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by Stevenson Q. Yu
Proverbs 1:10
My son, if sinful men entice you, do not consent.
For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except come to light.
Mark 4:22 (ESV)
Many people think that the term “business ethics” is an oxymoron. This word means that two words that contradict each other, such as “cruel kindness” or “original copy” are joined together.
Can you really get ahead by being ethical? Isn’t it so much easier to grow your business and become rich if you take shortcuts and cut corners?
Well, yes and no. In the short term, you can enrich yourself and your business by doing unethical things. Like cutting down on ingredients to save on cost. Maybe, diluting that cement with a little extra water. Or mixing chemicals into food to pass nutrition standards. Never mind if that is being mixed into baby formula.
But sooner or later, things done in secret are exposed. Today, everyone has a cellphone in their pocket that can take pictures. They can show these pictures, and even stream live videos, to the entire world.
It’s not just the casual informant you should worry about. Hackers are everywhere. If you had a Yahoo e-mail address in 2013, your password is being sold online. If you were registered in Comelec’s database in 2016, all your voter information was leaked to the whole world.
If you formed an offshore corporation for tax and estate planning before 2013, all of your details were stolen. In fact, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists placed all the leaked data into a website where anyone can access!
In sum, forget about being able to do bad things in secret today. It’s getting very, very difficult to hide. Worse, people are also a lot less forgiving today. Once a company is proven to have done unethical things, the punishment can be harsh and swift. I am not just talking about fines or prison sentences from the government. Companies with a bad reputation can find it hard to find people willing to, buy from, or work for them.
Furthermore, ethical companies are given more chances than unethical companies. Did you notice that people had a more violent reaction against United Airlines, when a dog died during a flight, compared to the reaction to Southwest Airlines when an engine exploded in mid-air and killed a person?
Why? Because Southwest had a good reputation and United Airlines did not. In 2017, a video was circulated where a man was beaten up and dragged out of a full United Airlines flight, because he refused to leave the plane that was overbooked. The incident made people see United Airlines as unethical, and they become less forgiving for the company’s future sins.
The same is true in the Philippines. People are more critical when a particular department store chain is involved in a fire, compared to fires that happen in, say, national mall chains. Why? Because the mall chain was viewed as more ethical and therefore given more chances by the public.
Whereas, people are quick to accuse the local department store chain of wrongdoing. Even if the company is not actually guilty, it is in the position of having to prove its innocence. All because of bad behavior in the past.
So, what’s the bottom line? In business, you should avoid enticement and stand firm in your principles. Not only because is it the right thing to do, but because it makes good business sense. In the short term, your business can indeed gain from being unethical. But over the long run, the punishment1 can be very severe when you get caught. And the chances of getting caught these days are very, very high.
Endnote
- Of course, there are other punishments for sinning. We are all aware of the wages of sin, and what could someone possibly gain if he gets the entire world but loses his soul in the process. But, since this is an article about business, we will stick mainly with business.
(Link to Lesson 2)
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