I think I owe my MGMT 101 class (in general) and some MGMT 101 students (in particular) an apology. Things didn't go as well as I would have liked. On almost every measurement I use to judge my performance in class, I scored a 'Not very good'. So, I'm left sitting here reflecting on "What went wrong?" How did I manage to turn today's class into (what might generously be called) a farce?
It would be easy (but wrong) to blame the students. Whilst, it takes 'two to tango', I should have managed events better. The responsibility for the class is mine.
But, before continuing, I hope the class will accept my apology for my lack of professionalism this evening. And, to the students to whom I was unfair, I hope you will accept this apology too.
So, what went wrong, and what have I learnt from this?
Basically, the class got lost, and both I and members of the class got over excited by out positions.
I think that I took the subject (business ethics) too personally (as opposed to too seriously). I've seen so many managers make unethical decisions with no real consideration of the consequences of their actions. Furthermore, I've seen students do likewise1. And, often, I've been left to pick up the pieces. Hence, when I saw the direction the class (or some of it) were taking I got a little excited and very defensive. Certainly towards the end of the discussion I was adopting the classic "win do not lose" attitude that is talked about by Argyris & Schön]. I was well and truly stuck in Model I, and rarely ventured out into Model II.
So what could I have done differently? It would be trite to suggest that I be more Model II. Rather, I think David Barry's admonishment to slowing things down is good - if things had been slowed down I would have had more time to think about what was happening and try and change the direction.
My other reflection is this -- ethics is a difficult subject. Not hard, but difficult in that it can cause us to challenge some of our fundamental beliefs, and that can always make for an 'exciting' class.
Footnotes
1 You can tell from that statement I'm not an ethical relativist.
2 Argyris and Schön (1974) lay out is magnificent detail the realities of defensive reason in organisations.
I wonder to what extent ethics are influenced by culture, do you think business ethics generally has strong Anglo-Saxon roots?
That's an interesting question. I think you are right - ethics are strongly influenced by culture. Elsewhere I mention an article that provides an overview of basic ethics -- anyway, it also discusses some non Anglo-Saxon views of ethics.
At one level, ethics deals with the relationship between the individual and society. Taking the West's emphasis on the primacy of the individual versus the East-Asian emphasis on the collective, it would seem inevitable that different views of ethics would arise. This difference is addressed, somewhat, in The geography of human thought.
Having said that, I realise it was only the Anglo-Saxon students, and me, who participated in the "escalation of committement" to our positions.
In addition to the individual/collective angle, I think people in the 'West' in general (as well as Arab muslims) have a more absolutist position on ethics- more black and white that shades of grey, whereas it is the opposite in East and South Asia, and Africa. This may partly be because of the Judaeo-Christian tradition - which itself most probably got its dualism from the clear-cut dualism in Persian Zoroastrianism (remembering Cyrus the Great etc had a lot of influence on the Jews at a formative stage). I digress but Zoroastrianism classified everything as being good or evil, so, for instance dogs were good, salt water was evil etc. The problem with this black and white approach is that it gets harder and harder to apply the more complex business and society becomes.
From memory, 'Westerners' are more likely to be absolutists. There is a lot of evidence that 'Easterns' are more likely to take the context of the situation into account, rather than to rely on simplistic rules (I think this applies in strategy too).