Management Ethics

Society is a nexus of individual perceptions. The world is as we each see it, no more and no less. To hope that we shall all agree on what is good or bad is to hope in vain. This is not solipsism transferred to moral philosophy; it is realism born of observation. This book tries to remind its readers that you can be responsible only if you understand the basis of your responsibility; that you can exercise responsibility only if you have the power to do so; that you cannot lay down a conceptual framework of behavior in business if you have no framework of life; that every facet of your conduct as a manager and employee involves a delicate balance between rebellion and absolute conformity. Indeed, it may be that the hardest lesson is that of learning that compliance and silence and obedience are frequently more desirable than protest when all stands to be lost. To gamble on a poor card hand is the act of either an excessively foolish or a supremely clever man; since the proper judgment of risk is an uncommon facility, poor hands are normally lost. There is no such thing as a corporate attitude, just as there is no such thing as the will of the people.