Ethical behavior varies due to profession, organization, religion, etc. That’s why it’s tough to sketch a universal layout to decide what is ethical or what is not. If we talk about cigarette companies, non-smokers will say producing cigarettes is unethical. But cigarette companies, their employees, and mostly the tax lawyers will legally disagree with them!
You see how easily ethics change due to the nature of business or profession. There is a galactic gap between professional ethics and common man ethics. To professional people, duty is ethics. To the common man? It varies.
Let’s use an analogy of a soldier to understand how complex it is to define ethics. Imagine a soldier is going to pull the trigger of a rifle to kill an ordinary-looking man in front of you. Now, who is ethical here?
If you are institutionalized, you may consider this killing attempt as legal. But if you are a common man, you'll consider the soldier as a villain.
However, the purpose of practicing ethical behavior is to establish peace. To do the right thing and not to harm others can be specified as ethical.
By following this code, you can practice ethics: ‘What is good for me is good for others, and what is bad for me is bad for others.’ The true meaning of this code is: if I dislike being disturbed by others, then I shouldn’t disturb others, or if I love to see people keeping promises, then I should also keep promises.
In this rude world, in many workplaces, ethics are the least cared topics. But, still, you can practice it, and you can even judge yourself with these 10 filter questions:
1. Do you plot against people?
2. Do you do something evil against people?
3. Do you try to push your duty to others?
4. Do you often irritate people for personal favor?
5. Did you knowingly become intimate friends with an evil person?
6. Do you frequently seek a backdoor to achieve something?
7. Do you feel it unnecessary to appreciate other people?
8. Do you somehow demotivate your subordinates frequently?
9. Do you show disrespect to the duty of other?
10. Do you frequently use workplace setup/resources for personal use (when you are an employee)?
Each question contains 5 marks. If a question answer is ‘Yes,’ you'll get -5 marks. If a question answer is ‘No,’ you'll get 5 marks. If you have no answer, you get 0 marks! The rule of this judgment play is simple. Let’s imagine that Mr. `A’ got 35 marks from answering ‘No’ to 7 questions, and he got -15 marks from answering ‘Yes’ to 3 questions. Now, you have to deduct his negative marks from the achieved 35 marks. So, you see—Mr. ‘A’ scored 20 (35-15) marks. That’s a poor mark. Out of 50 he got 20. So according to this judgment play, Mr. ‘A’ is not ethical in the workplace.
Finally, are you ready to answer the questions?
Akther Mahmud
Rangamati, Bangladesh
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