Category: Business Ethics

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Uncategorized

As a marketer and copywriter, I’m very interested in the science of persuasion. I read writers like Dave Lakhani, Mark Joyner, Janet Switzer, Ben Mack, Robert Cialdini, Kevin Hogan, Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, and Sean D’Souza, among many others. (Why is this list so male dominated? I don’t know.

But as someone who stresses ethical marketing, I have lines I do not cross.

Dave Lakhani sent a link to an extremely disturbing video by Derren Brown, who’s apparently quite well known as a persuasion guy in the UK (I wasn’t familiar with him before). Under the guise of running a corporate motivational seminar, he cues four of his trainees into a subliminal process in which they’re supposed to figure out all by themselves to stage an armed robbery against an armored van. He uses all manner of subliminal and blatant cues to produce this reaction–but to me, this is over the line. it shows what these techniques can do if they “fall into the wrong hands.”

It has been rumored that a lot of the tactics used by the Bush administration to hypnotize the US into going to war against Iraq, into letting our liberties slip by at home, etc. are directly correlated with their study of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). In this video, we can not only see the techniques in use, but hear Derren explain exactly what he’s doing and why. I won’t spoil the surprise by telling the results.

The video is fascinating watching (and the time goes by very quickly). The lesson to me is: know when you’re being manipulated, even controlled, and take steps to protect yourself.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Uncategorized

I found a really good blog entry by Chris Raymond about the HP scandal (sent by my good friend and comrade-in-ethics Nancy Smith, author of Workplace Spirituality–one day I’ll have to meet her!)

As an ethics writer (Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First) and blogger ( https://www.principledprofit.com/good-business-blog/ ), I am completely appalled at HP’s actions–and the more I learn, the worse it gets. This is the first I’ve heard that the ethics officer actually was aware of these egregious violations and chose to protect the company instead of doing the right thing.

I used to have a lot of respect for HP, influenced in no small measure by an amazing book called The Soul in the Computer by Barbara Waugh–but that ws then, this is now. I own an HP computer and an HP printer–but it will be a very long time before I buy another one.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

The always-fascinating Romensko newsletter on journalism has a run of ethics stories in its September 8 issue, with links to the major media where the stories appear. I confess–I can’t begin to keep up with this very informative newsletter. I read it once in a while, and often quite a bit after publication.

In this one issue, it reports:
10 Miami-area journalists take government money to promote an anti-Castro message
HP has been spying on the phone records of major journos
An article about the Wall Street Journal’s policy of accepting ads on the front page–and how a recent front page bore both a story on the HP scandal and an ad from HP!

These are just three of a number of links to related stories in this roundup

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Uncategorized

War profiteers are at it again.The Boston Globe reports,

The estimated costs for the development of major weapons systems for the US military have doubled since September 11, 2001, with a trillion-dollar price tag for new planes, ships, and missiles that would have little direct role in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Uncategorized

As if the scandals involving conduct of the war and treatment of prisoners weren’t bad enough…now we find a U.S. Army Reserve officer who doesn’t just have his hand in the cookie jar…he’s sucking the contents out with a hose!

Both AP and UPI reported identical stories about Lt. Col. Bruce D. Hopfengardner and his extortion of “cash, cars, premium airline seats, jewelry, alcohol and even sexual favors” in order to throw massive contracts toward those bribing him.

He has pled guilty, as have the two men who wooed him with such “gifts” as “a white 2004 GMC Yukon Denali with a sandstone interior,” a Harley-Davidson, and a $5700 watch.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Uncategorized

Sigh. I should have known it was probably too good to be true. For the last few years, I’ve been praising oil giant British Petroleum’s many environmental initiatives, and suggesting to my friends that BP, or Venezuelan-sourced Citgo, are better choices for gas purchasing than, say, Exxon-Mobil or Chevron-Texaco.

