TEDx Archives - Compliance Culture

Selected TED/TEDx talks on practical ethics

Practical ethics is an important and relatable branch of the philosophical study of ethics. As a discipline, it connects academic theory with real-life practice. Practical ethics is most commonly encountered in typical scenarios which are referred to as ethical dilemmas. Ethical dilemmas, which have been discussed at length here on this blog before, often present seemingly simple facts which in reality involve maddeningly complex and fraught moral and personal considerations. When faced with such dilemmas, individuals need to reconcile ethical principles which may be in opposition, as much as they need to rely on those same principles to inform their internal register of right and wrong.

Moral character – this individual internal register – and moral perception – the individual’s capacity to understand that an ethical issue exists and may need to be addressed or accepted – are both rooted in the ongoing observation of practical ethics. Identifying and resolving conflicts between personal ideas of ethics and integrity, and the situations and roles that person may find in a working situation, is a crucial application of practical ethics and a fluency which is necessary for corporate cultures to establish a successful compliance program.

Practical ethics goes to the root of so many dilemmas which are germane to the working experience. What are the limits of professional responsibility? What are the obligations of and restrictions within authority and control? How do interpersonal or relationship-based ethics play out into institutional structures and corporate policies or organizational decision-making? How do individuals work within institutions that may have implemented moral decisions which differ from the person’s own or present the individual with the need to dissent from policy or practice? To what extent should organizations address the public good and how can they do this if they choose to do so?

These questions can go on and on; practical ethics represents the attempt to navigate the broad social context of the workplace by reconciling professional rules with moral expectations and norms. This, again, is highly pertinent to a corporate compliance program, which seeks to encourage an business culture that respects legality, approaches business competitively yet thoughtfully, and also sets standards for employee and organizational integrity. It is imperative for compliance professionals to understand practical ethics and use dilemma sessions or open discussions with the businesses they advise in order to encourage a common comfort level with this sort of thinking throughout their organization.

The below TED/TEDx talks offer a survey of how people approach these conflicts between individual and societal morality on one side and professional ethics within organizations on the other side.

Legal vs. Ethical Liability: A Crisis of Leadership and Culture (Mel Fugate) – Very frequently, there are stories in the news that outrage and offend people due to perceived moral trespasses. For example, tax avoidance which is positioned as optimization rather than evasion is not against the law; in fact, corporate structures and arrangements that allow companies to take advantage of this are often sanctioned by national governments and facilitated by law firms. However, whenever information detailing these arrangements is made public, people are always stunned to find they are legal and feel let down by the justice system. So too is this true in any situation where individual or organizational accountability is not strictly required by law and therefore is not implicitly considered in decision-making. The distinction between legal liability and ethical liability reaches to the core of the true character ethic and leadership qualities. An organization which considers ethical liability will have a more transparent and sustainable culture, leading to increased transparency and accountability.

The Significance of Ethics and Ethics Education in Daily Life (Michael D. Burroughs) – The concept of individuals as “everyday ethicists” is powerful and useful. People must first take individual responsibility for approaching and addressing ethical issues. Individual ethical awareness is an unavoidable first step on the journey to a culture of compliance within an organization, or for that matter, increased integrity and honesty within society. It is important to consider an ethics education as foundational for both children and adults, and to establish the role of ethics in everyone’s lives and above all else, encourage discussion and information-sharing.

Ethics for People on the Move (Catharyn Baird) – On the subject of translating individual ethics into a group or collective moral code, individual perceptions of morality can have powerful impact on the ethical identity of a community. Both alongside and beyond business ethics, how is an ethical life defined and how does this contribute to the character of the communities in which we all live? Here the interpersonal aspect of ethical relations, including decision-making, has an especially strong influence. For that to be successful however, individuals still have to form and commit to an ethical life that is each of their own.

