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Strengthening Employee's Moral Muscles: Developing an Ethics Workout

This research explores the effectiveness of Balanced Experiential Inquiry (BEI) in building ethical strength in employees. It reframes ethics education and training by emphasizing moral action, decision-making, and performance. The BEI approach incorporates Professional Moral Courage (PMC) techniques such as emotional signaling, reflective pause, self-regulation, and moral preparation. By exercising their moral muscles, employees can enhance their ethical decision-making and behavior in organizational settings.

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Strengthening Employee's Moral Muscles: Developing an Ethics Workout

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  1. Developing AN ETHICS Workout: Using Balanced Experiential Inquiry to Strengthen Employee’s Moral MusclesSociety of Business Ethics Annual Meeting Leslie E. Sekerka, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Organizational Behavior Management and Psychology Departments Director, Ethics in Action Research and Education Center Menlo College, Atherton, CA ~ Lindsey Godwin, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Management Department of Management and Marketing College of Business and Public Affairs Morehead State University. Morehead, KY

  2. OK, you’re on! Think back to a time when you faced an ethical challenge while at work. An example might be a situation where there is a conflict between doing what you think you should do and what the organization, boss, or peer norms suggest. This might involve a conflict between your own values and the organization’s goals. The situation may have made it difficult for you to act, to know what to do, or to determine how to resolve the issue. As you think back about your experiences that you have encountered while on the job, this is a time when you may have been unsure how to act or did not know what to do. The situation was likely undesirable, based upon the risks you perceived. The experience presented a moral issue and, at the time, none of the options seemed particularly favorable.

  3. Hold that thought… We will return to your scenario, in a few minutes. In the meantime, here’s what happened to prompt our research:

  4. When interviewing Ethics Officers in Fortune 500 companies, we asked, “How does your organization ensure ethical performance?” This is what we heard: “Our company only hires ethical people.” Sekerka, (2009).

  5. Research Questions • We honed in on the current literature… 1) Can ethics be taught? • 2) Can ethics be taught more effectively? • We argue these questions present a false dichotomy. • Assumes ethics can (or can not) be taught. • Assumes ethics is (or is not) a feature of one’s persona. • Assumes employees have “ethics” upon hire.

  6. Reframing Ethics Education & Training (EE&T) We asked… • What can be done to build ethical strengthin organizational settings? • What processes support • Applied ethical decision-making? • Ethical behavior in everyday task actions?

  7. Background • William James suggested that people need to “exercise” applying themselves to unpleasant tasks (Ivie, 2006) • Self-regulation is a cornerstone for moral action (Baumeister & Exline, 1999) • The muscle metaphor for moral action has yet to inform the content and design of organizational ethics. • We are Positive Organizational Scholars (POS), working to build capacity by cultivating the best of humanity in organizational settings.

  8. Organizational EE&T • Lacks integration of moral responsibility, decision-making, and performance. (Cameron, 2006) • Rarely includes processes that stimulate interest (typically delivered online). • Rarely emphasize the development of moral capacity through exercise. • Targets rules, values awareness, and policy compliance, which does little to cultivate moral decision-making and action. (Sekerka, 2009)

  9. Beyond Compliance • Compliance is simply not enough - Are you willing to actually engage in moral action? • Connection between awareness of the issues, emotions, and application of value sets. • Moral courage is a critical link between awareness of what is right –and doing it! (Sekerka, Bagozzi, & Charnigo, 2009) • Viewing morality as a muscle (that can be exercised) gives employees an opportunity to “work out” and build ethical strength.

  10. Morality as a Muscle • Athletes can not complete without proper training! • People are unlikely to engage in moral action without opportunities to build their moral muscles. • This means creating processes that help them become aware of their challenges and to understand what promotes/curtails their desire to proceed with moral action.

  11. Balanced Experiential Inquiry (BEI) • Blends problem- and strength-based change processes. • Designed specifically to address adult learning styles. • Provides employees with a structured venue where they can develop and build ethical strength. • Focuses on personal and collective challenges/strengths. Sekerka & Godwin,(in press).

  12. Professional Moral Courage (PMC) • Emotional Signaling:Use of emotional cues to fuel moral awareness (including pre-factual, pos/neg emotions). • Reflective Pause:Self-imposed time-out for insight and deliberation, regardless of time constraints. • Self-regulation: Manage desires that may run counter to various external demands in the organization; regulation of initial reactions, to help sustain willingness to proceed with moral action, even when others do not offer support. • Moral Preparation: Preconceived intention to act ethically, even before one faces an ethical challenge. People need to rehearse this commitment process, and ready themselves for future intentional action. Sekerka, McCarthy, & Bagozzi, (in press).

