By Infusionsoft from Flickr.com

By Stefan Georgi

A central tenet of my new course on business ethics is that companies need to elucidate their values in order to succeed.  One great way to do this is to clarify your principles through the development of a mission statement.  An effective mission statement can do wonders for your company.  Ideally, it should be short, elegant, and complete.  It should encapsulate your core values and help stakeholders understand exactly what it is your company stands for.

Over the course of studying numerous businesses, I’ve begun to realize that some companies really “get” mission statements while others struggle.  In light of this, I’ve decided to have a little fun, and to highlight some of the best, and worst corporate mission statements out there.

Presenting:  The 1^st Annual Business Ethics Review Mission Statement Awards.

Award: Most Improved Mission Statement

Winner:  Yahoo

This one takes some explaining….

In a 2007 interview with Adam Lashinsky of Fortune, Yahoo’s then CEO Terry Semel was asked what Yahoo’s motto was.  His response:

“I don’t know that we have a motto. Well, the mission of the company is, Deliver great value to our consumers and, basically, value them.”

Basically value them.  That sounds pretty good, though just “valuing” them would probably work too.

In fact, it seems like Yahoo’s mission statement changes with the seasons.  I guess if your company averaged a new CEO every two years though, you’d have trouble figuring out which values to follow too.

Regardless, Yahoo’s current mission statement is definitely an improvement over 2007’s.  The most recent one reads:

 Yahoo! creates deeply personal digital experiences that keep more than half a billion people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe. That’s how we deliver your world, your way. And Yahoo!’s unique combination of Science + Art + Scale connects advertisers to the consumers who build their businesses.

With a new CEO taking the helm this month, it’ll be interesting to see if this is the statement that finally sticks.

Award:  Most Amazingly Ambiguous Mission Statement, Even A Decade Later

Winner:  Enron

Mission Statement: 

Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence.

 

Even though it has been over a decade since Enron filed for bankruptcy, I’m still amazed by their mission statement.  It’s looks like the kind of mission statement that was written by a bunch of guys who didn’t really want to write mission statement.  It’s as if they just picked four words that sounded “corporate-ish” piled them together, and then went went back to destroying people’s pension funds.

Award:  Most Self-Promoting Mission Statement

Winner:  Apple

Mission Statement:

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

 

Apple’s mission statement is perhaps most remarkable for its shameless self-promotion.  Twelve out of the fifty-eight words in the tech giant’s credo are either Apple products or Apple services.  In other words, 21% of Apple’s Mission Statement is an advertisement.  No wonder they’re America’s most valuable company.

Award:  Most Hard to Find Mission Statement

Winner:  Best Buy

Mission Statement: 

?

It’s not exactly fair to give this award to Best Buy as there are a lot of large companies out there with hard to find mission statements.  Still, I spent nearly twenty minutes on their website, and I couldn’t find anything about their mission or values.  I did find (very easily) a link to their executive bios.  Not that there’s anything wrong with telling people about your leadership.  It just might be more effective if you also explained in what direction it was that they were leading.

Award:  Best Mission Statement

Winner:  Target

Mission Statement:

Our mission is to make Target the preferred shopping destination for our guests by delivering outstanding value, continuous innovation and an exceptional guest experience by consistently fulfilling our Expect More. Pay Less.^® brand promise.

To support our mission, we are guided by our commitments to great value, the community, diversity and the environment.

 

Target gets it.  Their mission statement is clear, concise, and to the point.  They identify their core values, and they clearly state their ambitions.  They slip in a little bit of branding, but they don’t go overboard.  They also mention actionable steps that can help them reach their goals.

Well that wraps up the first ever Business Ethics Review Mission Statement Awards. For a more serious discussion about how to write an effective mission statement, and how doing so can greatly increase your bottom line, check out my course If They Trust You, They’ll Pay You:  The 9 Profit Boosting Principles of Business Ethics.

