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 say about cigarette companies, non-smokers will say producing cigarette is unethical. But cigarette companies, their employees and mostly the tax lawyers will legally disagree with them!
You see, how easily, ethics changes due to the nature of business or profession. There is galactic gap between professional ethics and common man ethics. To professional people duty is ethics. To 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 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 promise then I should also keep promises.
In this capitalist world, in our workplaces, common man ethics or religious ethics are not granted. But, still you can practice it and even you can 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 other?
4. Do you often irritate people for personal favor?
5. Did you knowingly become intimate friend with evil person?
6. Do you frequently seek 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 set-up/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 judgement play, Mr ‘A’ is not ethical in workplace.
Finally, are you ready to answer the questions?
Akther Mahmud
Rangamati, Bangladesh
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