E127 – The Conscience Code (w Professor Richard Shell)

and James.

hello, Mr. James, and this is Jane, and here we are again with another episode of a world of work podcast. We've got another good one for you. We were talking about one of our favorite types of topics. Jane, who are we speaking to? And,

oh, James, I couldn't be more excited if I don't know there's no I don't know if there's anyone, I'd want to be more excited. So we are speaking to the Chair of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School, Richard Schell, and we're going to be talking all about business ethics and ethical behavior in the workplace.

Super, super topical, really interesting. Can't wait to have a chat. Here we go. So here we are in today's podcast, and we're really excited to be having a fantastic guest with us. We've got Richard sell here today, who's the Chair of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and he's done a lot of interesting work there. He's written multiple books. His fifth book has just been published, which is the conscience code. And we're going to be speaking to him today about that. But we're also going to be exploring a little bit more broadly, his understanding interpretation of some of the ethical challenges that individuals face in the modern workplaces that people are in at the minute, and also explore a little bit about what we might be able to do to challenge and face into some of those behaviors that go against our core values when we're in those workplaces. So Richard, before we get into that topic a bit more. Would you be able to introduce yourself and say a little bit about yourself and your background to the audience?

Sure. Thank you, James and Well, thank you very much for having me on the I'm a non traditional academic. I came to the Wharton School as a junior member of the faculty when I was 37 so I had been a lawyer before that. I had actually been a conscientious objector to the war in Vietnam before that, and a social worker. Had about five different careers, I guess. And so as a person joining the faculty, I worked my way up to the ranks to being chair, and then also, I think interestingly, from my career standpoint, was the leader of a major redesign effort at the Wharton School to create a brand new MBA program and MBA curriculum. So the course, the responsibility course, on which the conscience code is based, actually, of course, I helped to create as a designer, and then have taught for about 10 years, and it's a professional responsibility course for MBA students

brilliant. That's helpful. And I love your varied background as well. I think it gives so many people hope to see that variety and that sort of funneling in on a path that fits with that, you know, discovering what's good for you within your career, I think it's, I think it's good to see that breadth of experience leading into this, and hopefully it's provided lots of insight for this ethical work as well, if we start off. I was just curious, you know, you said you've rewritten this program on the responsible business side of things as part of the MBA, I guess. Why do you why do you think this is an important subject now, what's brought this area into your focus, and what have you gotten out of starting to teach that course, or having taught that course for the last 10 years? I should say, Sure,

I think business education is excellent at providing people with tools, whether they're management tools, goal setting or feedback, or all the different things that people need to do, both hard and soft skills that are, you know, kind of how to do things, but it's lacking a bit in the what's the important thing to do category, and what kind of person should you be, and how do You bring your own personal story and self awareness to the work you do in the organization. I think that the general topic that subsumes most of that is leadership, and so the course in responsibility, and I think the whole area of ethical practice falls under the leadership category. I had a guy named Yancy Strickler wrote a blurb for the conscience code. He's the co founder of Kickstarter. It's a well known website, sort of a crowd source funding site. And he said, trying to run an organization these days without paying attention to your conscience is like trying to fly a plane without. Wings, and that's a pretty good analogy. It's the kind of thing that is you have to be aware of almost all the time, because you never know when your values are going to be challenged and then have a sense of yourself. It's really a personal identity question, more than anything else, as to what is non negotiable for you when a values challenge comes up. So I think it's an essential aspect of leadership. And I think in the most recent time period, it's been very much to the front as society has undergone so many sort of cataclysmic value challenges, polarization, the rise of the metoo movement for women's rights, the Black Lives Matter movement for social justice. As different groups have suddenly come to their own realizations that they have to stand up for themselves and to make sure that their voices are heard. So. So this topic really feeds right into that, and it's been much more top of mind, I think, in the last decade, than it was the decade before that.

Yeah, and in the even in the past few months, it's, it's early June 2021, at the minute. And even recently, we've seen business leaders in the US doing things like relocating due to interpretations of voter suppression and things like that. So it feels like business leaders are taking more ownership or adopting more of a willingness to face into some of those potentially ethical issues. Do you get that sense that there's more sort of courage and ownership in those demands from business leaders at the minute

I do, and I think the I've always said the strength of your values is the price you're willing to pay for them. And we're seeing business leaders of some very large organizations now being willing to lead their organizations by paying a price some of these judgments that firms are making on behalf of causes that are basically social justice causes are not popular with all of their shareholders or all of their customers. And on the other hand, I think there, we're now in a position where business leaders have to make a choice. They can't just stay on the sidelines. It just is incredible to stay on the sidelines and say, well, we just sell coke. You know, we have nothing to say about human rights or nothing to say about dishonesty or corruption. And so in the modern I think it's partly transparent world that we live in where businesses really are citizens of their societies, not just providers of goods and services. It behooves the people who lead them to understand what their values are, personally, what their duties are as leaders. And then I think it's there's a line you don't want to simply, you know, be imposing values on your employees or your shareholders that are unique and idiosyncratic to you. But I think when you're resonating with the society you're in, it's it's just vitally important that people know that you have a conscience, and

I guess sort of drilling into that. I've got an interest in responsible business, obviously. And one of the things that we've seen over the past couple of years is things like Larry Fink saying that there at Blackrock will only invest where there are environmental plans and things like that, or the business roundtable in the US promoting responsibility in Brisbane more broadly, and saying potentially, there's a need to look beyond the shareholder. Now, one of the sort of challenges that's levied against that in other areas is this challenge of sort of greenwashing towards organizations. What's your sense about this sort of ethical washing of businesses? How much do you think what we're seeing is this sort of washing, and how much do you see as a real change in intention by the leadership? That's

a great question. You know, we talk a lot about greenwashing in, in in, in our business program, it's a, it's a phenomenon that you often see in the wake of some sort of scandal or environmental disaster. And the next thing that comes up is the firm adopts a code of conduct and a commitment to whatever the thing is that they got wrong before, and they're going to get it right now. I think it's, I think the measure that this is anecdotal, I don't have research on this, but the measure for me is when a firm is actually in a pretty good place, and takes actions that express values in support of certain causes, whether they're social justice causes or environmental causes, I tend to treat those with more credibility than the ones that are coming out of a major scandal, and then suddenly. Uh, you know, become converts to the cause, whatever it is, because people don't change that fast. And I think companies change a lot slower than that. So I think it's fine if people, you know, come up with a new statement of intention or goals, but I think accountability is we want to impose even more accountability on firms that are converts to causes that they're recent violators of, than we do to firms that are in strong positions and and you see them taking leadership roles on these values. Yeah,

that's nice way to look at it. You know, where under duress change is made. It's, I guess, a bit less credible, isn't it, than if it's leading from a front and leading from the front foot. I've heard some great stories recently about organizations making changes when they are in that good position, and that's really heartening to hear. So with that, it feels like when we're thinking about organizational leadership, there is intention out there to adopt a more responsible approach, to lead in that front foot kind of way, in an ethical way. However, I'm fairly sure that internally and based on my own experience, anecdotally as well, I've seen this, but there are ethical challenges or moments of conflict with our core values that are faced all across the gamut of work in people's individual lives. As you've been teaching your your program, have you come across any specific examples or generic examples of the types of conflicts that people are facing in the workplace at the moment? Yeah,

I mean, up to now, we've really been talking about the sort of tip of the iceberg. These are the major corporate large corporations doing big things and taking large stands. And actually, my my approach to this whole subject is a much more day to day, and much more pay attention to where you are in your office and to who you are in your office, and to just, you know, be able and willing to stand up when you see your values challenge. And I kind of have this laid out in sort of three levels. It's the way I teach it, to be a responsible business person. I think requires you to do things right, to do the right thing, and to be the right kind of person, and it's actually doing things right, although it sounds like it's really just an execution problem, you know, like, make sure that we, you know, paint the whole piece of furniture and not just part of it. It often comes that the standard of excellence that you want to be known for that the firm has made a commitment to for its customers that that is a do the right thing when someone's trying to cut corners and turn out a sloppy product or put some incomplete data in a report that someone's paid for, or to fudge on a deadline that was actually a commitment, and now they're going to try to sort of obscure the fact that it was not met. So, so, so these lines blur a little bit, and I think a standard of excellence is a value in the same way that a standard of honesty is, and all of that comes from a commitment to being what I think of as the right kind of person and the right kind of person, I try to characterize as a person of conscience. A person of conscience is someone who has their values front and center. They are aware of the fact that when those values are challenged, that it's sort of unthinkable not to express their objection, but how to do it, to do it effectively, to use a problem solving approach to doing it, not just a self righteous approach or a kind of holier than thou approach, is really what I'm trying to write about in the book. My students have brought just, you know, an infinite variety, everything from sexual harassment, where a client was trying to hit on a young associate at a consulting firm to a private equity company that was backdating documents, but expressed the thought to this young employee that everybody does it, so there's nothing really wrong with it to cheating on expense accounts and and again, a lot of rationalization supporting these everyday cutting of ethical corners. Everybody does it just this once, nobody will notice. A fascinating, quick story of a of a student told, told just a month ago, my class, their one of their first jobs out of college was in a call center for a consumer company, and they made calls on behalf of this client, and they would put a whiteboard in this call center, and if you didn't make the right number of calls, your name went up on the board in red you. And this was a new this new employee kind of found their name up on this board and read within a week or so, and their their cellmate in this call center, the person in the next year book cubicle, saw them at lunch and said, You know, I can help you get your name off the red board. And the students said, Well, what do I have to do? They said, well, there are a bunch of us in the office, and we figured out that the monitoring system for our quotas can be defeated if we just call each other and hold the line for a minute and then it counts as a completed call. And so, so he said, Okay, so, so this whole call center had become a giant conspiracy to defeat the bosses who put these unreasonable demands on and then shame people for not making them. This is a classic toxic work environment, and and these employees had gathered together to defeat it by simply calling each other. It was they finally figured out that something was going on by because no one was buying the product, and they did a little audit and figured out where the phone numbers were. A couple people got fired, but a lot of people wanted to leave the job anyway, so, but that's the kind of thing that actually gets more pervasive in the workplace than the newspapers would tell you. It's certainly not a major corporate scandal in the same way that Theranos is in the United States, you know, medical device company that is touting products that don't work to do blood testing, but they're just the everyday challenges that come up at work. And I think if you approach them as I'm a person of conscience, what would a person of conscience do in this situation? The answers tend to be a lot more obvious than if you say, Is this a major scandal? Do I have a duty to blow the whistle, which tends to frame it in a way that is easier to escape responsibility for?

Yeah, that's some great stuff. And I really liked that story of a call center just, it's just a sort of encapsulation of a sort of microcosm of a conflict between unreasonable demands and inventive ways to game the system and get around them. And as you were speaking though, you know, it really brought to life to me, I guess, the mundanity and the sort of de minimis, small things that are the boundaries at which these unethical behaviors, or conscience challenging behaviors take place. And it's good to see that scalar Ness, and to see that perhaps where something is less large scale, but it's still something that challenges our set of values, that it's maybe at those levels where individuals can be more empowered to take some action. And, you know, clean up some of this corporate culture around the edges, which, which maybe sets the trend?

Yeah, I mean, I think people, they are what they do that that's sort of a definition that I like to use. We, most of us, think of ourselves as our intentions. But I think if you're holding yourself accountable, you are what you do, and so when you're acting on your values, you're a person of conscience, even in the small matter. And it's in the small matters. Anyone who's a parent knows that when a child lies, you don't just let it pass. You try to correct the child so that they acquire the habit of telling the truth, and the same is true of our own behavior. You'll gain more confidence, acquire better habits, be proud of yourself and have less regrets in a given day when you're able to effectively express yourself when you feel uncomfortable about what's going on around you, then you will if you just sort of go, Well, just another day. Let's see if I can keep my head down get home, because after doing that a couple times, then you become kind of inured to the next violation, and the next violation may be a little bigger, but now you've got this habit of just turning the other way, and it gets harder and harder to speak up when the when there's something you know really critical and vital and moral, if you haven't had any tendency to speak up when the matters were more retail, yeah,

it sort of erodes your ability to face into that, and you to some extent, become complicit. It's that winding journey down the path where you know, step by step, you're moving in that direction, and suddenly you don't have a footing from which to to push back again exactly, exactly. Um, do you do you feel that there is more of a conscientious or interest in ethics amongst the younger generation of workers at the minute, I know, I mean, clearly you were a conscientious objector, so you've got strong throughs and strong views throughout the back of your career. But, but do you see changes? Do you see an increase in sort of morality or values or ethical approaches within the younger cohort of people in your

I do? I do. Um. Not clear to exactly why. I think, you know, generations are characterized by a lot of social forces, and what becomes the important defining issues of a generation, you know, really has something to do with history and the moment, but I think this generation has been moving through its young adulthood in the midst of a swirling set of important almost planet affecting values, and the environment is the one that I think sort of leads the story, because I think they look at their own lives and think, well, will, will we have a planet for our children to enjoy and and it doesn't take long to move from environmental concerns to social justice concerns, because these environmental matters hit much more heavily on communities of color and people living in more challenged poverty experiences developing countries and so. So it's it's a pretty easy set of steps to take where you suddenly become a global citizen, and those values become really important at a macro level, but, but I think what, what I see in my classrooms is these values of honesty, of compassion, of dignity, are the kind of everyday concern that has come along with the sexual revolution and Me too, and the sort of dignity of all when it comes to sexuality, sexual identity. These are things that these young people have been growing up with from the practically from the cribs. And whereas in my generation, it was more war and peace and civil rights in its earlier edition, I think the current edition, the current generation, is much more attuned to the day to day insults, microaggressions that people endure just from the casual disregard for who they are, what they stand for and what, what their moral duties are to of these larger causes and and it upsets them, and I think they, I think they actually have a sense also that they have options, and a toxic workplace is just not something life's short and a toxic workplace is just not worth staying in for longer than necessary in order to find one where you can actually feel some satisfaction in what you're doing during the day.

Yeah, and we're we're seeing a lot more, certainly, over here in the UK, we're seeing a lot more of the sort of recruitment narrative and the job finding narrative is right as both organizations having needing to have a much clearer sense of themselves so that they can recruit to fit in, is a phrase that we hear a lot this but also the job finders, job seekers are spending more time trying to identify organizations that fit better with their personal values, which kind of leads me to question, what what happens when you work for an organization, and the ways of behaving that you're being asked to do go against your own personal values. What does that do to you? What is what happens to the organization when their employees are consistently being expected to behave in ways that are against their personal values, or indeed, the organization itself is behaving in ways that conflicts with the employees personal values. Yeah,

well, so I'll give you a quick story that I use in the book that is just a typical example in a professional setting of someone finding themselves in such an organization. So a lawyer a law firm in small law firm in the United States, and the lawyer that was working there realized by some accident that they were over billing the clients for the work they were doing. They knew they'd work 20 minutes in a day, and the billing partner had billed them for eight hours that day. So then they checked, and sure enough, there was systematic over billing, not just to this client, but to several clients. So the person did what you would expect them to do, they went to the billing partner and said, Hey, I understand, you know, I actually would like to just question. I have a question for you. I only work 20 minutes on this day, but the client got a bill for eight hours. Was there a mistake? I mean, is there? You know, maybe we could just talk about this. And the billing partner made some cock and bull story about, well, you know, there's some people we don't bill for. We do bill for. And, you know, on average, it all works out. And, and the lawyer with his concern, said, Well, you know, could we do better? You know, maybe we could, you know, be a little more precise about the billing. And the partner went, Oh, no, you know, don't worry about it. It's not really your concern, my concern, you know, just go on about your business. So that wasn't satisfactory, so he took it up one more level. Went to the senior partner in the firm and said, the billing partner is doing this. Is that part of the way the firm works? And that person said, Are you blowing Are you trying to throw so and so under the bus? I mean, you know, you know, go back to your you know, work and let us worry about all this stuff. So he realized he was in a essentially a corrupt organization, that it was an understanding all the way to the top that they were going to defraud their clients. Well, this put him in a tough situation, because if he stays there, who is he? He's now complicit in an ongoing fraud against these clients. Now, Bill padding may be a common practice in the sense that it's probably the case that it happens more often than we would like, but that doesn't make it one that we want to improve or endorse or being complicit in once we know it's happening. And so he was faced with a tough choice, and in the end, he decided he had to quit, and so he was either quit and be a person of conscience, which is what he was, or stay there and lose his identity as a person who cared about his values. Now, all of us have had jobs where we stayed too long, in situations in which made us feel bad about ourselves. I know I've had a couple of those in my career, not in one now for sure, but have in the past. And what happens to your soul when you're working in a place like that? Well, you first get alienated from yourself. So it stops being you're going to work, and it just starts being you're going to a job, and you're going to try to keep it at arm's length and do the least possible to make sure you get the paycheck. And then you yourself might start cutting a few corners because they deserve to be cheated because they're cheating others. And so that's not your best. You the alienation can gradually grow into being slightly depressed about who you are and what you're doing, and that then affects your productivity. You might start turning to things to deaden your emotions, whether it's alcohol or drugs, and your relationships are probably suffering. You're becoming more cynical. Mean, this is not a hard to predict pattern of behavior that can come when you get separated from your values at something you spend eight hours to 10 hours a day doing. So I think it's you know, it what he did was he quit. He blew the whistle on the firm to the regulators. They did an investigation. They sanctioned the firm and and disbarred a couple of lawyers, and he went on to find a job at a less, lesser paying job at a different law firm, but a much more satisfying and fulfilling way to spend his professional life.

Yeah, and that, that experience of people, maybe not to the same extent, but that experience of people, the moment that you have clarity, that something is that is really you're deeply uncomfortable about you. I think you described it at the beginning as he was in a really difficult position. And there is a, there is a discomfort instantly, right? There is a, there is a discomfort that this, this environment, is not the way that I am comfortable being complicit in, which is, yeah, well,

there's two. There's two levels of that discomfort. One is, you know, your values aren't being implemented, and that makes you uncomfortable as a matter of conscience. And the other is, you may have to engage in some sort of personal conflict or confrontation or difficult conversation in order to try to fix it, and that's an independent source of discomfort for a lot of people. They don't feel all that excited about taking this issue to someone else and trying to work it out. So so actually, in the book, I try to have not only you know material about values, but also about conflict management and how to be constructive in the same way that you might have conflict management problems because of personalities, someone's bully or someone is not a good listener. Are they not paying attention to your input? And you need to talk to them about it as if it comes to some issue that relates to honesty or transparency or or customer, you know, excellence, in terms of of what the what the value proposition is for your customers to some sort of deceit. So a lot of these conflicts are just conflict. Yes, and part of your skill is managing conflict effectively.