Target Mission Statement

Apple Mission Statement

Yahoo Mission Statement

This week, the Federal Trade Commission called on Congress to enact legislation that would regulate the companies that compile and sell consumer data.  The agency argued that consumers have a right to privacy, and as such they should be able to access the information that is collected about them.  Additionally, the FTC called for online companies to embrace “Do Not Track,” (also referred to as “do not collect”) a mechanism that allows consumers to opt out of having their digital activities monitored.

While advocacy groups have lauded the FTC’s call for greater protection of consumer privacy, some parties are not so pleased.  The credit rating giant Experian, which deals in the collection and selling of consumer data, see the FTC’s involvement as a risk to their business model.  Online advertisers are also concerned, because they feel “Do Not Track” will severely hurt their ability to connect with consumers.  As one online executive, quoted in The New York Times, said:  “{do not collect} is basically death for online advertising.”  While this statement is certainly a bit of an overreaction, it does raise an interesting point.  How can online advertisers function if there’s no one to communicate to?

How Data Collection Companies Should Handle “Do Not Track”

The truth of the matter is that those who have a vested interest in data collection need not give up just yet.  Even though a “Do Not Track” feature is likely to become a common option for consumers, it’s not clear that most people will even choose this option.  Undoubtedly, some will, but this is a necessary casualty in the greater war of consumer privacy.  Consumers need to be protected.

Rather than fight the “Do Not Track” initiative, companies that rely on data collection should focus on communicating to consumers what the benefits of tracking are.  For Experian, for example, their data collection helps to generate consumer credit scores, an essential tool for most American citizens.  This benefit should be relayed to consumers, so that they can understand why the organization needs their data.  The same goes for online advertisers.  One of the main reasons that online advertisers want data on consumers is so that they can send those people offers that they might actually be interested in.  They should explain to customers that the data they collect allows them to share offers and products that they’ll actually enjoy.  Advertisers can essentially say to consumers (in a much less blunt way):  “You’re going to get advertised to no matter what, so wouldn’t you prefer that the advertisements are for something you actually like?”

The Ethical Implications Behind “Do Not Track”

At the end of the day, there are three major ethical principles that come into play in regards to this issue:

First, there is the principle of autonomy.  As a society, we believe that people are autonomous beings, and therefore they have the right to operate independently.  In this case, the notion of autonomy is being extended to relate to consumer protection, which is a reasonable stretch.  People are independent, and as such they have the right to control who approaches them, and by what means.

Second, there is the principle of accountability.  Accountability is generally defined as the willingness or obligation to accept responsibility.  In this case, it is the companies that rely on data collection who are being held under an increased standard of accountability.  They have a choice; they can willingly change their policies, or they can wait until they are obligated.  It will be much better for them if they choose the first option.  By willingly embracing the increased standards of accountability, companies can show that they have nothing to hide, but are rather offering a valuable service to consumers.

Third, there is the principle of transparency.  Transparency literally means “to show light through,” and it implies that something is being shown in its entirety.  In this case, companies are being asked to be transparent when revealing the data they are collecting, the methodology by which it is being collected, and the ways in which it is being used.  Most respectable companies are not doing anything unethical by collecting data, and it is in their best interest to communicate this to consumers.  Doing so will allay misguided fears by the public, and could possibly lead to the ability to collect even more information.  After all, if a person believes that giving a company their information will have a positive impact on their life, why wouldn’t they go ahead and do it?

The Benefits of Embracing “Do Not Track”

If one reads the writing on the wall, it’s hard to believe that the regulation of data collecting and consumer tracking won’t happen.  Companies that embrace this fact now, while acknowledging an extended notion of individual autonomy, will find themselves in a vastly preferable position to those who try to fight it.  Most consumers don’t want to be in the dark when they log online; they just want to know what’s going on.  By helping consumers to understand why their data is so valuable, companies can ensure make sure that they continue to receive that data.  Ultimately, this approach can produce a win-win relationship between companies, and the consumers that they so desperately wish to understand.

