Ethics Reflection
Growing up I've always been fascinated with human behavior. Why do people do the things they do? What made them to choose one option over another? Did they realize they had more than one option? Do people have regrets about their choices, maybe even subconscious ones? I was raised, not being told what I could or couldn't do, but rather to think about the cause and effect of my actions. Why should I do something, or why shouldn't I do something. Every action has an associated decision, even if the effect of the action seemed clear, I was challenged to weigh the alternative and look at long term effects.
When making decisions I consider the impact to myself, but also the impact to anyone else that might be affected. Whether it's a family member, an acquaintance, or a stranger, taking them into consideration when making decisions is important to me and helps guide me with what's right or wrong. Because I see ethical choices as daily occurrences and not once in a while decisions it's difficult for me to pick one stand out instance, however, I have been subject to in alarming series of events and contemplated how my actions in the same situation would have been almost exactly opposite.
At a previous employer, I had been moved to a new team when my schedule changed and I was brand new out of training. My new team leader seemed nice enough, she had been with the company for over 20 years, but I didn't know her well. I had only been on the team a month or two when I had vacation scheduled and was gone for a week. During the time I was gone the team leader boxed up my personal belongings and moved them to another desk so that I was sitting in a cubicle with the team leader's favorite employee. No one else on the team had been moved. I thought it was odd but I just got to know my new cube mate a little bit and then went on with my responsibilities. One day when I was coming back from lunch I glanced over at my cube mate's computer and noticed that she was typing a document that had my name in it. It was especially unusual because we didn't normally create Word documents for our position. When I looked closer I could see that it was a list and it read something to the effect of "Ways Danielle is avoiding taking phone calls." I was shocked and confused and I couldn't imagine what purpose the document would serve, or what could even be on the document. I learned later, when I was pulled into a meeting with my team leader and written up, that it seemed like my cube made had been told to gather information about me and send it to the leader. The strange thing is some of the infractions that were being cited in my write up were things my cube mate had been doing, not myself. Needless to say I was distraught afterward, even more so because my leader had waited until 5 minutes before the end of my shift to pull me in, and then kept me after my shift knowing that I had another job to go to. It was clear I wouldn't get anywhere with my leader so I contacted her leader to try to correct the situation. I wasn't just going to sit there in such a hostile environment and be written up for things I didn't do. My leader's leader set up a meeting for the three of us and I confronted my leader about the list while we were in the meeting. Right there in front of her leader she lied and said that she didn't know what I was talking about and that no such list existed. Shocked and in disbelief again, I just decided the only action I could take was to watch my back and document everything. Within a week my leader was put on suspension and never came back. I later found out when my replacement leader pulled my file that the list did indeed exist, it was sitting there right below my write up. I also found out that my old leader had been firing anyone she thought was a bottom performer by "catching" them doing egregious things, whether it was true or not, and firing them to help her stay in the top for performance bonuses. Another girl on my team was experiencing the same thing I was at the exact same time, but she had enough documentation to have an effect on the situation.
Looking back, most of the ethical decisions fell on my leader. She shouldn't have moved my property while I was on vacation, especially since wasn't moving anyone into my old space. She shouldn't have pressured one of my peers to report on me, which in turn led to that peer reporting false information to save face. She shouldn't have lied to her boss, especially in a capacity that was jeopardizing someone else's prosperity. Her boss shouldn't have taken her word for it, if he had simply pulled my file he would have found the list, but he may not have wanted to lose his top performer. Most importantly, she shouldn't have been trying to get people fired just so she could make more money. That ethical decision was the catalyst for all of the other poor ethical decisions she made. She could have made the choice to support her team and give them what they needed to succeed instead of creating a hostile environment that threatened other's livelihood in the interest of her own.
In this situation, I don't think I would have made any changes to my ethical decisions. I chose not to do the actions I was being accused of in the first place, I chose not to discuss the situation with anyone except my superiors, I chose to involve a higher authority when there was a breakdown in the chain of command, and I chose to document everything when it was clear I needed to be concerned. What I would have done is been more skeptical, instead of assuming my team leader would not be out to fire me, I should have started documenting everything just in case.
This situation highlights the correlation between financial reporting, or documenting, and ethical decision making. If my leader had been required to document specific examples with evidence of egregious actions, instead of management assuming she was telling the truth, would she probably would have been less likely to try to make it up. If management had reporting that monitored the various attrition and termination rates for the leaders they probably would have been able to spot the anomaly, especially in relation to the team leader's performance bonuses. If they were thinking ethically they probably would have realized that the high termination rate was actually effecting shareholder profits and that they shouldn't be solely focused on performance metrics. A while later I moved to a team who had a fairly new team leader. His team was in last place for quality control performance, but coming onto his team I was ranked one of the highest in the center. He asked me to create a program that would help my peers improve their quality scores and within one year our team moved from last place to first in the center. In this situation he had made the ethical choice to use his resources to support his team by changing their behavior through knowledge instead of fear. This choice also supports his team in making ethical decisions downstream. They are able to show improvement with real results because they are better equipped to do their job, instead of making potentially unethical decisions to cover their performance issues.
