So after discussing the idea of what project ethics is and some of the ways that we
can think about project ethics, a logical follow on question that you may have is to be
perfectly honest and say, why should I care about it? Why is project Ethics important?
I'm learning how to do the actual skill set of running a project.
But why does ethics matter? How does ethics enter into the whole process?
So let's explore this idea of why project ethics is an important concept.
One of the reasons, if we're perfectly blunt, is that one of our focuses
for project Ethics is simply the result of decades of, of bad behavior.
Let me say that again.
We became interested in ethics because we were presented with evidence, lots and lots of evidence, of how
bad our practices had been in running projects over an extended period of time. And I'll get into
some of these different ideas in a few minutes. But the first reason is because we've been doing
it so poorly up to this point in time and, and it's important that we reorient our focus.
Secondly, I said a few minutes ago that project managers and
their teams have a duty of care in creating a project.
In other words, part of the process here is not simply to run the project to make
sure the project is successful, but to make sure the project is successful in the correct ways.
Remember what we talked about, doing the right projects in the right way.
And so as part of this process, it is important to understand the ethical ramifications of running projects.
Third, when a duty of care is violated, we know from bitter experience, some of
us, that the blowback on project team members and the organizations can be absolutely traumatic.
And there is one example after another in
the newspapers about companies violating basic ethical standards.
And when they are caught, and make no mistake, eventually they are caught.
When they are caught, the consequences are very serious.
So among the different problems that occur, the blowback that I'm referring to here, we're talking about money, fines,
and lost business. And those can be substantial, running into the millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars.
A loss of reputation.
One thing that organizations value, and justifiably so, is their reputation. And all it takes
sometimes is one serious mistake along these lines to absolutely obliterate the firm's reputation.
We are sacrificing future business. In many cases, we're going
for a short term fix or a short term violation.
And we're not focusing on the long term and recognizing that what we may
do in the short term has ripples that can affect our long term business.
And don't forget long term Sanctions. In some situations, companies have faced long term sanctions on the part
of governments or the marketplace itself because of failures that they made from an ethical point of view.
So in a nutshell, one of the reasons why project ethics is so important
to us is that when you start looking at what has happened over the
years to companies that have operated unethically, we see masses of reasons why it
makes sense to explore ethics more directly. Let's just take a couple examples.
Volkswagen, a famous and well respected organization, developed an emissions cheat device.
Now think about this. If you hadn't heard this story, it's fascinating.
Volkswagen and their diesel engines were facing problems in several countries around
the world for the amount of pollution they were putting out.
Now, rather than fix the emissions problem with the diesel engine, Volkswagen got
their engineering staff together and they came up with a cheat device.
Essentially they created software, a software patch that detected when
one of their diesel engine cars was put on an
emissions tester and it would automatically give false information.
So just for a moment, reflecting on this for a minute, as I said, Volkswagen is
a famous company with a well deserved reputation who is facing problems with diesel engine admissions.
Rather than fix the emission problem, they decided to go an alternative route and they went ahead
and created a cheat device to mask the effects of emissions. Think about what, what this implies.
Volkswagen was content to actually engage in an unethical project.
They weren't doing the project unethically, they were doing an unethical project itself.
And as a result of this, they ended up fooling the emissions testers
for years until it finally came out. And when it did, it's resulted
in millions and millions of dollars in fines to the company.
Another sad example, very recently in the FIFA World cup that was held
in Qatar, there is a problem with building lots of stadiums in a
very arid environment. Number one, Qatar doesn't have the manpower to build these
stadiums themselves and they needed several in order to host the World Cup.
So, so what did they do? They had to go externally, they had to go to
other Southeast Asian countries, going to India, Nepal, places like that, in order to bring in
workers. But when they brought the workers in, in many cases they immediately confiscated their passports.
They herded them into worker housing that was squalid and very substandard.
They worked them in the heat, building stadiums. In the summer in Qatar, in
over 100 degree weather, there were accidents at the site, there were problems with
people passing out, people dying from overexposure. Meanwhile, the workers themselves were.
Their wages were garnished, they weren't able to Leave the country.
This has been called, as you can see here on the screen, one of the worst examples of modern slavery
in modern times. And it all came about as a result of Qatar wanting to build their stadiums in time,
not having the manpower, and being willing to turn the blind eye when this was all being done.
Another simple example, again, I could quote so many. Very recently in New
Delhi, a whole set of hospitals, 24 hospitals in fact, where were enlisted
by the government to be built around the country in order to alleviate
some of the needs of people for the sick, the injured, et cetera.
So far, $675 million US so these were supposed to be built on time.
They're all behind schedule. They're all well over budget. There's charges of corruption.