Business Ethics Review

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/business/ftc-seeks-privacy-legislation.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=do%20not%20track&st=cse

Do not track header

By Darren Foreman from Flickr.com

Legend has it that when Darius was king of Persia, he called forth several Greeks who were visiting his court.  When formalities had been set aside, he asked them an unusual question:  What would it take for them to eat the bodies of their dead fathers?  The Greeks were disgusted.  They responded to Darius that no amount of money, in fact, no earthly riches at all, could make them eat their father’s bodies.  Fair enough, Darius responded.  He then called forth some Indians from the Callatiae tribe, who did indeed eat their deceased parents, and asked them what it would take for them to instead burn their ancestors’ bodies (as was the custom of the Greeks).  The Callatiae were disgusted.  They said that under no circumstances would they ever consider performing such a heinous act.

Presumably, the point that Darius was trying to make is that rituals and beliefs are relative.  Different people believe different things, and much of our moral constitution is a product of our environment.  Thus what is repulsive to one society may be perfectly acceptable to another.  Or as Gordon Marino says in the introduction to the book Ethics, The Essential Writings:  Custom is King.

Today the problem of cultural relativism is as prevalent as ever.  We see it manifested in wars, political disagreements, religious clashes and, increasingly, business.  In the United States, the Justice Department is cracking down on those who pay corporate bribes to foreign government officials, a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  On the surface, this sounds like a good thing.  After all, we want our businesses to act in an ethical manner.  The problem, however, is that in many of these countries, bribery is the norm.  As such, companies that do not engage in “paying it forward,” can find themselves on the losing end in the competition for potentially huge paydays.  Thus while the Justice Department has been gaining some major victories, they may be coming at the expense of American companies and their shareholders.

Arguments For and Against A Crackdown on Corporate Bribery

Those who support the Justice Department’s crackdown do so on two grounds: morality and the law.  In terms of the first, people argue that paying a bribe is dishonest, and therefore immoral.  Following this logic, they conclude that those who pay a corporate bribe are acting unethically.

In terms of the second argument, supporters of the recent government crackdown say that it is a legal issue.  The Foreign Corrupt Practices act is a law, and as such companies that ignore it are lawbreakers.  For these people, there is no grey area, or room for skirting the rules:  cultural relativism is a non-issue.

The problem with arguing the first ground is that it ignores the differences in cultural norms.  While paying a bribe is considered very dishonest in America, it is considered a standard way of life in many countries.  This isn’t to say that regular citizens enjoy bribery, or that it doesn’t hurt them, but rather they just don’t consider it a big deal.  This begs the question:  How do you deal with something that is unethical in America, but morally acceptable somewhere else?

The problem with arguing the second ground is that the law, while supreme, is derived from ethical principles.  The law is established in response to a need for justice; a need for elucidating what is right and wrong.  Therefore while it may be an excellent regulating mechanism in our country, it does not necessarily carry over to other countries.  Of course, American companies are still subject to the law of the land.  The previous point is not made to advocate that any U.S. Company should break the law – they should not – but simply to point out the problems with using the law as the final say in the case against corporate bribery.

The Challenge Ahead

The World Bank estimates that around $1 trillion in bribes is paid annually to government officials.  This number has been growing over the last decade, which suggests that bribery is becoming a global endemic.  As graft continues to rise in popularity, corporations and their employees will increasingly find themselves in difficult situations.  In 2003, for example, there were no business people charged with corporate bribery under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while since 2009 there have been 67 people charged.  According to the New York Times, there are currently at least 78 companies being investigated for FCPA violations.

The problem with the current Justice Department crackdown is that it hurts the ability of some companies to be competitive.  This can lead to less than stellar economic performance, which in turn can affect their stock price, and the livelihoods of their shareholders.  Thus while the Justice Department may be acting appropriately, and in legal compliance, they might also be propagating an unjust law.

Again, none of this is to say that bribery is desirable.  In an ideal world, bribery would not exist.  People would perform their jobs out of duty to their country – a sense of virtue – and companies would operate in a morally superb way.  In reality, however, things are far from perfect.  The challenge moving forward will be for the Justice Department to help U.S. Companies stay competitive, while also finding a way to account for varying cultural values.  How this plays out will have huge implications for all parties involved.

