by Karl Ahlrichs, SHRM-SCP, SPHR, CSP. Karl advises associations on their people issues. His experience is ideally suited to times of organizational change as he pulls on risk management and organizational development theories to replace best practices with next practices. Karl will be presenting at the WSAE 2021 Spring Fore-ward. This article is re-printed from the Spring issue of VantagePoint magazine.
Practice makes perfect. Having everything in place to do the right thing at the right time – that’s what works. It works in relationships. It works in scanning the pantry making dinner plans. It works in solving tough decisions in a post-quarantine association.
As a leader, it helps to turn your employee’s bad decisions into teaching moments. I wish you could have been there for one of my moments. I was in my early teens, working as a field hand on my grandfather’s farm. He had given me a verbal description of where to dig a large hole for an irrigation tank. I dug for two days straight in the wrong place.
Noting that I was off target, my grandfather did not stop me but turned my errant work into a teaching moment on critical thinking.
“So, do you know what you’re doing?” he would ask.
At first, I shrugged his offer off. By the middle of the second day, I started to realize there was a hidden message in his question. My bravado was ebbing, and I had plenty of digging time to turn things over in my mind. With his guidance, I worked out for myself that I was, indeed, off-target. By about 50 feet. A powerful lesson and one that guides my thinking to this day. A stronger lesson than if he had stopped me immediately and pointed out my error.
The takeaway? Practicing critical thinking and reflecting on ethics is learned in layers and must be kept sharp with constant practice. This rehearsal is crucial to good leadership. It is done to make sure your decision-making flow is effective and produces the best result.
Ethics is a truly human function, based on a win/win where the best outcome for others is also the best for you. As author Rush Kidder said, “Ethics is not blind impartiality, doling out right and wrong according to some stone-cold canon of ancient and immutable law. It’s a warm and supremely-human activity that cares enough for others to want the right to prevail.”
As humans age, we find comfort in patterns, in predictability. This comfort means we act within a narrow range of thinking – a narrow range that reduces the available tools when we make decisions. In our new pandemic world, we need all of the decision-making tools possible at hand. More tools cause us to be more aware, giving us the necessary flexibility to see differing angles from objective viewpoints.
It is like photography. When you have a camera, you look for lighting and subjects and timing to make images that reflect your world. Having the camera makes you more aware. More curious. More patient. When you have a broad set of decision-making tools, you become more aware. More confident in the outcomes you have a hand in. Wiser.
Ethical fitness comes from personal character, a concept often defined as who you are when no one is looking. Lord Moulton described ethical awareness in a 1924 essay in The Atlantic Monthly as "obedience to the unenforceable." I think Moulton makes a good point. We each have the abilities to govern our actions, but we need to keep those abilities in good form. Therefore, practice is required.
The tough choices don’t center on right versus wrong. They involve right versus right. They are genuine dilemmas precisely because each side is firmly rooted in our basic, core values. We can call right-versus-right choices ethical dilemmas. They are:
- Truth versus loyalty
- Individual versus community
- Short-term versus long-term
- Justice versus mercy
How do we resolve these dilemmas? There are three basic ways:
- Ends-based thinking. This is best known by the phrase, Do whatever produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
- Rule-based thinking. This means following only the rules or principles that you want everyone else to follow.
- Care-based thinking. This is the Golden Rule: Do to others what you would like them to do to you.
My call to action is to practice using your tools in daily living so that when a significant crisis hits, you are comfortable in your actions. Be ready, be open-minded, be flexible. This is where practice makes perfect. Just like taking a photo at the decisive moment. A moment before or a moment after, and the result is not the best.
The author will be presenting at WSAE's 2021 Spring Fore-ward event. For more information about the Spring Fore-ward, June 7-8, please check our Calendar of Events.