Is your work aligned with your values? (Geoff DiMasi) – As discussed above, one of the challenges of practical ethics is to reconcile the individual sense of morality with ethical decisions implicit in corporate policies and required due to organizational processes. It can be powerful for individuals to consider their purpose, both in life and professionally, and then to question whether the work they do allows them to contribute to this, or asks them to labor in opposition to it. As many organizations turn to social impact and political engagement to establish their corporate identities in a crowded marketplace, individuals would do well to compare their ethical leanings with their professions and the companies with which they are associated.

Why “scout mindset” is crucial to good judgement (Julia Galef) – Scout mindset is an interesting proposition, valuing curiosity, openness, and practicality over defensiveness, heuristics, and routines. Approaching decision-making with this disposition can help to overcome narrow frameworks, habits, and other strong organizational contexts. This can also help people to determine individual integrity and morality, which can contribute to and position them within broader and sometimes challenging societal and corporate structures for ethics and compliance.

Check back in the coming weeks for further posts on the theory of practical ethics and its application in the corporate context, including discussion on the distinction between ethics and business ethics, as well as that between compliance and corporate compliance.

Selected TED/TEDx talks on bioethics

The study of bioethics is rich and varied, always growing in diversity as emerging technologies advance. Bioethical issues have their root in decision-making about research methodology, where academics struggled to define propriety in humans’ exploitation of the natural world – plants and animals – to further science for their own benefits. Bioethics maintains this same ethos today, centered on the link between human interests in and relationship to the sciences, notably including biology and medicine. The inquiries of bioethics extend to a huge swath of topics in within health and human sciences, reflecting the deep reach technological innovations have into everyone’s lives.

First, a word on the relationship between science and morality. In Science can answer moral questions, Sam Harris suggests that the values humans rely upon to define their ethical obligations and moral choices can be seen as facts, which are the foundation of science:

Harris is a neuroscientist and philosopher who seeks to define the way that ideas about human life are shaped by the physical world in which people live. People often presume that science cannot answer the existential questions humans consider most compelling, like – what is the meaning or purpose of life? This modern world is continually impacted by technological change, but does science just provoke moral issues, or can it indeed be a force for addressing or solving them? Science is fact-driven and so too can be people’s practical assessments about right and wrong in real life. Therefore science can and should be an authority in the domain of objective fact rather, than only basing these considerations solely on non-concrete intuitions or opinions.

Building upon this presumption that science and ethics do indeed have a powerful mutual dependency, bioethics asks many moral and existential questions germane to this relationship. Animal rights, gene therapy, patient care, bio-engineering, and research methodology are just a few examples of areas where bioethical issues and debates commonly arise. The below TED/TEDx talks are a sampling of how scientists, technologists, and academics confront these challenges in their work and expect that the relationship that science and technology have with law and philosophy will continue to impact human life and society.

It’s time to re-evaluate our relationship with animals (Lesli Bisgould) – Human relationships with animals are more morally and legally complicated than many people might realize. Living with companion animals is very common and most people would say that they have compassion for animals and feel they should be treated with respect and dignity. However, humans draw unconscious lines between animals they feel are household pets, such as cats or dogs; captive animals they may think exist for educational or entertainment purposes, like whales and dolphins; livestock animals that are part of the industrial food manufacturing supply chain, like cows and chickens; and wild animals that are hunted or poached, like elephants and lions. Why do we make these distinctions and do they have some objective basis in a moral universe? What is the responsibility and response of the law?

Gene Therapy – The time is now (Nick Leschly) – Gene therapy could enable the repair of diseased or damaged cells. With applications from this technology, doctors could cure illnesses and fix injuries for good instead of requiring a lifetime of preventive and prescriptive treatment. This is an advancement that could change medicine forever. However, major funding has historically been hard to attract for research and development in gene therapy because of ethical and religious uncertainties, not to mention the resistance of some individuals and institutions within the traditional medicine establishment. Moral fear, some concrete and others more esoteric, about the dark side of where this technology could take society, even if scientists enter with the best intentions to control against that, have been a financial and ideological barrier to progress.