Business Ethics Review

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/business/corporate-bribery-war-has-hits-and-a-few-misses.html?pagewanted=all

One of the biggest news stories of the last week revolved around a company using homeless people as wireless hotspots.  It occurred during the popular South by Southwest technology conference in Austin, TX, and was implemented by marketing company BBH Labs.  News of the campaign rapidly went viral, and many made haste to criticize BBH.  Tim Carmody, who blogs for Wired Magazine, described the problem as “completely problematic” and “sounding like something out of a darkly satirical science-fiction dystopia.”  New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio said it “crossed a line.”  Influential blogger XO Jane blasted the campaign as “exactly the kind of thing hipsters would come up with.”

In fact, it was hipsters that originally drew critical attention to the BHH initiative.  The campaign was waged at one of the biggest tech conferences in the country, and those in attendance were quick to utilize social media platforms to voice their disdain.  The story spread like wildfire, and so too did the negative feedback.  The problem, however, was that very few of those who were lamenting the campaign actually knew the facts.  Instead, they just saw what appeared to be exploitation and reacted.

As it turns out, BBH had partnered with a local homeless shelter to recruit members of the campaign.  They equipped the homeless people with t-shirts and business cards, paid them $20 a day, and gave them buckets to collect donations (which they got to keep).  While most of the digerati were lambasting BBH, the actual homeless people involved were just thankful to have a gig.  As one participant told the New York Times, “I love talking to people, and it’s a job.  An honest day of work and pay.”  Another homeless person, Kevin Tucker of New York City, said that he would “do it in a second,” if given the opportunity.  He said that he saw it as a “business opportunity.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Tucker, he likely won’t be getting that opportunity anytime soon.  BBH had originally planned to launch their campaign in New York City, but they have since put it on hold due to the outpouring of criticism.  Bloggers and concerned citizens can claim a victory for stopping the program, but it comes at the expense of the homeless themselves, the very group whose interest they claim to be concerned for.

The Problem with Social Media and Rapid Response

This outpouring of criticism from the uniformed underlies a greater problem in the digital age:  The rapid rate at which information is disseminated.  On one hand, the great ease at which data can be accessed is a good thing; it strengthens our democracy and gives a voice to the common citizen.  On the other hand, however, it often comes so fast that crucial components of the truth are ignored.  The result is that people can hear about something that “sounds bad,” and react emotionally to it before they’ve had a chance to fully examine the facts.  The subsequent outpour can be very damaging, almost instantly harming the reputation of a well-intentioned company.

All of the above is not to say that BBH did not make a mistake.  Primarily, they erred in their presentation of the project.  The shirts that they gave the homeless to wear bared their names, along with the phrase, “I’m a 4G Hotspot.”  It was perhaps this poor choice of words that first elicited much of the negative feedback.  People felt that the slogan, and by association, the campaign, objectified the homeless and minimized their plight.  It appeared that the homeless people were operating as the means to ends of a much wealthier “tech crowd,” and this evoked their (the “their” is technically unclear here) moral disgust.

The truth of the matter is that the homeless who participated in BBH’s projects were not being used specifically as means.  They were treated as ends in their own right, as can be evidenced by the financial compensation, and the stated goal of the project to help raise awareness for the plight of the disadvantaged.  The marketing company definitely did err in their judgment, but they were not acting in a morally reprehensible manner.

Why Rapid Response Social Media Can Hurt Our Society

Only time will tell what the future holds for BBH.  One thing is certain though; they will have to think very carefully before attempting another charity campaign.  What is sad is that events like this will ultimately have a negative consequence on our society.  When companies thinking about doing good decide not to because the risk of being crucified via social media is too great, Americans lose.  We lose because we are stifling innovation, one of the benchmarks of our own society. We lose because our propensities to make judgments without facts will continue to lead us away from rationalism and towards sensationalism.  And we lose because this tendency towards sensationalism encourages us to point out “problems,” in society without actually offering any solutions.

