hello everyone my goal in today's session is to give you a framework or a process that you can go through when you're faced with an ethical dilemma at work let's get started when you're faced with an ethical dilemma at work I'm going to suggest that you go through a series of questions and the series of questions starts out with what are the facts what's going on why do I feel uncomfortable because when you're faced with an ethical dilemma you're probably going to feel some stress so at first you need to figure out what are the facts what do I need to know and the good news about finding out the facts is that it's possible that the more you know the more you'll discover that you're not faced with an ethical dilemma and you can move on your regular working day so I'm going to ask you to start out by figuring out what are the facts and then second you should ask yourself what is the issue it will help you when you're formulating the issue that you're faced with to start with the word should should I or should my company take a particular course of action and then the third question will be what are my options I know enough facts you're not always going to know all of them you're going to know the issue and then you're going to ask yourself what are my options you can brainstorm what can I do here then eventually we're going to get to the core of what we're trying to figure out today which are what ethical principles or guidelines lines are going to guide my behavior just a quick word about the law some of you probably already have had a law class and some of you have not we're going to ignore the law a bit in this particular session but sometimes laws or regulations tell us what we should do and you need to ask yourself is this one of those moments where it's not really an ethical dilemma because the law is going to tell me the answer I'll give you an example suppose that you work in the in an industry in which you happen to know that there's going to be a merger between two companies and it's pretty exciting and you want to tell people about it but you're not allowed so let's suppose that you tell one of your parents and you are faced with the question should I tell my parent not to trade based upon this information well that's not really an ethical dilemma because the law tells us the answer to that don't tell your parents because if you do and your parents trade they're going to get in trouble and they're going to have to give their profit back so sometimes when you're faced with a an ethical dilemma law provides an answer but we're going to look at situations where the law isn't especially clear and you are faced with a question that will ask you to go back to what are the facts what's the issue what are my options and what principles should guide my behavior ethics let me tell you what ethics doesn't do ethics does not tell you how to maximize your own interests if ethics were about maximizing self-interest we'd all be Pros because our training to date as individuals and in the world of business we're pretty good at maximizing our self-interest but here I have a definition of ethics and I'm going to get right to the root of it ethics means that other people and what's good for other people counts it's not all about us it's not all about our self-interest and what will make us Propel forward in our careers examples of ethical dilemmas should I look the other way if I see my boss accept gifts when I know that my company says we're not allowed to take gifts that's an ethical dilemma because you're watching someone you're seeing that they're violating a company policy and you're asking yourself should I act so again we might go back to what are the facts maybe there's something you don't know what are the issues I've articulated the issue what are the options can you seek the advice of a mentor for example and then eventually we're going to ask what principles should guide my behavior so another example should I file a government Report with incorrect information if doing so will help my company move forward word is that a good enough justification doing what's best for my company even if what I'm submitting is not accurate and then finally should I do what everybody else is doing if everybody in your company abuses their expense accounts should you just go ahead and do it anyway because everybody else is doing it those are examples of ethical dilemmas and your gut will tell you your intuition will tell you that you're faced with an ethical dilemma because you'll feel some conflict you'll feel some stress so let's think about ethical dilemas facts issues and options have I gathered as many facts as possible have I articulated the most significant issue and what are my options that's the initial step