  13. Adult Learners have… (1) an independent self-concept and can direct their own learning, (2) accumulated a reservoir of life experiences that provide a rich resource for learning, (3) learning needs closely related to changing social roles, (4) an interest in problem-centered approaches with immediate application capability, and (5) motivation to learn by internal, rather than external factors. Knowles, (1968), (1980); Merriam (2001).

  14. Adult Learning • Andragogy - adult pedagogy (Knowles, 1968, 1980) • Experiential learning styles (Kolb, 1984) • Conversational learning (Baker, Jensen, & Kolb, 2005)

  15. Balanced Experiential Inquiry (BEI) • Weaves change management techniques: diagnostic (deficit-based) and appreciative inquiry (strength-based). • Empirical research shows useful outcomes emerge from the initial phases of both approaches. (Sekerka, Brumbaugh, Rosa, & Cooperrider, 2007; Sekerka, Zolin, & Smith, 2009) • To develop PMC competencies, you need to overcome/deal with the negative, while also building strength from strengths. (Cooperrider & Sekerka, 2006)

  16. BEI: Workplace Application • Used in a variety of organizations; • Delivered at junior, middle, and senior management levels; • Focuses on identifying and using salient examples of participants’ ethical dilemmas as content; • Not a prepackaged or lecture-based; tailored to the unique experiences of participants and their setting; • Instructors remain flexible, guiding employees to understand PMC and to exercise their moral muscles; • Inquiry, reflection, and dialogue used to help prompt discovery into PMC and how personal efforts shape the ethical culture of their organization.

  17. How BEI Relates

  18. Step 1: Identify an ethical scenario Now, recall your ethical challenge… Think back to a time when you faced an ethical challenge while at work….an example might be a situation where there is a conflict between doing what you think you should do and what the organization, boss, or peer norms suggest. This might involve a conflict between your own values and the organization’s goals. The situation may have made it difficult for you to act, to know what to do, or to determine how to resolve the issue. As you think back about your experiences that you have encountered while on the job, this is a time when you may have been unsure how to act or did not know what to do. The situation was likely undesirable, based upon the risks you perceived. The experience presented a moral issue and, at the time, none of the options seemed particularly favorable.

  19. What was the ethical issue and what did you do? • What were you thinking and feeling at the time?

  20. Step 2: Examining strengths barriers with a partner • What supported (or curtailed) your ability to respond with moral action? • What about the organization or management supported (or curtailed) your ability to address this situation effectively? Step 3: Report-outs and group discussion • How will you overcome these challenges? • How will you sustain your own ethical strength, as a model to others?

  21. Facilitator’s Role • Deconstruct/reframe issues without judgment; • Create safe space, so vulnerabilities can be exposed; • Target emotions, motives, evaluations, and intentions; • Elevate positive aspects, creating trust for openness; • ID moral muscles and how people are actually exercising them in the session; • Underscore personal responsibility for toning moral muscles; • Build ownership for “ethics” from top/down and bottom/up (at the individual, group, and collective levels).

  22. Helps Employees • Elevate ethical concerns in a safe environment; • Exercise moral muscles in a group context, necessary because social pressures influence decisions/actions; • Draw upon others’ strengths as a resource learn how to develop external support; • Stand up to and buffer opposing forces; • Empower efficacy for moral action in cooperation with others.

  23. Future Research • How does BEI specifically impact moral action? • What organizational factors impact use of PMC? • What is the most viable E&T schedule for strengthening /maintaining PMC? • Can processes such as BEI help establish positive ethics change to an organization's culture? • How applicable is PMC in cross-cultural settings? • How can organizations effectively hire, retain, and strengthen morally responsible employees?

  24. Positive Ethics • Capacity for ethics can be built and strengthened; • Leaders must be committed to both compliance and competency; • Developmental processes need to be woven into the organization’s learning agenda; • Ethical strength needs to be inculcated into the meaning of work itself, through strategy and targeted objectives. • Inquiry into salient ethical challenges is a starting point for discovery into what supports individual and collective moral courage in business.

  25. Ethics Education & Training  Closed/Control Open/Discovery  |--------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------| Moral Weakness Moral Minimum Moral Fortitude

  26. Thank you Thanks…we appreciated your time and attention! For those interested in Positive Ethics, see the call for papers for the special issue in: Journal of Organizational Moral Psychology For information contact: lesekerk@gmail.com Or visit the Ethics in Action website: http://www.sekerkaethicsinaction.com/ for more information about this research

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