You've Got to Be Kidding!: How to Keep Your Job Without Losing Your Integrity

Your Challenge

We already know that management’s one-way pronouncements about ethics are the predictable, we’ll-always-take-the-high-road stuff. Your job is to push back with questions and challenges based on your experiences in the practical world. Then, somewhere in the middle of that spirited discussion, you, your boss, and coworkers will come up with resolutions to your ethical dilemmas that all of you can accept.

An ethical office environment is in a perpetual cycle of construction and repair as our personal and corporate values and principles stay constant (even though they may not be exactly the same as our coworkers). You cannot change everything all at once, but you can certainly talk about it in a way that starts the process of change.

In fact, who better than you to provide your organization with the unique perspective, feedback, and insight that will spark and sustain ethical conduct? I’ve seen firsthand that one person’s voice—at the right time, asking the right questions—has the potential to transform an office’s culture.

Yes, Audrey, you can make that difference!

I wondered why somebody didn’t do something. Then, I realized I was somebody!

—U.S. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey