Effective or Virtuous: Pick One

Just when the drum-beat of KenLayBernieEbbersDennisKozlowskiMarthaStewart began to seem as unstoppable as, well, a tsunami, the always-refreshing Michael Schrage tees off at "the pea-brained 'ethics-ification' of business decision-making:" 

"Be honest. Would you look your employees in the eye and tell them something that wasn't quite true if it would dramatically increase the chance that your key IT implementation would be finished on time and on budget? I would.

"How about deliberately withholding important information from your boss because you know that its disclosure would provoke his immediate counterproductive intervention in an important project? I would."

From Schrage's perspective, too often people with hidden agendas, ulterior motives, or who just plain take issue with a decision try to turn a legitimate difference of opinion into an illegitimate ethical conflict.

But weren't Arthur Andersen, Enron, and WorldCom prime examples of ethical lapses on an operatic scale?  No—they were cases of fraud, misrepresentation, and criminality. 

Beyond Schrage's colorful rhetoric ["CEOs are supposed to be Chief Ethics Officers; CIOs should be Chief Integrity Officers. How noble. How politically correct. How silly."] is a real point:  Business decisions involve tradeoffs, and simply declaring one should do what's "right" typically resolves precisely nothing since "right" is in the eye of the beholder.

So weigh the tradeoffs astutely and clearly, make a decision, articulate the rationale to those concerned, and move on.  How refreshing.