Yeah, and you've been, you've mentioned that a few times around values. And James and I talk a fair bit about values when we're when we're looking at other areas as well. But it'd be really helpful to understand when you talk about core values, what, what kind of things you speaking about and how can people be really clear what their own values are? Yeah,

that's a great question. I think you know, values are, you know, infinite number. They range from spiritual to professional. In my research, I kind of came up with a list of five value areas that seem to be the most hot button ones when it comes to these conflicts at work. And I made a acronym out of it to make it easier to remember. The acronym is craft, C, R, A, F, T, C stands for compassion related values. That's that goes to like if you're in a hospital, patient safety is a compassionate value. Most well being issues at work, when people are being over stressed and and and their mental well being is at risk, is a compassion value. So the victims of of injuries, whether they're mental or physical or emotional, are compassion values. So there's the C, the R is respect. So those come to that personal dignity part, where you're disrespected just because of your gender or because of your race, and everyone's entitled to equal respect. So when someone's violating respect values, that's usually the manifestation of it, or could be age. The A is accountability. So these are values where you see someone getting away with something because they're the CEOs, you know, pet project, or because they're relative of somebody, and they're not being held accountable the same way everybody else is, and the the morale in the firm will go down very strongly when accountability is not being observed. So accountability values fair F is for fairness and justice. So same pay for same work, all the different who gets to have the weekend off? How do we take turns? How do we share the load? And values of fairness are critical in a workplace, and there are values that most people will recognize when they're violated, and then the T stands for truth. So these are when people are lying, deceiving, making misrepresentations to customers, clients, to fellow employees, whether when perhaps the boss is misrepresenting things to the employees. And so values of truth can be incredibly important as matters that need to be spoken about. So those are the five areas that I think cause the most conflict at work. That's

brilliant. Thank you. And that's a really helpful way of thinking about and maybe reflecting for people, reflecting on their own what when people are in that moment of conflict, and they're very clear on what, what their own personal values are, and they can see something, what are there any practical ways that they can go about thinking about right? What can I do here that allows me to stay behaving in line with my values, even when you know I'm being challenged to behave differently. Sure

I you know that I think is this sort of rubber hits the road challenge. In fact, the book was motivated by a student who told the story in class, and a client had put his hand up her up her dress at a dinner, and she was smart enough to know that she wasn't going to put up with that. But it was a very important client, and there were about 10 people at the table in this round table. So she got up and she went to the bathroom and came back and and tried to break the mood. And then the guy did it again. So she then she found the next she got his hand off her, and then got up and change seats with another person sitting on the opposite side of the table. And so she managed it, but her question to me was, what should I have done after that? And that's when I went, Holy Smoke. There's really no book for that is there. So so I think the first thing you do when you know that your first thing you do is you ask, what would a person of conscience do in this situation, and that then sort of lays the problem out, because, because it's, you know, you've got a matter of values, and you are committed to being a person of conscience. So, you know, what do you what should you do? Should you take action on it? Should you try to fix it or rectify it. If the answer is yes, then, then I think the first thing you do is you have to find somebody else to talk to. I in the book, I have a chapter called the power of two, and all the research on on social conformity and rationalizations and. Pressure of authority all reveal that when a person is not having to act alone, when they're not isolated, when they can find one trusted partner to talk to, the odds of something useful happening and the courage of the person to persist and speak up goes up astronomically. So it may be in the beginning, it's someone at home that you talk to it, you verbalize about it, you ask for advice on, Am I dreaming about this? Is this something that I'm making up, or is this something that is real? You get feedback, then finding someone in your social network at work who you can trust and speak with to start brainstorming what to do now, what to do. Maybe the next step is many firms have mentor systems, and there's at least one person more senior that you could air this with and get advice from about how to manage the politics of this situation so that you don't unnecessarily cause more conflict than necessary, but still fix the problem could just be as simple as getting reassigned. Maybe it's just a thing between you and this person, and they're not actually like a sexual predator, but they they seem to have this thing for you. So so you just, you know, get reassigned so you don't work for them anymore. That's the simple way out. But once you start getting some advice, then you start getting a map for what the social network looks like. Who has influence on who and who might be able to bring the right pressure to bear to correct the behavior in an effective way. And then you start thinking about strategy. So organizational politics is sort of the way most organizations operate. I mean, politics is just the art of appearances. It's, I like to say it's not a question of whether there's going to be politics on organization or not. It's just whether you're any good at managing them, because every organization, including your family, has politics in it. So then, then you start working the system to see how you can form a coalition, bring some pressure to bear to this behavior, to create incentives for them to change, and maybe in the end, you fail, you know. But I'll say this, to the extent that you take any action at all to stand up for your values and try to right the situation, you're going to feel better about yourself. You're going to have a chance of having things get better in the firm and creating a positive work environment, not just for you, but for the next victim down the road. For this person, whoever they are, you have a chance of adding a brick to a corporate culture that'll be healthy for everybody. And this is sort of the payoff. You will be seen as a leader for your values. And most organizations that aren't corrupt want leaders with values. Those are the people that are going to bring about the most productivity, the most productivity with energy and imagination. These are healthy workplaces, and they are looking for people who can lead the kind of value based approach to work that brings out the best of everybody so so you know, at the end of the day, it's good for you to do this just because it's the right thing to do, but it may be very good for the organization that you bring it to their attention, and they'll look to you as someone they can count on as a more effective leader. So it's a lot about politics, but the first step always, power of two, find someone else to share it with.

