Resumo de The Right Thing (conscience, Profit And Personal Responsibility In Today's Business)

Every person & organization is desirous of success, leadership & profits, in its field. But how to achieve these, is an important question. Should we keep only ends in view, or means should also be taken cognizance of? Looking from any angle, both are equally important. But it is worth noting that, if we are on the right track, the results are bound to come evenly. This book is based on author's monthly column, (bearing the same title) in New York Times from 1998 onwards. It has six parts, & a total of 46 Chapters, covering various facets of ethics. The author states that practices of the company, have tremendous influence on its functioning. One such practice is, giving of stock options to the company employees, because of which they keep quiet, for unethical practices, problems & differences between written & unwritten values of the company. This may result in bad conduct of the employees. Similar are the cases regarding, giving & receiving of gifts at different levels, policy for personal relationships between the employees, inter- employee problems, working extra hours without payment & taking action(s) after the incident has occurred instead of a preventive action(s).
The author continues to discuss the question of ethics in the field of hiring & firing of employees, e.g. one employee getting one more job offer after already accepting one, hiring of minority people, giving honest references for past employees, reducing losses by resorting to lay-offs, concern of the boss for the employees, not taking removal of employees as a serious point for the remaining employees etc. Normally a boss is expected to look after his employees, but he may also be in trouble for saving his staff. Other points are, boss secretly putting one staff against the other, embarrassing behaviour by the boss, boss being involved in telling lies, soft corner by a boss who gets a favour from one of his staff etc. Regarding privacy of the employees, discussions are regarding, conducting surveillance on employee's e-mails, mails etc., employees working on-line sending undesirable e-mails to others & also using company network & time for this work. The questions about ethics, thus arise from both sides. Another big ethical aspect is lying & cheating etc. by companies, e.g. at starting stage small companies making it appear larger than it actually is, lying about academic data at the time of recruitment, applying different standards for bribery, revealing unfavourable information for some persons, thefts & embezzlements by employees, avoiding payment of Government taxes, stealing secrets & information through students & consultants etc.
Among other things, arguments & counter arguments between companies (where the matter should have been resolved by sitting across the table), CEO's doing right things getting into trouble, company principles being against individual principles, terming any disagreeable behaviour as unethical, senior company executive not behaving well publicly, company accepting its mistake, discrimination against women for payment of wages for equal work, persons working in the company anonymously disclosing the correct information to outside, getting outside aid when not strictly within the qualifying limit, people trying to take credit for the success but not the blame for failure, putting blame on some one who is actually not responsible, managing uncertainties without full intimation to employees, incorrect messages, & actions of CEO's sending wrong indications in the company.

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