This last trend is perhaps the most concerning because it encourages people to look at the homeless as part of the problem.  Those who see a street-person with a wireless router, and then tweet about it, are not really contributing anything substantial to the conversation.  In fact, they themselves are objectifying the homeless, by using them as a tool to sound witty, or to gripe about the societal issues with which they are vaguely concerned.  They seem oblivious to the fact that complaining is easy while doing something is much more challenging.  And at the end of the day it is the homeless people – the very citizens whose plight they are lamenting – who suffer the most from those hollow words.

Business Ethics Review

Pros and cons of social media

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/technology/homeless-as-wi-fi-transmitters-creates-a-stir-in-austin.html

*Editors Note:  This article is by a guest contributor, K.C. Dermody.  In it, she argues that multitasking at work can be unethical.  What do you think of her arguments?

By K.C. Dermody

We Love Multitasking

The ability to multitask can be a great asset when it comes to many jobs. In fact, it’s been suggested that this is one of the key skills that many interviewers are looking for in their job candidates. According to Robert Half International, the world’s leader in professional staffing and consulting services, 36 percent of employers named multitasking as one of the most important characteristics in a job applicant.

There are many reasons an employee might need to multitask, in this fast paced world everything is expected in an instant. An employee might answer the phone and write an email at the same time or work on five different projects all at once with multiple windows, tabs and programs open simultaneously.

Suddenly the employee appears to be jumping through tasks seamlessly, and in the eyes of managers and co-workers he might achieve rock star status in the office by taking on so many different projects at once.

Multitasking Gone Wrong

Despite multitasking’s good reputation, however, it can also have drawbacks.  With everything in life, there needs to be a balance. The problem starts when the employee finds it impossible to focus on just one task, only giving each project a portion of their attention as a result. This is when mistakes are most likely to happen, and if the employee is in a customer service related position, the customer they are dealing with will not receive the full attention that they deserve.

By multitasking, you may be doing a lot of work, but you aren’t doing any of it well. According to a study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they found that those who multitask the most are far worse at it than those people who focus on fewer tasks simultaneously.

Multitasking as Unethical

This makes multitasking unethical when it comes to business for a number of reasons. We all know that it’s dangerous to get behind the wheel of the car and not give our full attention to driving. Most states have laws against driving and using a cell phone for this very reason. While you may not be risking your life by multitasking at work, you may be risking your company’s reputation by not giving your full attention to the job.

Another issue that arises is that many talented multitaskers find that if they do not have enough projects to work on all at once, they begin to mix their own personal affairs with business.

According to a survey by Salary.com and American Online as reported by Inc.com, employees spend an “average of 1.86 hours per eight-hour workday on something other than their jobs, not including lunch and scheduled break.” They concluded that based on those averages, “employee time-wasting costs U.S. employers an estimated $544 billion in lost productivity each year.”

It’s not hard to see how multitasking can quickly turn into something that crosses the line when it comes to business ethics. Not only is it easier to make a mistake on the job, making the company look bad, multitaskers often use company time for their own personal reasons, effectively stealing the company’s time, and therefore, their money.

Perhaps it’s time we change the way we look at multitasking and relearn how to focus on one task at a time. The ability to stay focused provides a better sense of accomplishment as each project is done right the first time and may also be more effective in the long run.

K.C. Dermody is a freelance writer with thousands of articles published on both online sites and printed publications, as well as having extensive experience in sales and recruiting within the Human Resources industry.”

Human multitasking

By Mosman Library from Flickr.com

In late spring of 2010, a study performed by researchers at the University of Michigan reported that today’s college students are 40% less empathetic than they were thirty years ago.  The research quickly made headlines, gaining press in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, and Scientific American.  Some pundits pointed fingers at video games and social media as causes of the declining empathy rate, while others offered prescriptions for addressing the problem.  Very few, however, asked the question of how the results of this study might affect the digital media business?  The article provides some insight into that question.