That's helpful. Thank you. And that that real ability to collaborate with somebody else and even just to open up and share some of your thinking, whether this can be such a powerful place. I mean, you described it as, I think, exponentially increasing the probability that you'll, you'll take action in that circumstance which, which is great, I guess, when we're, when we're, you know, faced with this type of stuff, when we're looking at, you know, overcoming challenges, or facing in some of these ethical dhammas, we do have that option of, I guess, running away a little bit. I mean, that's a slightly way to do it, but that's something that's there we have. Then an option where we look to navigate our way through it and challenge it, I guess, a little bit without doing it overtly. And then I guess we've got a chance, a third option of really speaking up, and I guess facing into the individual or the collective individuals, and trying to make them aware and to change that. And I guess some of that feels a little bit like conflict, which is obviously something that you focus on if somebody is thinking about whether to take that risk of. Speaking up. You spoke about the benefits of being a values based leader for your future career and stuff. But if you're really weighing up the should I speak up about a specific thing? What types of thoughts do you think people hold in that space? And have you got thoughts on how to decide if it's right for you to speak up?

Well, first of all, it may not be right for you to speak up, because you might be able to find somebody who will do a better job than you will. And so your job is to recruit them to speak up. May they may have more seniority, more influence, more credibility. And so I'm by no means advocating that everybody ought to speak up themselves all the time. I mean, the salient options when you have one of these things happen. Let's say there's a team leader who's sexually harassing a young summer intern. They're not harassing you, they're harassing a summer intern. So now what are your options? Well, first, you could look away, so that's just pretend it's not happening. Second, if it's sort of pervasive, and you finally come to the conclusion that there's nothing you can do. This is just a terrible place to work. You can walk away. What you mentioned. So, look away. Walk away. The third is you can actually creatively try to make the problem go away. And that's when you engage a sort of problem solving situation where you where you craft a face saving way to bring this to people's attention and create a new set of norms that make it very unlikely this will happen in the context of someone who's misbehaving with summer interns. You might actually stage a meeting of summer interns, and they're the people who are mentoring them and bring sexual harassment discussion to the table in a gentle way, not sexual harassment, you'd say something along the lines of best practices for how to manage sexual attraction at work and and get a discussion and this person sitting there, and so they're probably beginning to think, oh, you know, something's going on here. Somebody's noticed something. And it could well be that simply airing it the right way in that kind of social setting will make the problem go away. At the very least the intern whom you've taken aside and said, We know this is happening. We want to help you. We're going to stage this meeting as a way of trying to send the message without having to embarrass anybody. So, you know, go with help us out by maybe, you know, just being there for us. And then the fob. The final step, the final option, is to lead the way for change. And that's when you would take on this situation. You'd probably have to report them to HR or to whatever the reporting system is, having tried to engage them and fail and, and, and, and if the firm doesn't have a strong enough policy on sexual harassment, have convene a group, go to the firm's lawyer and talk about the need for it. Again, not alone, always with your power of two, in this case, maybe three or four. Chances are that most of the women in the office at the least, and half the men will be very eager for this to be solved in the right way. So then you've got the chance to actually go through and create some positive systemic change in the office in a way that sets a new norm and that makes it more into the kind of place that everybody wants to work in. So there's, you know, there's these four, look away, walk away, make the problem go away, and lead the way. Are, you know, different options to think about and then ask yourself, am I the right person, or if I'm not, because I'm too low in the organization, or I'm too quiet of a person, or all the reasons why you might not be the best leader to lead the charge who is and then set your sights on recruiting a group of people with the right talents to bring about the change you want to bring about. But I think it all starts with what are my duties as a person of conscience in this situation, and if the echo comes back, you have a duty to act. Then the rest of it is a set of steps where you engage in a little trial and error, but you manage your way through it. The answer is, you don't have a duty as a person of conscience in this situation. Then, then you look for some advice to double check that, and then you, you know, you stand aside.

That's helpful. I like the four before options, and that really paints that well when, when an individual maybe finds themselves in a situation where they might want to speak to an individual directly about. About their behavior. So they've been through they've used the power of two. They've decided they do have a duty of conscience in this situation. They have maybe a message to deliver, or want to engage in an effort to influence and change the behavior of another person based on one of these ethical dilemmas. Have you got thoughts on on how they might be able to prepare themselves well to go into that conversation if they feel they are the right person, and how they might be able to lead into it in an effective way? Or would you advise against doing that altogether?

