Business communication degree

Communicators have a lot on their minds and their consciences these days: widespread public distrust of corporate interests, CEOs under scrutiny, information leaks, shifting legal accountability, conflicting cultural norms, transparency considerations and evolving professional standards. In a business environment this challenging, what's an ethical communicator to do? A panel of top regional communication executives convened at the 2002 IABC international conference in Chicago, III., to find out. Following is an excerpt from that panel discussion, courtesy of moderator Louis C. Williams Jr., ABC, APR. Read the full transcript at www.iabc.com/cw.

COMMUNICATORS AS THE CONSCIENCE OF THE ORGANIZATION

Moderator: I have heard it said that communicators can or should he the conscience of an organization. Is that true?

Mary C. Moster: I've heard that said about us on many occasions, but I think it's too grandiose, and also a slam on everybody else on the management team, as though simply by definition we have more moral fiber. Every manager and every employee in a company should be responsible for the moral behavior of the company.

E. Ronald Culp: Yes, but it's also true that we listen to a wider range of stakeholders than most others within the organization. That equips us to hear concerns that come from employees, investors or customers. But I don't think we can assume any more responsibility than listening and reporting.

Matthew Gonring: Very often we're viewed as the chief information officer, and as such we know what's going on throughout the organization. I think that's how management looks at us. Any loftier role would set us up in a way that I don't think would be healthy for the organization or ourselves.

Culp: Having said that, our individual conscience has to apply to everything we do every day. This ought to be true for each of our executives as well. As chief communication people, we have access to a broader array of information from a greater variety of sources, and as a consequence, we have a broader frame of reference. That offers us the ability to judge behavior that's in-line or out of line with what would be construed as appropriate or ethical in the marketplace.

CULTURAL VARIATIONS

Moderator: What about the international perspective? Do ethics change country by country?

Master: When I taught a class on ethics with about 25 percent non-U.S. students--many are from countries where it s typical to pay for things under the table--almost to a person the international students agreed that there is no such thing as situational ethics, that even if an unethical practice is common in their country, it's bad practice.

Clarke L. Caywood: Cultural variances are diminishing as a consequence of the Internet society; ethical standards in one place now are likely to be similar in other geographic locales.

Victoria Shire: One of the things we've been doing recently is trying to heighten everyone 's awareness of the values of the corporation as we become more competitive, and taking that and moving it into our international operations.... How do we translate them in places such as China or South America? I think it goes back to what you said earlier: The standards are different in different places.

Caywood: There are standards that have been set across countries concerning bribery, transparency, environmental and social issues--bottom line [corporate] standards. And those standards should be set at the highest bar, because the law is usually the minimal bar.... Ethics really need to be woven through the entire organization, and [the organization should] make it understood that there's a zero tolerance and that we're going to make sure that we enforce them.

SETTING STANDARDS

Moderator: How does that get done for an organization?

Cuip: It doesn't get done with a manual. It starts with hiring--whom you bring into the organization--and having no tolerance for those who practice questionable ethics. You have to do things like fire people for doing something wrong when they knew it was wrong. Too many companies don't. They say, "OK, next time we really mean it; next time we're going to have to do something serious here." Ethics must start at the top and be demonstrated. The CEO's insistence on high ethical standards goes through the organization. I've seen it work.

Caywood: Don't you think we have a problem with that? Aren't the CEOs the ones who are in the hot seat today? I think they're probably the last ones right now that I'd have confidence in, unless they came forward and were more explicit about their positioning.

Moster: Who else could in an organization?

Caywood: I don't object to having it be the CEO, but ... how about the chairman of the board, who may not be the chief executive officer? How about the chief operating officer? Surely there are other people who might be listened to. Research shows, for example on finance, that the CEO is not the one the public wants to hear from; they want to hear from the CFO.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Moderator: So how does (or can) a senior public relations practitioner influence that process?

Caywood: You have to take examples of behavior and actions that are in line with appropriate business practices and ethical standards. You have to spotlight and profile those for the organization, and conversely, those who are out of line with accepted business practices and ethical standards.

To Ron's earlier point, we're putting an awfully large burden on the chief executive officer to also assume that he (or she) is in fact the chief ethics officer and has to emulate ethical standards for the organization. Now the new New York Stock Exchange regulations are saying he or she is fully accountable for every number disseminated to any audience, and that ultimately their jobs are on the line. That individual officer is asked to be accountable for so much, and yes, from a pyramid standpoint, ultimate responsibility does fall with the chief executive. Therein lies the accountability of the communication people: To help provide the capabilities for that executive.

Shire: As an officer, you're a steward of the corporation, so you do help craft those messages and help influence people and their behaviors, and even inspire other actions. For instance, Donnelly is going through a lot of changes right now--we call it our transformation. There are a lot of behaviors that we are trying to change throughout the organization.

Master: As Vicki said, we help to craft the messages, interpret the information, bring in outside sources and views and help what I hope is an ethical group of managers make ethical decisions day by day and operate in an ethical way. I don't think you can bifurcate somehow, and say there's one person who is responsible for the ethical behavior of the organization. I think the CEO has to set a tone and has to have zero tolerance, as Ron said earlier. But when it comes down to it, he or she is not responsible for the ethical behavior of the organization, either. It's an internalized ethical code, a company culture that everybody has to practice.

Caywood: The infrastructure is the key to making this work. A lot of lip service has been paid to ethics in the past and, going forward, CEOs are going to have to be focused on ethics intensely, because they don't like even minimum-security prisons.

Gonring: From an academic point of view, universities have concluded that it's best to put the teaching of ethics into all of the classes rather than offer it as a stand-alone subject. In other words, if you teach a class on human resources or management, you should talk about the ethical issues of those disciplines.

DEBATABLE DISCLOSURES

Moderator: Let's use this as an example: During the Hewlett Packard/Compaq merger discussions, an employee of HP took an e-mail or voicemail and gave it to the other side. When CEO Carly Fiorina found out, she publicly fired that person. Fiorina was very clear that the reason for the firing was giving the message to the other side, and that she considered the move unethical. Was that an appropriate way for her to set the tone for an organization? Was it fair?

Culp: I'd say yes, as long as they had in place a system that trained people on what was right and what was wrong. Post-hoc ethics are the worst kind. But if that was the only ethical stance she had taken in the last six years, then that would be a problem.

Moster: Do you think it was a breach of ethics for that employee to do it? If you were an HP employee who really thought that the other side had the right idea and the merger was a bad idea, and you thought you were doing something that was aiding the right outcome by taking her message and giving it, do you think that's unethical behavior?