ETHICAL ORGANIZATION PROFILE

Ethical Organization Profile

Ethical Organization Profile

The purpose of this paper is to describe how I would improve the ethical culture of an organization that I have recently joined. The organization has been through recent ethical scandals and the board is looking to me to improve the ethical culture. This paper will be written in a leadership journal format.

Problem Statement

Recent ethical scandals require us to improve the ethical cultureI would like to relate a real challenge that I experienced recently in hopes that it may enlighten others who may be confronted with improving the ethical culture within their organization. It began when the organization I had recently joined had experienced recent ethical scandals and the board was looking to me to improve the ethical culture. Before I began the task of improving the ethical culture of our organization I seemed to be so distant from the very high profile corporate ethics issues of today. But, after being assigned the task of improving ethical culture I began to wonder if we were any different from Kenneth Lay CEO of Enron, Scott Sullivan CFO of World Com, and the family business bungling of Adelphia? We only hear about these cases because they are high profile incidents that crossed way over the ethical boundaries of good business and corporate social responsibility, and became criminal acts. These criminal acts defrauded individual employees of funds they thought where safe, and defrauded our government out of tax dollars.

Process Of Improving The Corporate Ethical Culture

To begin the process of improving the corporate ethical culture, I proposed to the board the use of a breakthrough team to tackle changing moral values and ultimately improving corporate ethical culture. The team will be a cross functional team made up of leaders from the organization that are looked up to as ethical role models. The breakthrough team charter will include implementation of a sustainable program that enables the organization to achieve an ethical culture. The team will focus on short term correction of unethical performance/behavior, and a strategy for long term sustainability of programs designed to assure an ethical culture. In order to complete the pitch to the board a timeline for implementation and budget for this undertaking were provided.

Regulatory Compliance, Development of Ethics Program and Ethics Strategy for sustainability

The board agreed with the recommendation of a breakthrough team, approved the funding and required updates related with milestones on the timeline for implementation. The selection for the team was done without delay and we were soon underway.

I began to feeling better about leading the effort to improve the ethical culture now that the board had agreed to allow the breakthrough team. Leading this change effort will be made easier now that I have respected leaders and role models on the team. The effort would have been much tougher had the board decided to make me go it alone as a newcomer to the organization. With the breakthrough team consisting of people from many parts of an organization, it will be easier to ...