Importance of Meaningful Consequences to Ensure an Ethical Organization

Red diamonds are known as the most expensive and the rarest diamond color in the world. It is Communication Intelligence’s hope that the quotes shared in this section of the magazine will be rare “finds” that will be highly valued.

“... in the majority of cases, companies do not know how or why to examine a person’s background and to make an assessment for fit, for ethics, for performance. There are multiple solutions possible, but these are not gaining acceptance as quickly as they should.”

Ted Bililies
Chief talent officer and managing director at AlixPartners

“While there are many deep and persistent motivations that can lead people to behave badly – greed, power, self-centered recognition immediately come to mind — the consequences of this behavior must be firmly established by a healthy organization.

“What does this mean? It means that a superior or high perfuming organization has a clear set of values and principles on which it operates, and these values and principles are explicitly and implicitly reinforced and rewarded.

“We refer to this system of values and rewards as the culture of the organization. When an individual violates the culture of a healthy organization, there must be meaningful consequences.

“To the degree that there are not consequences, or there are exceptions made, the very integrity of the entire whole organization is at risk. In the age of social media, that kind of news travels like a wildfire and can affect talent attraction, recruitment, reputation and even share price.”

Ted Bililies
Chief talent officer and managing director at AlixPartners,

“There are well-constructed surveys that based on normative groups that can identify when there might be a risk in judgment or behavior that are helpful. Thorough interviews, carefully done, are another effective method. Lastly, reference checks are frequently skipped or done incompletely (and) badly. These need to be increased in almost every case of an important hire.”

Ted Bililies
Chief talent officer and managing director at AlixPartners