Disputes Over DEI Depend on How You Define Fairness

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Each side views the other as favoring unfair practices, making civil discourse between them difficult. Decades after the 1960s civil rights movement, racial inequality persists. In an effort to reduce it, an explosion of diversity, equity,…

A 30-Year Experiment in Ethics and Compliance

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There is lots of room for improvement in this area—and experimentation. At least to me, that’s much of what makes the field exciting to be part of. In his 2008 book Experiments in Ethics, the philosopher Anthony Appiah made a strong…

3 Ways Companies Can Work with Employee Activism

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Whether or not purpose is articulated through a coherent vision, and supported by effective platforms for internal and external impact, can make all the difference in how employees respond—to produce change or create the conditions for change. Should…

Courage Is a Competency

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The truth about courageous action is that you practice regularly. You prepare for that moment. What does workplace courage look like? While some of us may have a clear idea that comes easily to mind, no doubt many others think of it as something…

Big American Companies Have Only Begun Tackling the Racial Wealth Gap

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Companies need to do more internally to ensure that these actions evolve into the profound and sustainable reforms that are needed. Last month, our country marked the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s brutal murder. It has been a…

An MIT Researcher Watched a Hospital Experiment with Shared Leadership

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Workers with little power are often at the mercy of more senior employees who benefit from newly introduced tech and pay little mind to how it affects others.  The social psychologist Debra Mashek, a self-styled “collaboration maven,”…

Why “Business Ethics” Has Little to Do with Business Ethics

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In this episode of the Decision Corner podcast, host Brooke Struck speaks with Jon Haidt and Alison Taylor about the role of ethics and values in business, including the challenges associated with Gen-Z, and the workplace culture changes…

Good Risk Culture Starts with an Open Conversation

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"The pandemic certainly has awakened many people to the importance of explicitly reckoning with risk," says Michele Wucker, author of the new book You Are What You Risk. One of the riskiest decisions in my life, I still tend to think, was…

The Entrepreneur Who Wants Us to Rethink What’s Worth Wanting

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Few people realize that they’re caught up in the kind of mimetic crisis that Rene Girard (above) described while they are actually in it, says Luke Burgis, author of Wanting. A powerful idea, that of mimetic desire, seems to be getting…

Any True ESG Focus on Executive Pay Needs a Link to Employee Engagement

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Too often “of material value to shareholders” is used as the great duck out on fundamental questions of human values. More than half of the 100 Financial Times Stock Exchange CEOs have had their salaries frozen this year. The news comes…