When making decisions I consider the impact to myself, but also the impact to anyone else that might be affected. Whether it's a family member, an acquaintance, or a stranger, taking them into consideration when making decisions is important to me and helps guide me with what's right or wrong. Because I see ethical choices as daily occurrences and not once in a while decisions it's difficult for me to pick one stand out instance, however, I have been subject to in alarming series of events and contemplated how my actions in the same situation would have been almost exactly opposite.
At a previous employer, I had been moved to a new team when my schedule changed and I was brand new out of training. My new team leader seemed nice enough, she had been with the company for over 20 years, but I didn't know her well. I had only been on the team a month or two when I had vacation scheduled and was gone for a week. During the time I was gone the team leader boxed up my personal belongings and moved them to another desk so that I was sitting in a cubicle with the team leader's favorite employee. No one else on the team had been moved. I thought it was odd but I just got to know my new cube mate a little bit and then went on with my responsibilities. One day when I was coming back from lunch I glanced over at my cube mate's computer and noticed that she was typing a document that had my name in it. It was especially unusual because we didn't normally create Word documents for our position. When I looked closer I could see that it was a list and it read something to the effect of "Ways Danielle is avoiding taking phone calls." I was shocked and confused and I couldn't imagine what purpose the document would serve, or what could even be on the document. I learned later, when I was pulled into a meeting with my team leader and written up, that it seemed like my cube made had been told to gather information about me and send it to the leader. The strange thing is some of the infractions that were being cited in my write up were things my cube mate had been doing, not myself. Needless to say I was distraught afterward, even more so because my leader had waited until 5 minutes before the end of my shift to pull me in, and then kept me after my shift knowing that I had another job to go to. It was clear I wouldn't get anywhere with my leader so I contacted her leader to try to correct the situation. I wasn't just going to sit there in such a hostile environment and be written up for things I didn't do. My leader's leader set up a meeting for the three of us and I confronted my leader about the list while we were in the meeting. Right there in front of her leader she lied and said that she didn't know what I was talking about and that no such list existed. Shocked and in disbelief again, I just decided the only action I could take was to watch my back and document everything. Within a week my leader was put on suspension and never came back. I later found out when my replacement leader pulled my file that the list did indeed exist, it was sitting there right below my write up. I also found out that my old leader had been firing anyone she thought was a bottom performer by "catching" them doing egregious things, whether it was true or not, and firing them to help her stay in the top for performance bonuses. Another girl on my team was experiencing the same thing I was at the exact same time, but she had enough documentation to have an effect on the situation.
Looking back, most of the ethical decisions fell on my leader. She shouldn't have moved my property while I was on vacation, especially since wasn't moving anyone into my old space. She shouldn't have pressured one of my peers to report on me, which in turn led to that peer reporting false information to save face. She shouldn't have lied to her boss, especially in a capacity that was jeopardizing someone else's prosperity. Her boss shouldn't have taken her word for it, if he had simply pulled my file he would have found the list, but he may not have wanted to lose his top performer. Most importantly, she shouldn't have been trying to get people fired just so she could make more money. That ethical decision was the catalyst for all of the other poor ethical decisions she made. She could have made the choice to support her team and give them what they needed to succeed instead of creating a hostile environment that threatened other's livelihood in the interest of her own.
In this situation, I don't think I would have made any changes to my ethical decisions. I chose not to do the actions I was being accused of in the first place, I chose not to discuss the situation with anyone except my superiors, I chose to involve a higher authority when there was a breakdown in the chain of command, and I chose to document everything when it was clear I needed to be concerned. What I would have done is been more skeptical, instead of assuming my team leader would not be out to fire me, I should have started documenting everything just in case.
This situation highlights the correlation between financial reporting, or documenting, and ethical decision making. If my leader had been required to document specific examples with evidence of egregious actions, instead of management assuming she was telling the truth, would she probably would have been less likely to try to make it up. If management had reporting that monitored the various attrition and termination rates for the leaders they probably would have been able to spot the anomaly, especially in relation to the team leader's performance bonuses. If they were thinking ethically they probably would have realized that the high termination rate was actually effecting shareholder profits and that they shouldn't be solely focused on performance metrics. A while later I moved to a team who had a fairly new team leader. His team was in last place for quality control performance, but coming onto his team I was ranked one of the highest in the center. He asked me to create a program that would help my peers improve their quality scores and within one year our team moved from last place to first in the center. In this situation he had made the ethical choice to use his resources to support his team by changing their behavior through knowledge instead of fear. This choice also supports his team in making ethical decisions downstream. They are able to show improvement with real results because they are better equipped to do their job, instead of making potentially unethical decisions to cover their performance issues.