Oh, no, I wouldn't advise against it. Everything's it depends when it comes to this sort of stuff. I have most of my career. I've spent researching and teaching and training in negotiation and persuasion. I have a book on negotiation that's, you know, 17 languages. It's been a best seller in different parts of the world over 25 years. So so this is familiar territory for me, and it's really applying that to this special, sensitive situation. I think when you are going to approach someone and it's a, it's a question of values that you have to raise with them, first of all, I think it's, it's very helpful to do it again, not alone. I think when you're going to have a sensitive conversation, it's usually helpful to have more than two people in it, especially if the other person is more senior than you. But let's assume that that's not possible in the first round, then I would simply ask for a meeting to talk about a subject that is something that you feel is important but you need some input on so it's not I want to talk to you about your sexual harassment behavior and or I want to accuse you of dishonesty. You want to go in with an open mind, to talk to the person in a way, about and this is really important. You want to share your perceptions of what you see happening, because when you start talking about perceptions, it's very non aggressive to the other side, they see you talking about something you know, something about, which is what's happening in your own head. And that often clears the way for them to share what's happening in their head. And at least some percentage of the time, what you perceive is different than what they perceive in a way that allows you to craft some common ground out of it. You know, I didn't realize they say that by using this word, I was causing any kind of emotional reaction at all was completely unconscious on my part, and I'm genuinely sorry that this made you uncomfortable, and I'd really like to learn how we can talk about things in a way that doesn't make you uncomfortable so but by sharing your perception that you know the use of this pronoun, or whatever it is, was something that disturbed You and that that you had a reaction to, they get a chance to share their perception that they didn't intend it, or didn't mean it, or didn't even know what had happened. So that's the good outcome, is you find this pool of meaning you can share between you, and you create a new understanding of what's going on, and then you can sort of build out a way to work with the person in the future, if they, in fact, are ill motivated and so you share your perceptions and they attack you for having those perceptions. Then I think the next step again is not to attack back, but to field it in a kind of a Keto sort of way, and say, Well, let me see if I hear what you're saying correctly. What you're saying is that that I'm the problem and that I should be less sensitive and that, and that this is just the way the world is as you perceive it, if I heard you correctly. So that's a basic tool of active listening, where you repeat what you've heard in the way that's actually generous to the other side. So you give them a nice frame for what they've said and and then get them to it, you know, agree to it so that you've repeated it. Well, you're not manipulating them. You're not trying to put words in their mouth, you're actually trying to honestly summarize what they've said at a certain point. If it's clear that there's just an irreducible nugget of conflict, they believe that a certain group of people are inferior, and you think that that's a violation of social justice and general humanity, then you have to say, Okay, I think I fully understand this, and I have to share with you that I object fundamentally to the premise of how you're approaching this, and we're either going to have to figure out a way to work to. Together where you don't make these kinds of remarks, or we're gonna have to bring somebody else into the picture, because I think the firm is at some risk for having someone who's gonna be saying this to our customers and to our clients and to our other employees, and so I'd like to know what you think we ought to do so again. The last move is give the problem to them and give them a chance to offer some sort of next step before you take one unilaterally.

Yeah, and that last bit is really powerful, right? Because it's, it's where your draw, your that ability to get complete clarity and confirmation that you have received the information they're sharing correctly, and then refute and challenge it if you need to. I think is incredibly powerful. I just want to, I've got one last question that I'm going to sneak in, and there will be people listening today, lots of managers of teams listening today, thinking, Okay, well, I think we're, I think we're a pretty, pretty ethical workplace, but I've never really thought about it that much, and I really, actually would like my team and the people that work around me to feel they can come to me if they are facing a challenge. What would your advice be to them? How can they make themselves available? Or what can they do to encourage people to bring these kind of challenges to them? Yeah,

that's a great that's a great question, because it also has to be credible. I mean, others a lot, this is like greenwashing that we started with. You know, certain leaders will say, My door is always open, you know, but as soon as you walk into it, you get chewed out absolutely, you know, I think if you're actually a well meaning person, you're not just doing this to pretend. I think people respond well to authenticity and to humility, and so being able to speak as a leader from a place of vulnerability yourself, that is, you know, these, these, these issues of values, are things we have to work on every day. This is not something where you're a good person or a bad person. These are things where they're complicated and and I want to make sure you my my team, realize that I I want this to be an important part of our work. I want us to be proud of not just what we produce, but how we do the work together. And I know sometimes I fail to be as courteous as I should be, or to be as respectful of the inputs of others, and I welcome your correction on that and your input and feedback, but I would really like to have an open door policy where if you feel that you need to speak about some sensitive issue related to values or ethics, that you can trust me to be your trusted partner, not to attack anybody else or to take any concrete action against them, but to brainstorm with you about how we can manage the situation and bring it to a successful conclusion that you'll be proud of, I'll be proud of, and that will be useful and and helpful personal development for everybody. So I think if you come from a place of being a student of this instead of a master of it, everybody wakes up every day, and we all have impulses that are selfish, and we all have impulses that are generous. It's part of the human condition. And I think to the extent you can own the fact that you're a human and not a perfect person, others will trust you more, and it's the trust that's actually the secret sauce that allows people to be open with you, but trust comes from being vulnerable. Trust doesn't come from just, you know, being reliable comes from being someone who is willing to be wrong and to admit it sometimes and to volunteer that. So I would, I would come at it from that sort of standpoint, this person of conscience label maybe a little much. I mean, that's my favorite term, certainly a lot better, better than whistleblower. But I think kind of authentic leadership point of view, maybe, maybe this, I want to, I want to be the leader of a values based team, and I want to be a values based leader. And I want your, I want your help to try to create that kind of workplace, you know, let's, let's have a discussion about that.