The Case for Blaming Digital Media

            The amount of content that has become available to the average college student has grown exponentially since the year 2000.  Today, a student logging onto the internet is exposed to a world of articles, blogs, videos, games, and social networking that was simply unimaginable a decade ago.  The web has exploded in the last ten years, and information has been democratized.

Researches in the University of Michigan study found that the greatest decrease in empathy also occurred in the last decade.  Thus, it is easy to hypothesize that there is a correlation between the growth of digital media and the decline of empathy.  So far, however, no such definitive connection has been found.  There is evidence that playing violent video games does reduce ones compassion for the pain of others, but this hasn’t been shown to carry over to an overall lack of empathy.  Similarly, a recent San Diego State study found that college students are more narcissistic today than they were a generation ago, but this finding does not necessarily mean that the Internet is to blame.

How Digital Media Providers Need to Respond

Despite the lack of definitive evidence, placing blame on digital media for the woes of society is an increasingly popular tactic by members of our society.  What this means for digital content companies is that, whether or not validly, they will continue to be viewed under an increasingly harsh microscope.  How they respond to this scrutiny can have serious implications for their future success.  The digital media industry needs to take three steps to ensure that they are treated equitably and fairly when it comes to changing public perception:

First, they need to illustrate how their technologies connect people to one-another, and how this connection can indeed promote empathy.  The recent viral video Kony 2012, produced by the non-profit group Invisible Children, is an excellent example of how that can happen.  In just one week, this documentary about the cruel dealings of the Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony was viewed a record 100 million times on YouTube.  People all over the world watched this movie and shared their moral outrage at the way Kony was using child-soldiers.  They expressed, for all intents and purposes, a great deal of empathy.

Second, the digital media industry needs to continue to develop technologies that foster inter-personal relations.  Facebook, LinkedIn, and others ostensibly do this already, but their format could be better suited to serve this end.  For Facebook, one improvement might be to consider changing their “timeline” feature so that people a user is significantly interconnected with are featured prominently within it.  For LinkedIn, focusing more on business relationships, and less on business connections could go a long way in fostering empathetic users.  They could also add sections for users to express their professional goals, dreams, and aspirations.  Doing so would make members seem less like means to others’ business ends, and more like autonomous ends in their own right.

Finally, the digital media industry needs to embrace empathy as an ethical value.  Ethics is generally looked at as the actions that an entity ought to undertake, and therefore it is fairly prescriptive.  As such, espousing empathy as an ethical value might be a challenge for some tech companies that don’t like being told what to do.  Eventually, however, they will realize that doing so strongly aligns them with the desires of their constituents, which exactly where most businesses want to be.  Thus while companies might initially buy into empathy to appease critics, they are likely to find that their public relations and bottom line end up getting a boost as a result.

One unfortunate side-effect of the democratization of information – that is, its ready availability to everyone – is that it is often taken out of context.  This negative consequence is generally not the fault of researchers, who gather their data with rigor and objectivity, but rather just an attribute of human nature.  Human beings are problem-solvers, and they will speculate if it helps them to answer a question.  This means that, whether right or wrong, they will go out of their way to find validation for their theories.

In regards to the digital media industry, this human characteristic is both a blessing and a curse.  On the one hand, it was people’s desire to find answers to problems that helped grow the Internet in the first place.  Wanting better answers to questions is the reason that Google is one of the largest companies on the planet.  On the other hand, it also means that digital media companies will increasingly come under scrutiny as societal woes are brought to the forefront of public conversation.  It is silly for tech companies to try to ignore this problem, because the public certainly will not ignore them.  Digital technology dominates nearly every facet of our lives, and it is always going to be in our minds when it comes to cultural analysis.

By hiding like the elephant in the room, the digital media industry becomes the elephant in the room.  A much better solution would be for them to demonstrate to the public why they are not the elephant at all.  They can do this by illustrating how their technologies foster empathy between people, improving those technologies, and embracing empathy as an ethical value.  Ultimately, doing so can help shift the public’s view of them from part of the problem, to part of the solution.

Business Ethics Review

Digital Media