But now, I’m not so sure. Investigative reporter Greg Palast, who’s broken some of the top stories of the last decade, including the scrubbing of thousands of black (and likely Democratic) voters from the Florida voter rolls prior to the 2000 election, accuses BP of dastardly deeds, including

  • Ignoring a well-reported corrosion problem in Alaska until fixing it could be timed to include a shutdown of critical facilities during the summer heat season and an Enron-style squeeze of customers and price-jacking.
  • Engaging in a pattern of intimidation and retribution against internal critics, whether or not they go public
  • Failing to clean up the Exxon Valdez spill for which they had taken responsibility

    • Of course I haven’t verified these accusations–but Palast has a very good track record. Fortunately, there are a couple of Citgo stations near me.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Uncategorized

    Marketplace Radio reports that a company called Brocade Communications is the first to be charged in the latest business ethics scandal wave–back-dating stock options to inflate their gain. The first of many, I suspect. The backdating of stock options is apparently rampant, as I’ve written in the past. You pass a Sarbanes-Oxley and the crooks figure out something new.

    Still, I continue to be optimistic, sometimes in spite of much evidence to the contrary, that human beings are basically wired to do the right thing, and will rise to those expectations eventually. If it weren’t for my optimism, I never would have written an award-winning book on how ethics can drive business success.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

    Remember the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle from high school physics? It’s the idea that the act of observing something can alter the organisms or events being observed.

    A fascinating article by Thomas Kostigen on Dow Jones MarketWatch looks at how media coverage changes the behavior of governments and corporations, specifically dealing with ethical concerns. The article cites the work of Luigi Zingales, professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business–who found that businesses will often improve their behavior when the media spotlight shines on them.

    As an example, when the media jumped on the excessive-compensation reportage regarding the salary of former New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso, he lost his job.

    However, government is a different matter, at least these days. Kostigan sees the media, in its coverage of both corporate and government issues, as irresponsibly unwilling to go deep, late in its reportage, and too eager to sail in the perceived political wind:

    Too often the media plays patsy and is meek in the face of challenge, as was the case with the reporting on the events leading up to the war in Iraq. Or it trails intrepid government inquisitors such as Elliott Spitzer. Or it gets the story wrong — weapons of mass destruction, President Bush’s National Guard record. Or lies about it — Jayson Blair, Jack Kelley

    On the business front, the media lagged inquiry on just about every corporate scandal in recent memory; its business is to break news, not merely report it.

    As someone who writes regularly about ethics and media, I have to agree with him, at least as far as the mainstream press goes. Most important stories these days are broken by the underground press, or by people like Greg Palast who is an American working for British journalism companies that are less afraid to go after the truth.

    I’m still hoping that the Business Ethics Pledge will help change that unwillingness to question. Questioning–questioning everything, and digging deeper–is what journalism should be about.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

    Yeech! I just signed on to approve one comment and found 65 in my box. 63 were spam and two were legit. I marked them all as spam and hopefully won’t ever see another subject line of “buy Valium.” What do these people think they’re going to accomplish by spamming a blog that moderates posts?

    If you suddenly find that I’m no longer accepting comments, it’ll be because I’ll have lost patience with these cretins. I wish I could force them to read the section of my book Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World called “Spam: The Newbies’ Natural Mistake.”

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Uncategorized

    Here in Massachusetts, the failure of the massive road project in central Boston known as the Big Dig has been front-page news for about a week. A recently-married motorist was killed when a tunnel ceiling collapsed on her car; her husband managed to crawl out a window and escape.

    To his credit, Republican Governor Mitt Romney cut short an out-of-town trip, stepped in, assumed (long-overdue) control over the project, and began immediate inspections–inspections that revealed thousands of glaring safety errors in many parts of the project.

    Throughout its decades-long construction, the Big Dig has been plagued by cost overruns, corruption, allegations that inferior materials were used, and other problems. And almost as soon as the tunnels under Boston Harbor were opened (not that long ago), they began to leak. We already knew it was a boondoggle. Now it seems that both the design and engineering were deeply flawed and the largest/most expensive single road project in US history has been a failure.

    One has to question whether proper government oversight, complete with thorough inspections at every step of the way, would have shown the shoddy materials and flawed engineering without someone having to die.

    Meanwhile, here’s another example that corruption has human costs.

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