That's brilliant. And you know your point there that this is something that we all work on all the time, I think will resonate with a lot of people, and being vulnerable in the fact that we are working on this in ourselves is a powerful thing. So I think that's I think that's really nice. I do reflect on my career and think there was space for me to do more of that, and for those around me to do more of that as well. So I think that's a great message. In the interest of time, I'm going to wrap us up. I think. Had a great conversation. I just wanted to ask is that last question, How could people learn a little bit more about you, and where could people get the book when it's out? It should be out about the time that we release this. And also, I know that you do. You've done some Coursera courses as well. I wondered if you could share details of those as well. Oh, sure. Well,

first of all, the book can be found on Amazon. You know, it's a it's, it's published by HarperCollins, big one of the big five publishers. So it won't be hard to find you can go to HarperCollins. You can go to Amazon. The conscience code is the name of the book. I have a website, a personal website, G, Richards, shell.com, all one word, G, Richard shell, S, H, E, L, l.com, so all my books can be found there. And yeah, I had, I have a book. I have a the book I wrote just before this is called Springboard, launching your personal search for success based on another course I teach at Wharton. And I created a Coursera class, which has gotten 10s of 1000s of people. It's really been a wonderful experience that is six, six weeks in a three hours a week, it's just me sitting in my office talking. There's a lot of self assessments and a lot of sort of diagnostics you can take to think about your own long term goals and think about the values that you hold dear and how to implement those in your life to bring about sort of long term career success. And they can find that just by Googling success. That's the name of the course Coursera, which is the name of the platform and Richard shell and and it's free. There are ways to Coursera has to make you pay for it, but it's free if you want to take it that way. And yeah, I actually think that this project about the conscience code is really just a derivative of the Success book, because to live a successful life, you have to be someone who's at comfort with your own values and your own sort of the way you behave every day, at work, at home, in your community, it makes you a whole person. And so these two topics are intimately related. I think brilliant.

Well, I just want to say a huge thank you. That was really enjoyable. And I'm going to check out the Coursera course. I'm doing another one up in a minute, but when done, I will move on to that one. So a huge thank you for me. All

right, thank you, James and Jane. I really appreciate having you're having me on and and I wish you all the success. Many thanks. That

was our conversation with Richard, all about ethical dilemmas and conscience and the conscience code. We covered a big range of stuff in there. Jane, didn't we in terms of ethical challenges people are facing, and how you understand what your values are and live in line with them, and what you do if you find that you aren't living in line with them, or if they're being challenged in workplace. Do you have anything from that conversation that particularly struck you or that you want to reflect on?

I think but there's a couple, there's a couple of things, I think, the incredibly practical, pragmatic approach, and also the way that Richard talked about that was the, I think, possibly the first time that I've heard people describe organizations that I actually recognize I feel like quite often when we talk about ethics and when we talk about appropriate behavior, and, you know, values, lots of I feel like a lot of the conversation feels like sometimes people are talking about hypothetical, idealistic organizations that don't exist, like, you'll raise it and it'll all be okay, or we'll all figure out our values and we'll talk about it, and then we'll all be fine. And I feel like what was described there was a much more like, realistic situation of people, you know, trying to work out how to manage situations whilst not negatively impacting their own career. Because the reality is that whether we pretend it or not, that's what happens. And I, I particularly liked his point that you, you were talking to him at the end about, like, okay, so you do want to have that conversation. You've decided it's the appropriate thing. You're gonna, you know, you're gonna be the the you're gonna have that voice of content, and you're gonna talk to them. And I felt like his, his the way he said you should go about that conversation, you know, maintaining control, being direct, sharing your perspective, hearing the other person's perspective. But then, crucially, if someone shares their perspective, like, no, no, I'm happy. I'm doubling down right, and they're like, yeah, no, I think that's okay. What I've just done, I think that ability to then calmly maintain control of that conversation, playback their own words to them, make sure that you've got that absolute confirmation that's what you heard, and then be able to say, Okay, well, I fundamentally disagree with you, and I think we're going to need to bring someone else into this conversation, because I don't think what you're saying is appropriate. I that felt incredibly powerful to me.

Yeah, me too, and really helpful. And you know, as you were describing it, there were words that were in my mind to think about some of those conversations. Position were pragmatic and practical and realistic and all those things, there was a lot of reality, as you said, about the organizations that are described here. And these are all things we can relate to, and we've just got to model our way through them. But they're not the idealized organizations we sometimes inhabit when we're thinking about them. I just have a really quick reflection for myself. And it's the point around the fact that, I guess we're all malleable and and we are all, you know, striving to understand and live within our own values. And, you know, really bring those to life every day, and that that's okay, you know, we're not, you know, born with perfect values and a perfect ability to live in line with them. And so that constant journey of, how do we how do we understand and maintain our connection with those values being that ongoing journey in itself, is it's quite a powerful thing. So if that's all I wanted to reflect on, I quite like that. So it's just time to say goodbye. So goodbye for me, yeah,