Is business ethics an oxymoron? - Editorial - Cover Story

Business Horizons, Sept-Oct, 1994 by John W. Collins

Managers may hesitate to surrender control to employees because they don't trust them. Giving trust to others entails risk, but it is essential to honoring autonomy. Peters and Deming believe that taking the risk of giving trust to employees is necessary because autonomy results in greater employee effectiveness. Trusting employees with more control over their work results in more motivated and innovative employees. Eliminating fear and ignorance through informative, responsive, and supportive communication not only results in improved individual performance, but also is essential to working in teams and coordinating cross-functional activities.

As discussed earlier, both rights and justice theory have been used to support a helping ethic, a duty to provide for the needs of others. Managers, however, have not seen this helping ethic as related to business activity. Instead, business has promoted the value of autonomy on the grounds that the various participants in the marketplace are independent of each other and should have personal freedom to pursue their own self-interest. This viewpoint is, of course, consistent with the traditional view of the role of management.

Both Peters and Deming believe that helping others contributes to developing better companies. Within an organization, one way to help employees is to enhance their self-esteem--not tear it down. Deming condemns evaluation systems that leave people "bitter, despondent, dejected, some even depressed, all unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating" (Walton 1986). Similarly, Peters criticizes companies that "design systems that seem calculated to tear down their workers' self-image" (Peters and Waterman 1982). Both advocate helping and motivating employees by making them feel they are winners--not losers.

Deming, in particular, places great emphasis on the management function of helping, which he equates with leadership. He points out that many managers don't know how to do the work their subordinates perform and thus don't know how to help them by training them to do their work or discovering and removing the barriers to doing the work well. Two of Deming's 14 points (principles of management) are "Institute Training and Retraining" and "Institute a Vigorous Program of Education and Retraining."

In sum, deontological ethical theory suggests that to build trust, managers should respect the individuals with whom they interact by honoring their personal autonomy and giving them help when it is needed. In addition to the accepted ethical norms of business transactions, respect requires giving employees more control over their work, providing informative, responsive, and supportive communication, treating people as winners, and providing employees with education and training. Although these management techniques are derived from ethical theory, they are also techniques that Peters and Deming advocate for more effective management. It is clear these men both recognize that in an environment of interdependence, honoring personal autonomy and giving needed help are essential to building trust--a necessary ingredient for effective management.