Making ethics easy: New essay in Ethisphere with Jeff Kaplan

Collaborator Jeff Kaplan and I just published a 3 page guide in Ethisphere Magazine outlining how companies can begin using EthicalSystems.org to create a workplace with higher levels of trust among colleagues and leadership. Ethisphere has kindly allowed us to post a PDF of the article. 

You’ll see very little mention of training in our article. Training is important, but our approach is different. We emphasize the dozens of small tweaks and changes that end up changing people’s behavior. Our goal is to “make ethics easy.” If you’ve read the book Nudge, by Thaler and Sunstein, you’ll understand what we mean. And if you haven’t read Nudge, you can read our summary of the book (and many others), which extracts lessons for ethical systems design.

Ethical Systems is more than a series of nudges – it’s about the culture that emerges when everything is aligned, everyone wants to do things right, and everyone is thinking about the long-term mission of the organization. (It’s also about getting the legal and regulatory environment set up to make it easier and more profitable for companies to embrace ethics, not just compliance.) 

A few nudges and clear messages from leadership is an easy way to get started.

Download a PDF of the full article here.

Look for more Ethical Systems Action Items coming soon.