Dear reader,
Moral and Ethics are big words, important words, often used words and even more often misused or abused words. Let me tell you why this is right now on my mind and what my contribution might be in the near future.
As you all know the present economics are in a downturn. This means that many companies are executing saving program, streamline the organisation, close site, fire people, sell parts of a company, and there are many more variants. Also within my working environment these things are happening on a daily basis. More precise, 2 months ago the organisation was drastically changed from site (country) oriented to a global organisation. As for many others, I got a new boss, which residents 700 km away.
At the same time initiatives were and are undertaken to cut cost. Subjects like inventory reduction, increase launch accuracy and product cost structures were tackled by short running projects, implying almost immediate success or fail. I myself was involved in the launch accuracy initiative. In this team we set some immediate action, however we also had the goal to secure our efforts in the long run. Stating that we also came across that the way people/employees behave, act and react in our organisation is of utmost importance. We listed statements like, “lack of respect”, “too little accountability”, “unclear responsibility” and “no authority”, harms the company’s result. During a short discussion, we concluded that each and every person has his/her own definition and ideas on these words. So the answer was, this needs more study and discussion. So here I am, with my task to sort out this. Fun job, to be honest.
Right, my starting point were 4 words in random order: respect, accountability, authority and responsibility. My first start was to look and find out what is the correct definition of these words. Some after I found the first words on Wikipedia, I learned that these are not words, but more. Respect, Accountability, Authority and Responsibility are rather concepts. Also after reading the first few pages I learned that there are even more important concepts underlying these 4 words, like Culture, Moral, Ethics and Values. And I have the feeling, it’s not clear to me yet, that philosophy is some way is the glue between all these words.
By the way, I write the important words with a capital letter, just to remind you and me that these words are not given, clear, valueless words. On the contrary, these words are major and important words and misunderstanding the definition, misuse or abuse will cause a lot of trouble.
Ok, my list of 4 words is not extended to 8 words. Right now I’m at the stage that I have some idea about each and every definition. But the interaction between them is not clear at all. In some one I regret, in the other I sense that it simply needs time in my brain to understand the full impact of the definition. And understanding the impact, might also give insight about the interaction.
How this process of understanding the impact, works, I will tell you. Last Thursday at a jogging session out in the forest I started to think about the very common value in the Western world: “the highest rewarded athletes in a time competing sport are those who go the fastest”. I don’t expect any one to comment this. This value is part of the Western way of thinking. It’s common sense to us that the one athlete who is first at the finish, had to do most work, stretches his abilities an talents to the most. So in this thinking we as spectators at a marathon run scream and shout for the one finalising the run, giving to the best of his ability (or even a bit more) in around 2:05 or a bit more.
"The Winner?"
But……..there is another way to think. What about the athlete who completes the marathon in 4:10? This athlete is running over 4 hours at his/her maximum ability, squeezing every drop of energy available in his/her body. If we value the best one in competition is the person working the longest at your maximum ability, the last one finishing is the one getting the prices. Interesting and appealing idea this was to me.
A hero!!
The above thoughts and examples give me some ideas about how the mechanism of Moral and Ethics and all the other words, works. And again, if people in a group, organisation, marriage or family talks and there is no common understanding of these basics, things can get confusing, misunderstanding is on its way and much more.
As I said, I’m not finished with my thought and I promise that is keep you posted about new findings and thoughts. In the mean time I’m curious about your thoughts and comments, so please post them.
Stay save,
Oculus
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