ETHICS

"Because hundreds of thousands of business communicators worldwide engage in activities that affect the lives of millions of people, and because this power carries with it significant social responsibilities, the International Association of Business Communicators developed the Code of Ethics for Professional Communicators."

-Introduction to IABC's Code of Ethics.

It's not just a Code, it's a Culture

Second in a series on ethics in business communications
Dean Williams, President, Williams Savvy & Associates

In the 1990s, Nike endured some of the most intense criticism of any corporation for its labour practices. That was the same time that Maria Eitel joined Nike Inc. as their new VP and Senior Advisor for Corporate Responsibility,

“That experience forced us to decide who we were when it comes to corporate social responsibility, and forced us to really figure it out,” confessed Eitel. The Nike executive was in Toronto to participate in the third annual Canadian Business Ethics Summit, a gathering of business leaders, ethics practitioners, academics and NGO representatives from Canada and the United States organized by EthicsCentre.ca.

People have asked Eitel how all the negative publicity hurt business. The obvious answer would have been that it damaged Nike's brand and maybe sales, but her response was both surprising and illuminating: "The way it hurt our business was that it hurt our people. Individual employees at Nike started to wonder what kind of company they were working for and what message was being sent about the people who worked there."

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethics had to be more than just optics and PR, says Eitel. It would have to be implemented at every level of the corporation.

“As long as companies perceive CSR as something ‘on the side’ – away from the main business decisions they will continue to be vulnerable,” says Eitel, noting that it is in their everyday business activities where companies have the biggest impact on society.

The challenge for Nike is that they have to deliver, not just for public consumption, but internally to their staff, because ultimately they are the ones that have the energy, creativity and skills to create, market and sell its products.

David Simpson of Interpraxis has noted that Toronto Hydro CEO Courtney Pratt came to the same conclusions when he was Noranda’s CEO in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. Noranda won a lot of awards and positive public recognition outside the company for its social and environmental responsibility.

"Despite all the positives and public recognition, we were still having the spills internally, we were still having the errors, we were still having our accidents," Pratt recalled in his dinner speech at the 2001 Business Ethics Summit.

The company needed to get reality in line with its public image.

“We realized for us to truly be a leader, we needed the total company to be involved. We needed each employee to work consciously to be environmentally responsible and see themselves as being environmental ambassadors in their communities,” says Pratt.

If a company is serious about its ethical image, its vision, values, mission and strategy has to become part of its corporate culture and that means selling it to your employees.

Ultimately Noranda turned its efforts into a competitive advantage, says Pratt. “It helped us in selling our product. It helped us in recruiting and retaining employees. And we believe that ultimately it helped us in creating shareholder value.”

"The simple fact is that public relations plays an invaluable role in strengthening corporate reputation by helping to communicate ethics effectively both within and outside an organization" said Michael Coates, CEO of Hill and Knowlton Canada.

"When a company wants to reinforce consistent, ethical patterns of behaviour, effective communications among members of that organization can make the difference between success and failure," added Coates who was also a guest speaker at the 2001 Business Ethics Summit. "For a company to behave ethically it must live and breathe its code of conduct, train its personnel and communicate its code through its visioning statements. It cannot be a manual that sits on a corporate shelf."

As for Nike, Eitel's challenge is to meaningfully communicate Nike's ethics and social responsibility not just to external critics, but to Nike's 500,000 employees in 58 countries. Eitel insists that Nike has learned that taking the easy way out is not an option.

Like so many businesses and organizations, Nike and Noranda learned to appreciate that a code of ethics is not meant to sit on the shelf and gather dust. It has to be become a part of the culture. It doesn’t just keep you out of trouble; it has the potential to increase morale, productivity and shareholder value.

In my last column I quoted Tom Niles of Langdon Starr Ketchum who made the point that it’s our obligation as business communicators to argue against short-term PR victories that go against the public interest; after all, your employer/client isn’t in it for the short term…and neither are you.

Ethics isn’t a PR tool that you dust off in case of emergency. If you’re in it for the long term, IABC’s Code of Ethics must be an integral part of who you are and what you do as a business communicator. Yes, it can help to keep you out of trouble, but it’s so much more than that. IABC’s Code can help you to do your job better…if you let it.

Dean Williams is the president of Williams Savvy & Associates and a director of EthicsCentre.ca. He can be reached at dean_williams@savvypr.com.

Have a question of ethics? Send it to prof_standards@iabctoronto.com and we’ll cover it in an upcoming issue of Communicator.