Transparency, Compassion, and Truth in Medical Errors (Leilani Schweitzer) – The Alexander Pope proverb goes “To err is human, to forgive, divine” – but what about when the human error results in the death of a loved one? How does one forgive when the mistake is that of a professional – such as a doctor? The legal tort system and medical malpractice insurance certainly do not inspire a reaction of kindness from the survivors. However, perhaps truth is the essential element in handling a tragic event such as a medical mistake that leads to catastrophic injury or death. Truth in medicine is important when the mistake occurs, in the form of transparency, accountability, and honest communication. Truth is also important in recovery by the survivors after the mistakes – remedial care, openness, and radical candor that can lead to emotional healing and inspire advocacy. Admitting and facing mistakes is a powerful act of integrity that can never be supplanted by the legal and administrative system in defining patient care responsibilities.

It’s time to question bio-engineering (Paul Root Wolpe) – As this blog often espouses, the best time to address moral or integrity questions and consider implementing a code of ethics that will be sustainable for the future, is universal: as soon as possible. There’s no time too soon to think about the foundations of integrity in any area of society, especially when it comes to science and developing technology. In the field of bio-engineering, technology has already advanced quite far to do things like selective or hybrid breeding of animals, modification of food products, and the creation and manipulation of artificial cells. Regulation has become controversial as an obstacle to advancement. The presumption goes that making rules or laws that cover the scope of people’s work in a scientific area will stifle their innovation. This does not have to be true if a moral code is built into the knowledge acquisition process from the beginning. Progress and ethics are not naturally at odds and do not have to be positioned as antagonistic to each other in pursuit of scientific discovery, but to let either take dominance over the other is short-sighted and dangerous.

Trust in research – the ethics of knowledge production (Garry Gray) – The work of research scientists weighs heavily on consumer and public safety. Most of the goods people use on an everyday basis have been the product of a prolonged research and development process, which laypeople assume has been conducted with accuracy as the principle interest and free of biases. However, this is far from true in practice. Corporate funding and institutional agendas all have great influence on scientific research. People are well aware of the possible danger of these influences, which are nevertheless necessary for work to be done, but the deeper problem is that the researchers themselves may believe they are able to naturally maintain independence as a function of their expertise. In reality, no conflict of interest risk management mechanism can be effective if it only exists within a person’s head. Sensitively and sensibly managing these conflicts and the biases they create is very important work that must be responsively and proactively done to support research scientists in their endeavors.

Check back in the coming weeks for further posts on bioethics, including a look at current trends in corporate compliance issues arising from bioethical debates in the scientific research and medical fields, further discussion of bioethics as it relates to artificial intelligence, and insights on the larger interrelationship between technology and ethics of knowledge acquisition, engineering, and design.

Selected TED/TEDx talks by Dan Ariely on honesty, motivation, and choice

Dan Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics. He is well-known for his books in these fields as well as for his popular and admired TED talks. Ariely is an extremely effective communicator because his observations incorporate both psychology and business, blending the internal and external motivators for behavior. In this spirit, Ariely is able to debunk assumptions about conduct and provide explanations for instincts, two powerful sets of insights for compliance and ethics.

Meaning in Labor: Perhaps people’s assumptions about why we work and what we value most in our work cultures are wrong. Maturing from an idea that most people would rather not work and only do so to make money helps to show that a search for meaning (much as described by Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl in his work on existential analysis) is the most powerful and provocative driver of human labor and achievement. Simply put, meaning gives motivation, and having a purpose to the work performed encourages people to invest in it. The idea of giving purposeful work a priority that is equal to or even sometimes greater than profitable work is novel and challenging. However, this speaks directly to the importance of a robust compliance culture and a corporate identity that promotes ethical decision-making and acting with integrity. These values drive meaningful engagement and therefore can contribute to a more positive working environment and sustainable business.

