A Moral Wake-Up Call or an Audit?

I recently watched a video produced by VitalSmarts, a corporate training and leadership development firm.  The video is attached as a link to this post, and is entitled “Why Do We Lie?”  The video followed two separate groups of students.  Both groups were put in a situation where they would be paid cash for their ability to throw beanbags through holes.  They were allowed to self-report their scores.  One group was given no additional instructions, while the second group was asked to sign a statement committing to honesty before participating.  Out of the first group, 80% of the participants lied about their score to get paid more.  Out of the second group, that was asked to sign an honesty statement, only 20% lied.  

The video demonstrates how prevalent lying can be in our society, and how easy it is to allow our morals to slide when we are on cruise control.  It also points out how much of our population, though, is open to be reminded of moral integrity when it is pointed out as a valuable commodity, in this case through the mechanism of signing off on an honesty policy.

In regards to how we work together as a community, there are a few takeaways that I can get from this VitalSmarts training video.  One is that we all have a tendency to be complacent, and not think about the consequences of our actions.  I know that I need reminders quite frequently to not allow myself to go through a daily routine on cruise control.  I need to make sure that I keep my actions in line with an absolute moral code.  We also need to have a culture that reminds those that we work with or come in contact with that there are absolute standards of integrity that are larger than ourselves that we need to commit to upholding. 

Another thought that came out of this video is how much less monitoring is necessary if we are able to remind people of some absolute ethical/moral standards such as “do not steal”, “treat each other with respect”, or “do not lie” as ground rules for our daily activities and actions.  People tend to want to meet expectations.  People do not want to be dehumanized, belittled, or treated as untrustworthy.  The point was not fleshed out a lot, but the video also was making the point that when we treat people like that, they are more likely to give precisely the behavior that we do not want.

A final point that I noticed was that even when we strive to provide a moral wake-up call, we still have a need to have an audit or policing process.  The point of this, though, is to ensure that the audit is aimed at the rare instance where one individual may abuse trust and makes it abundantly clear that we have a high level of trust in our community as a whole.  Our words and actions, though, need to convey this message; we need to be able to convey clearly what the expectations are of our community and organization.  These expectations aren’t lectures or commands, rather they are expressions of how important it is to the good of our organization and community to have people treated well, to have the highest integrity, and to do all we can to make Burlington a great place to live, work, and play.