A Collaborative Process to Approach an Ethical Dilemma.
As managers in very dynamic environments, we by the nature of our job are process driven individuals. When dealing with serious issues in our personal lives and business lives, we employ various processes for dealing with these issues. Particularly when we are approaching an ethical topic or opportunity we are very careful to employ the following process to insure that we have reached a fair decision on the matter.
In the scope of this assignment, the group tried to formulate a process that would be applicable in any situation in which an ethical dilemma or opportunity were to be faced. We explored issues of personal conflict, product integrity, general business decision process as well as international concerns. To further expand the possibilities, the group also looked at social issues and interpersonal issues as a balance.
From these topics, each member of the group was asked to write a brief individual process on how they would approach this topic, and included any resources they would seek and utilize during this process. In order to assure that everyone’s ideas were captured, a perado chart was constructed to identify collaborating concepts as well as areas were individuals differed and/or did not see the process elements the same. The findings as a collaborative whole are laid out in sequential form as a guideline,if you will, mapping out the very process that would be followed. Please note that this is collaboration of individual styles and not necessarily a corporate policy.
A- Clarity- I make sure that I have clearly understood the topic or opportunity at hand.
B- Issue- what was the issue lead up to this topic?
C- Involvement- who are the parties involved and to what degree is the individual involvement?
D- Facts- we make a point to gather all the facts that I can in order to separate hearsay from genuine facts.
E- Cultural Aspects- is this a situation in which culture difference is an issue or has a local custom or policy been broken or about to be broke?
F- Precedence- has this occurred before and is there supporting data to see how it was previously handled.
G- Time to reflect- once we have gathered the facts and have a clear understanding of the issue, and only after I have checked for precedence, I take at least a full day to ponder a possible win, win decision.
H- Closure- we make my decision public and maintain an open door policy to explain that decision if necessary to anyone who may need clarification.
With this said, the resources that we make use of are dependant on the situation specifically. If it is a work related issue the resource would vary from those in a personal setting, but the resources I utilize within this process are as follows.
A- Raw Data- is [next page]