Money Changes Everything: Taking the suggestion of the importance of meaning as the true driver behind human behavior (both inside and outside of work) forward, what then is the true impact of money? Clearly the power of money is a timeless and universal notion, but perhaps its actual effect on human behavior is not so straightforward. Money changes the tone of all interactions; adding the financial element to these relationships is transformative and perhaps demotivating. Therefore how do people’s decision-making processes and motivations change between their conduct in their private life, where money is not inherently a factor, and work life, where everyone is paid to be engaged together? Interestingly, this talk was delivered at Burning Man, where exchange of money is mostly not permitted.

The Unexpected Joys and Problems with Creation: The sense of accomplishment from successfully problem-solving and completing a difficult task may actually be the key motivation behind doing challenging or unpleasant things. The harder something is to do, the prouder people feel about persisting and doing it. Further, the sense that other people will feel this pride too or that the difficult work can benefit others is also a motivating factor. Not only does the altruistic sentiment make people more motivated, it may also make them more honest, as the force of “prosocial behavior” encourages people to engage in better behavior for a common good. This has obvious implications for compliance; a corporate culture which positions integrity and ethics as a core value and rewards it visibly will speak collectively to all these motivations and therefore drive productivity and engagement.

Self Control: Another important and interesting area of Ariely’s scholarship is in the study of self control. Self control can often be the interference between our long-term goals and our short-term desires, or our internal instincts and the external factors they face. Facing the trade-offs implied by these dichotomies is challenging. This often leads to over-emphasizing present impact of the decision-making over the future consequences. Encouraging people to consider and not discount the considerations of the future is very important for directing the impulse of self control into a more balanced and sustainable influence.

Temptations and Self Control: Continuing on the theme of struggling to balance current interests with more remote future outcomes, this lecture encourages people to understand what creates the gap in their self control. With this insight in mind, the trade-off becomes more manageable to consider in a more holistic way. Motivations to value future priorities or avoid future problems could include targeted rewards and using rationality against instinct to adjust gain-loss perceptions. This is easily applicable in the corporate environment, where performance evaluations and business strategies should be designed with both short and long term effect analyses in mind. This way, growth will be sustainable and values will be maintained.

Ariely’s presentations on people’s choices – including whether to lie or cheat, or not to – go directly to the meaning of why people do what they do, and what factors exist that may change or impact that. Organizational and individual integrity can be sourced back to these motivations for honesty and self-control, and therefore the studied application of Ariely’s insights to a compliance and ethics program is very valuable.

Selected lectures on dishonesty and mistrust

In a follow-up to last Friday’s collection of videos on honesty and trust, now the polar opposite, dishonesty and mistrust. It is equally important to understand the motivations behind unethical behaviour as it is to have a view of the reasons for good behaviour. Unsurprisingly, most often these impulses are intimately related. Dishonesty, for example, is encouraged when individuals do not see trustworthiness as an important measure of success or character. On the other side, giving trust is very difficult when credibility has not been established.

How to spot a liar (Pamela Meyer) – Lying is not always motivated from a desire to be actively dishonest. It can be automatic, implusive, or even motivated by altruism, insecurity, or curiosity. However, it is always deceptive. Understanding the “tells” that people give when they are being dishonest is important in remaining alert and checking for credibility before giving trust.

How to Spot Liars at Work and How to Deal with Them (Carol Kinsey Goman) – Also in the domain of reading people’s non-verbal cues to detect their dishonesty, there are signs specific to the workplace that someone is not trustworthy and dynamics of co-working or being in a team setting that may make people more likely to lie. Identifying when colleagues are lying and understanding why can be a management technique if this is applied to trying to create a tailored environment that will protect and reward honesty. Successful leaders will communicate clearly that they expect their employees to be truthful and will measure honesty and ethical decision-making as part of their performance.

The truth about dishonesty (Dan Ariely) – Self-betrayal and the rationalization it provides are major motivators of dishonest behaviour. Intrinsically, people lie and break promises to themselves in every dishonest act they do, because they are overriding their own ideas about right and wrong to give themselves permission to proceed. In this way individuals persuade themselves to ignore their conflicts of interest or flaunt what is socially acceptable because they have deceived themselves into thinking their behaviour is necessary or justified.

