The basis of all ethics is concern and respect for other people
In the movie You’ve Got Mail, whenever Tom Hanks’ character wants to avoid responsibility for some piece of aggressive or unpleasant business trickery, he says the same thing: “It isn’t personal, it’s business.” But surely business is personal. It’s all personal. Every choice you make is personal, because you’re a person doing it, and people are involved in the outcome. Nobody can walk away from responsibility in that way. Thinking about business in personal terms is going to be the best way of avoiding the kind of ethical mistakes which have been staining the reputations of so many corporations in recent years.
The depersonalization of business is a tempting idea to all those executives who would rather not have to think to hard about what their “business” decisions are doing to real men and women. By saying, “It’s not personal, it’s business,” they distance themselves from the human dilemmas involved when the obsessive search for profit collides with the well-being of employees, customers, or society at large.
What this phrase reveals is today’s tendency to dehumanize the business environment; to make it into a matter of figures on a balance sheet and abstract conceptions of return on investment and market share. These oh-so-scientific and objective concepts allow the leaders involved to act as if they are simply moving inanimate objects around, not meddling in the lives of others.
Cui bono? (Who benefits?)
This isn’t a cheerful topic at a any time, but it’s a necessary one if we want to remain a civilized society. It’s easy not to think about it, just as it’s easy not to think about the poor, the lonely, the homeless or the dispossessed. In the frenzy of grabbing and competing that is modern business, the emphasis is shifted onto how much business can be gained, and at what level of profit, not whether it should be gained in the first place—or gained in that way.
When the news media talk about “outsourcing,” it sounds comfortingly like just another piece of business jargon. Of course, what it really means is shifting work away from one set of people—deemed too expensive and demanding—and placing it with another group who can be employed at less cost and with fewer (or no) benefits.
Who gains? Well, some people in a Third World country somewhere get new jobs, but often at bad rates or pay. I guess they gain something. The corporation gains profits, which disproportionally benefits already rich executives, plus big financial institutions. And a whole lot of people in the corporation’s home country lose their jobs, pensions, and other benefits—not to mention their hopes and dreams.
I’m not arguing that outsourcing is never justifiable and that there is not a perfectly good case to be made for helping developing countries by using their resources of labor. But how often are the human aspects of such situations—the cost-benefit analysis of lives enhanced versus lives diminished—set alongside the financial ones when the decision is being made?
Best not to feel what you are doing, guys
Depersonalizing a situation is a favorite trick of oppressors and cheats throughout history. If you can persuade people to believe that those they oppress are less than human, they will carry out torture and murder on an epic scale . . . and still sleep at night. If the feelings of the people you cheat are ignored, or they are seen merely as impersonal “consumers,” it’s much easier to focus on the profits involved and forget the ethical violations behind them.
Fortunately, we’re still a long way from businesses resorting to physical oppression, but the principle of dehumanization is well established in other ways. Are “consumers” human beings—or creatures to be manipulated for profit? Is “increasing market share” the same as finding things to sell that more people want to buy—or a competitive game played between businesses where people are the pawns on the board, to be tricked or bluffed into buying, if that is what it takes? Is “focusing on the bottom line” a sensible financial strategy—or evidence of unchecked corporate greed that’s ready to destroy people’s livelihood, enrich a very few at the expense of everyone else, and morally taint our whole society?
Before you laugh, think about this. Much of the problem of so-called “sub-prime loans” was simply the result of companies large and small deliberately persuading people to take on more debt than they could reasonably afford. In some cases, their financial status was deliberately mis-stated to justify bigger loans. They were persuaded into loans with payment terms that began easily, then swiftly imposed ruinous rates of interest; or told not to worry about punitive conditions that prevented them from re-financing to get away from the worst results of their actions.The purpose was simple—to make money from them. It was an extremely lucrative market, so: “it wasn’t personal, it was simply business.”
Is that an acceptable business strategy? Should companies sell harmful products, or do so in unethical ways, just because they can create a profitable market to be exploited? Is it enough to say that the customers agreed to the terms, when everyone knew most of them were financially naive and blinded by the opportunity dangled in front of them to purchase the kind of home that they believed (rightly, as it has turned out) they could never afford? Should the social consequences of burdening people with crippling debt be ignored for the sake of short-term profit?
Ethics are the heart and soul of civilized business
In working life, it’s so very easy to label people in ways that dehumanize them and thus make it easier to justify treating them badly for the sake of short-term profits. Handing out pink slips to boost quarterly results “isn’t personal, it’s business.” Yet I guess those being laid off feel it personally enough. Following the advice to fire the lowest ten percent of performers, as judged by flawed and crazy performance appraisal data, “isn’t personal, it’s business.” So, presumably, they shouldn’t feel bad about it either. Making profits out of lending money to people who can’t afford the payments “isn’t personal, it’s business.” So it’s alright for them to face bankruptcy and foreclosure, while the organizations hurt by their own eagerness to profit from risky investments howl to governments for support to save their bacon.
Being personal about our choices is our best guard against unethical or downright unpleasant actions, whether individually or in business situations. Being personal forces you to think about the human consequences of your actions. It puts you, for a moment, on the receiving end, able to feel what it is like to be treated in that way. To touch a computer key and fire ten thousand people you never see is not the same as facing one person in your office and watching his or her emotions as you destroy hopes and peace of mind.
Nobody likes to be a cog in the machine or a number. Why allow it to be justified on the spurious grounds that “it’s not personal, it’s business?”
http://www.slowleadership.org/blog/?p=262
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