Ethics & Values

Is good ethics always good business? Why are we in business, anyway? We don’t just teach the importance of good ethics in your organization. We also understand the importance of them and try our best to live them. At IBERM SOLUTIONS, we feel this issue is as important as any that can be dealt with and so we deal with this here and in our Leadership Development Seminar.

Is Good Ethics Always Good Business?

It is our philosophy at IBERM SOLUTIONS that “Good Ethics IS Good Business”. Yet, it is naïve to think that any financial cost for being ethical will always eventually be recouped. Maybe not often, but sometimes the choice must be made between the ethical, and the financially beneficial. Some believe that in the long run, making good ethical decisions will ultimately and eventually make you better off financially. Although I believe it is generally true, I personally do not believe that good ethics is always the more financially beneficial choice. But this is a good thing. At IBERM SOLUTIONS, we believe that financial costs are not the only costs to consider. Besides the fact that unethical decisions are risks not worth taking, even if never publicly exposed, they reduce one’s ability to act freely in their business objectives, for fear their unethical action would one day be exposed. These decisions also weaken our character and lose our integrity. Once this happens, not only is it extremely difficult to regain our character and integrity, but is too easy to continue down the unethical path until more serious unethical actions are ultimately brought publicly to light. And this is more important than our financial results. So I see a problem with taking the attitude that good ethical choices will always ultimately make the business itself better off financially in the long run. In the first place, this belief does help us make right choices (most of the time), but we might make them for the wrong reasons. It may cause us to make right choices because of business reasons, not because we are ethical. If we have been making our decisions based on financial instead of ethical reasons, then when we are placed in that rare situation where good ethics could put us out of business, it is likely that we would make the wrong decision for the wrong reason. It may not have been youor fault youo are in this situation but it could be because of something unethical that one of our employees has done. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to find ourselves in this situation. We must be capable of standing up for what is right when it’s hard to do, for integrity’s sake, and not because we have other lesser reasons why to do so. We should make the right choices for the right reasons. We, at IBERM SOLUTIONS, understand this principle.

Mankind is my Business

In the immortal Dickens tale, “A Christmas Carol”, the ghost of Jacob Marley visits Ebeneezer Scrooge to warn him of his ultimate fate if he continues on his current path. Marley bemoans his actions taken while in life that led to his precarious circumstances after his death. As he explained to Scrooge the faults of his own selfish actions done while alive, Scrooge attempted to console him by saying “You were a good man of business.” To this attempt, Marley responded emphatically “Mankind was my business!!” While our goal is to assist our client companies with risk and business management so that they can reap the benefits that inevitably come from following these procedures, our ultimate goal is that as we help improve our clients’ businesses, it will not ultimately hurt mankind in any way. On the contrary, our hope is that as our clients utilize our services and reap the improvements from what we have to offer, all of mankind will be better off as a result.