These two videos explain moral muteness and moral myopia. These are biases that occur in organizations that prevent us from behaving ethically as a group. Moral muteness is when we communicate in ways that obscure our moral beliefs and commitments, or don’t voice moral sentiments at all. Moral myopia is a distortion of moral vision…
Know and appeal to a short list of widely shared values. Don’t assume too little (or too much) commonality with the viewpoints of others.
This video from Ethics Unwrapped introduces the idea of the “overconfidence bias.” You may have heard that most drivers rate their driving skill as above-average. The idea also applies to acting ethically. The overconfidence bias is our tendency to be more confident in our ability to act ethically than is objectively justified by our abilities…
In this edition of the bias series, we look at self-serving bias. It’s tempting to pick and choose information that props up our self-esteem. The self-serving bias causes us to see things in ways that support our best interests and our pre-existing points of view.
Neuroscientist Uri Hasson researches the basis of human communication, and experiments from his lab reveal that even across different languages, our brains show similar activity, or become “aligned,” when we hear the same idea or story. This amazing neural mechanism allows us to transmit brain patterns, sharing memories and knowledge. “We can communicate because we…
Trust is the foundation for everything we do. But what do we do when it’s broken? In an eye-opening talk, Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei gives a crash course in trust: how to build it, maintain it and rebuild it — something she worked on during a recent stint at Uber. “If we can…
The word “ask” in the question poses an interesting ethical conundrum. Q: Our company recently released a group of disgruntled employees who have since written negative reviews online. Is it appropriate to ask long-term employees to write about their more positive experiences? A: The short answer is that it would not be appropriate. We live…
A reputation for ethics can open doors for a business. Here’s how one company maintains a position of trust. This video originally appeared on the U.S. Bank Financial IQ site on March 13, 2009. Used with kind permission of U.S. Bank.
Perhaps the most important caveat is to avoid making excuses. Q: How do companies that have shown consistent declines communicate positive messages that don’t feel hollow both internally and externally? A: The messaging will be distinctly different if market changes primarily caused the decline than if there have been failed initiatives by management. Only after…
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