Five Guidelines for Ethical Business Communications
Do you understand what it means to behave ethically? According to Michael Josephson, there are four principles of ethical behavior: honesty, integrity, fairness, and concern for others. You can think of these four basic principles as the legs on an imaginary stool. One missing leg will create a wobbly stool, but two missing legs cause the stool to collapse. If you are not fair or caring, your pride in being honest and having integrity means nothing.
Ethical behavior in business
Lately, ethical business behavior has been a number one concern. When reviewing the events of the past year, it would appear that the words “business” and “ethics” are contradictory terms. Whether you look at Wall Street, mortgage companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or private companies like AIG, it doesn’t matter that all mortgage companies are being investigated for questionable business practices, the news is depressing. It seems that the mantra of the 1980s “greed is good” never quite disappeared.
Criminal dealings by top employers have been discovered, which should motivate other people to behave more ethically. In reality, however, it often acts as an excuse not to change the misbehavior. What harm can using your company personal computer for personal business cause when your manager uses the company phone for personal long distance calls? When employees see how the management of the company behaves, they begin to feel no shame for the little indiscretions they may have committed.
Managers may be inadvertently signaling that unethical behavior will be tolerated when pressuring a smaller, reduced staff to produce more. When employees feel compelled to meet company goals by any means possible, ethical behavior can get in the way.
They get the message: “It’s okay to be dishonest, as long as you meet your goals.” As economics takes us on a roller coaster ride, we need to assess our own thinking patterns to make sure we don’t allow ourselves to indulge in unethical behavior just because it seems like we can easily get away with it. There is always room for improvement in your business communications.
Here are five guidelines to help you communicate ethically (source: “Business Communication, Process and Product”, Mary Ellen Guffy, 2000):
(1) Be sincere. Misleading or false statements should never be made. Nor is it ethical to tell partial truths or exaggerate.
(2) Make sure to tag reviews as reviews. Do not try to convince anyone that something you simply believe to be true is already a proven fact. Do the work; Do your research thoroughly and make sure you are not simply representing someone else’s opinion as your own.
(3) Show no bias. Understand that your own subjective beliefs may be reflected in your writing. Even if you are passionate about your opinions, ethics requires that you be dispassionate in your presentation.
(4) Your communications must be easy to understand. You should make your thoughts clear so that they are easy to understand. Make sure the reader can easily understand what you write. Don’t muddy the waters with complicated phrases and all kinds of hard-to-understand industrial jargon.
(5) Give credit to your sources. Do not copy anyone’s work. Most people have the basic knowledge that they should use quotation marks if they are using a direct quote from another writer. However, there are a number of people who do not understand that they must also adequately credit other people’s ideas. You are still cheating if you paraphrase sentences and add a handful of new words without giving credit to the author.
Sum
Not only must you communicate ethically to be successful in the long run, but you are also morally correct. Make sure you behave in the way that you would like others to emulate. If you conduct your affairs ethically and are successful, other people will follow your example.