating a principled culture is Job #1. But unless people step up to demand accountability when bosses or peers violate basic ethical norms, including norms of common decency, talented people will flee when they can and, when they cannot, give far less than their best. Standing up for yourself and your values—following your conscience regardless of your place in the organization—affirms your true character and empowers others to speak. Your voice says to others, “I am ready to make a difference.” It is an expression of faith that others will do the same thing in moments that matter.

Don’t you hope, when lives are on the line, that you and your family can depend on hospital workers willing to stand up to powerful physicians who put their personal convenience over patient safety? And don’t you want to be on the same team as the honest professionals who call out political corruption, corporate fraud, and sexual misconduct?

I had heard many stories about my students’ ethical challenges at work, but the drama of Sarah’s story combined with her impulsive decision to walk off the job was the tipping point that led to this book. She had all the right ethical instincts but seemed to be missing the tools to hold her boss accountable. In addition, for every employee who has the opportunity to walk away from the type of abusive, unethical behavior Sarah endured, there are hundreds who face the same pressures but feel powerless to push back because their choices are more limited.

I decided to map out a set of research-based rules—a Conscience Code²—to help them (and you) stand and fight. Indeed, that is why I have identified the first rule of this code as “Face the Conflict.” When you turn toward the problem instead of away from it, you challenge yourself to become part of the solution.

DUTY, CHARACTER, RESPONSIBILITY: IT’S PERSONAL

As you will see throughout the book, this subject is personal for me. I was raised in a Marine Corps family. Duty, character, and responsibility were part of the fabric of our lives.

My father was a decorated World War II veteran and career military officer. By the time I was old enough to be aware of my surroundings, he was the commanding general at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, South Carolina. Parris Island is one of the two training facilities (the other is in San Diego, California) where raw recruits are brought in and exposed to one of the most rigorous military training regimes in the world, departing three months later (assuming they don’t drop out) as United States Marines. This training uses immersive methods to help recruits acquire habits of character, teamwork, and responsibility. Doing the right thing the right way under the most extreme pressures imaginable is what “honor” means in this environment.

When he retired from the Marines, my father became the superintendent (i.e., president) of the Virginia Military Institute, the college he had attended as a student. Watching him in both his military and educational careers, I came to understand what duty meant to him: being devoted to his family, taking care of the people he worked with, and serving as a leader for the communities we lived in. He never raised his voice, choosing to lead by his steady example. And my stay-at-home mom, though a foot shorter than he was, stood as his equal partner in every sense. Coming from this family tradition, I have always taken my duties seriously. Part of my personal mission is to influence those I teach and lead to do the same.

This book is an integral part of that effort. I wrote it to prepare you for two of the most difficult challenges you will face in your professional career. First, to do the right thing when bosses or peers want you to do something you know to be wrong. And second, to speak up effectively when you become aware of wrongdoing by others.

Every time you successfully meet one of these two challenges, you inspire others to do the same. You are part of the solution, adding one more brick to the foundations of a society you want to be part of.

IT’S ABOUT MORE THAN “WHISTLEBLOWING”

When you hear stories about ordinary people who stand up against bad bosses or corrupt organizations, one word generally comes to mind: “whistleblowers.” For example, Frank Serpico is justly famous for his role as a whistleblower rooting out corruption in the New York Police Department (and for being played by Al Pacino in the hit movie Serpico). Serpico suffered brutal retaliation for his honesty, nearly dying when his fellow officers refused to call for medical help during a shootout in 1971³. The list of famous whistleblowers, and the award-winning films based on their stories, goes on from there.

The “whistleblower” label is an appropriate term for describing those who expose large-scale wrongdoing at great personal and professional risk. But it can mislead you into thinking that everyday acts of character and courage—such as speaking up against sexual harassment or insisting on honesty with clients and investors—do not really “count.” In addition, as one of the great whistleblowers of the 20th century, Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, noted, the label carries a negative connotation: whistleblowers are sometimes seen as “snitches”—people who break faith with loyal colleagues by calling out their bad behavior. Wigand, who was famous for exposing the tobacco industry’s decades-long conspiracy to suppress research linking smoking to cancer, preferred a broader term for those who stand up for their values: “people of conscience⁴.”