Why we think it’s OK to cheat and steal (sometimes) (Dan Ariely) – Behavioural economics goes further even than the above, to suggest that people do not always have to actively be dishonest to themselves to be deceptive to others. Possibly, people actually think lying or behaving immorally is acceptable because cultural norms often tolerate and dismiss “minor” dishonesty. Situational context, intuition, or heuristics can be very powerful and override the individual’s obligation to question or consider right from wrong. All opinions about moral behaviour should be thoroughly challenged in order to avoid relying upon false assumptions.

The future of lying (Jeff Hancock) – In scenarios such as taking an exam with the opportunity to cheat or filling out a form with the possibility of misstating information, moral reminders of individuals’ legal or social obligations to tell the truth have proven effective in curbing dishonest choices. Could technology and the internet, influences in our society which seemingly have made the truth ever more remote, actually discourage lying by making people’s statements and representations permanent and searchable? Perhaps the accountability of the internet to record everyone’s personal records can encourage them to avoid discrepancies by resisting dishonesty.

Causes of, and rationalizations for, dishonesty and lack of trust are everywhere in both business and life. Because of how common these forces are, it is important to recognize and understand them, so that individuals and organizations may contribute positively to working against their influence.

Selected lectures on honesty and trust

Honesty in life is the foundation for integrity in business. People with a strong personal sense of correctness will be loath to discard their internal moral register easily just because they are in the workplace. Those who respect the truth, however challenging standing by that may become, and wish to be rewarded for it with being seen as trustworthy, are responsible stewards for organizational and individual values. The impact of a corporate culture that venerates honesty and trust is far-reaching into decision-making, business strategy, sustainability, and co-working.

The Growing Inequality of Trust (Richard Edelman) – One of the great challenges to establishing and maintaining trust in society today is the “trust disparity” – the difference between the portion of the public that is credibly informed and the population in general. This is a growing and far-reaching challenge to giving and getting trust, when people cannot agree on a view of the facts or are so predisposed toward mistrust. The contextual motivation for good corporate citizens to model integrity and impact societal change for the good is very strong, especially as trust is on the decline. CEOs and other business leaders should answer this call and leverage their honesty and unwavering commitment to tell the truth and disclaim misleading or false information.

What’s trust got to do with it? (David Horsager) – Lacking credibility will cost you. Trusted leaders and organizations are more successful, agile, and prepared for long-term survival. Establishing trust be the best motivation and the most effective marketing. The positive impact on business and life of trust should be underestimated. Trusting someone is a choice with benefits and consequences, and supporting trustworthy people to succeed can make a real change in our communities and organizations.

The behaviour of trust in the workplace (Jacqueline Oliveira) – Intercultural communication is one of the great challenges of the modern workplace. Global teams and international leaders have to reach across the norms of their home culture to find a way to relate to each other that can be understood by everyone but still meaningful and productive. Trust is a universal value which can create that connection for everyone to build upon.

Whom Can We Trust? (Richard Edelman, David Leonhardt, Tom Wilson) – Public perceptions of trust are on a sustained decline all over the world. What can individuals and their organizations do about it? Are we just doomed to a faithless future? If we can’t trust any of our institutions, how can we trust the people who work at them or, eventually, each other? The potential for moral decline in our private lives is precipitated by the deteriorating credibility of the organizations that dominate our news and the public attention. Personal leadership that is values-based and emphasizes the truth and trustworthiness over all other character traits is one possible path forward. If society starts to reward and appreciate people for their honesty and their eagerness to earn trust, then the public measures of success and expectations on businesses will follow in kind.

The Value of Trust (Dan Ariely) – How does trust impact decision-making and individuals’ perceptions of their own interests? The value is likely significant, especially insofar as many decisions are made and promises are kept or broken for practical, emotional, or even irrational reasons. Trust in themselves as well as in others does more to determine how people actually behave than their intentions.

Check back next week for the follow-up to this collection: selected lectures on dishonesty and mistrust.