As this book’s title suggests, I hope you will embrace Wigand’s phrase. Most of us will never meet a “whistleblower,” but we all know people of conscience we admire as role models. And even if you are never pressed into service to call out high-stakes wrongdoing, you will add huge value to your organization and stand taller in your own eyes as well as the eyes of those who love you by speaking up on behalf of core values that are being ignored. Indeed, these everyday moments are what stop organizational corruption from taking hold, maintaining the honest corporate cultures that make whistleblowing unnecessary. The “person of conscience” label also captures the importance of standing up for yourself as well as your values. That means speaking out when you experience discrimination and other forms of disrespect.

I’d like to encourage you to adopt this label as a part of your personal identity. People of conscience are those who take actions in everyday professional life that protect and promote the human good. They consistently speak up on behalf of professional standards and personal principles that are important to us all—ranging from scientific and accounting standards to honest dealing and fair play. If you are someday called to be a whistleblower, this book will help you think it through. In the meantime, whenever you face a tough ethical decision, I suggest you focus on your identity as a “person of conscience” who can tell right from wrong.

The phrase “person of conscience” also has personal significance to me. Although, as I noted above, I was brought up in the Marine Corps, I took a very different road in my early twenties. I was in college during the Vietnam War era and faced a choice between military service to fight a war I believed was morally wrong, and finding a way to resist. I resolved this dilemma by becoming a “conscientious objector”—a legal term for a person of conscience who objects to military service on principled grounds. Conscientious objectors serve their country by doing non-military forms of national service, and mine was to work in the most impoverished sections of Washington, D.C., helping relocate poor families who lived in condemned housing. Needless to say, my decision to protest the war caused a split in my family, but my father and I ultimately reconciled our divergent views about war through our mutual respect and love for each other. We understood our duties differently in two very different eras of American history. But at the end of the day, I was my father’s son. I answered my call to duty, just as he had answered his.

In addition to conscience, I favor words such as “values” and “character” as touchstones for ethical conduct rather than technical, philosophical terms. As I see it, you do not need to be a philosopher or theologian to know that you should be honest with your investors, fair to your customers, and unwilling to tolerate workplace sexual harassment or racism. There may be circumstances when you will need an ethics consultant’s expert advice on a moral dilemma involving life and death or corporate social duties to the world’s poor. But I think most of the value conflicts you will face at work will ultimately boil down to your personal character and your identity as a person of conscience.

YOUR CONSCIENCE CODE: THE ROAD AHEAD

The book is structured around a research-based process that provides the context for the ten rules of the Conscience Code⁵. This process carries you forward from your initial perception that a value is at risk to the strategic planning needed to take effective action.

This values-to-action process has four stages:

• Recognize that a value is at risk,
• Own the problem,
• Analyze your decision, and
• Design your action plan.

These four stages (which you can easily remember by thinking of them as the ROAD to value-based action) give you a simple, actionable framework for orienting yourself when you are confronted by a conflict and find yourself on an emotional roller coaster.

Below, I provide a brief summary of the journey ahead. It begins with identifying your values and understanding the forces that will tempt you to compromise them. From there, the Conscience Code gives you the rules for taking...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The Conscience Code
• Rule #1: Face the Conflict
• Rule #2: Commit to Your Values
• Rule #3: Know Your Enemy
• Rule #4: Summon Your Character
• Rule #5: Channel Your Personality Strengths
• Rule #6: Leverage the Power of Two
• Rule #7: Ask Four Questions
• Rule #8: Engage the Decision Maker
• Rule #9: Hold Them Accountable
• Rule #10: Choose to Lead
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Topical Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author