Where's the money gone? Nobody knows for sure.
This is another example of the kinds of unethical situation that occur.
Now, I'm going to talk about these in more detail, but I just want to pause for a second to give us a chance to reflect on these three examples.
Volkswagen created an unethical project.
The government of Qatar looked the other way while unethical means were being used
to build their stadiums, the Indian government in New Delhi was dealing with corruption
scandals while they were supposedly trying to build their hospitals. All are examples of
the kinds of problems that occur when unethical behaviors occur in projects.
Projects and ethics are linked together. They actually, we have to understand we can't think in terms
of projects or ethics or projects and sort of ethics or anything like that. Ethical project management
is a phenomenon that we have to understand and we have to be willing to embrace.
Because projects involve budgets, they involve people, deadlines, they involve public impact. And
all of these, all of these are opportunities for ethical challenges. In any
one area of a project, there's an opportunity to operate ethically or unethically.
The consequences of unethical behavior are very serious.
We're not just talking about a project that fails because some people acted unethically on the project team.
We're talking about projects that may have succeeded, but the end result was such
to lead to a loss of profit, legal action, and serious reputational damage.
The bottom line, what am I suggesting? Unethical behaviors have the capacity, the very
real capacity, to ruin not just projects, but they can ruin companies themselves. And
they certainly get people caught up in the backstory and people who act unethically,
or even people who are innocent bystanders, but are involved somehow with unethical behavior,
and it ends up ruining their reputations as well. In other words, when we
get involved in unethical behavior, nobody comes out in good shape.
So how do we try and address the idea of ethical behavior? What we should be doing? Well,
the Project Management Institute has actually initiated a code of ethics because they've taken a look at this.
The Project Management Institute, most of us are aware, is the world's largest professional project
organization. It has well over a million people who have the highest certification. There is
about three quarters of a million people who are actually members of pmi.
So they are without a doubt the world's leading project management professional organization.
And they looked at the idea of ethics and how projects should be run in an ethical
manner, and they posited the following ideas. They said, first of all, the notion of responsibility.
Ethical project management means, number one, taking ownership for decisions that we make, not passing the
buck, not trying to slide things through with uncertain hierarchies, or not sure who authorized this
or things like that. At the end of the day, each one of us is responsible
for taking ownership of our own decisions, not laying them off to somebody else.
Number two, respect.
It's imperative that we show high regard for ourselves and for
others, and finally, for the resources that are entrusted to us.
Now, showing respect for ourselves, sometimes that's difficult. Usually it isn't. Showing
respect for others can be much more difficult. And the resources, the
money, the supplies, everything that's been entrusted to us, respect these materials.
Respect everyone involved in the project.
Operating with fairness. This means making decisions and acting impartially and objectively.
That sounds easy to say on the screen. And we look at that and we think, okay, that sort
of makes sense, I get it. But the reality is that it's difficult to do that. Making decisions impartially
and making them objectively without being swayed by inappropriate decision models, for example, in some countries, bribes.
In other places, threats.
Fairness means acting as objectively as we possibly can
without regard to favoritism or the end results.
Honesty. It seems clear to say this, but it does deserve being said.
PMI notices that ultimately, understanding the truth and acting in a truthful manner
is a critical trait of successful project managers. Certainly of ethical project managers.
We have to stand up and take responsibility for the
decisions we've made. We have to approach our processes honestly.
In a nutshell, because our primary responsibility as
project managers is to society as a whole.
Let me pause and reflect on that for a moment. As project managers, our responsibility is to a
higher authority than simply our project team or even our organization. We don't get off that easy.
Our responsibility, our Primary responsibility is to a higher order. It's to society as
a whole. And when we reflect on it that way, when we expand our
thought processes and in those lines, we have to understand the importance of maintaining
professional integrity because it reflects on us, our company, on who we are.
Secondly, we should be pursuing projects.
We should be going after projects that are respectful of the rights of stakeholders and society. Another way to say
that, folks, is not only should we be doing the right projects, but we should be doing projects right.
And the second point is pursuing projects that are respectful of the
rights of stakeholders in society means let's do the right projects.
So I've just sort of given away what I want to conclude with here, but let's
just put it in a nutshell. Let's understand that ethics comes down to two simple ideas.
Doing projects right means engaging in behaviors, making decisions, engaging stakeholders, doing what
is necessary to make sure that the project itself is being done right.
Now, you could say that Volkswagen did their project right in the sense that their cheating
software was a well done project. I know that sounds strange to say it that way,
but if we reflect on the actual result of the project as a project in a
nutshell, the microcosm of just the project, you could say, well, what's the big deal? Volkswagen
did a good job with that. Their engineers got together and created a great cheat device.
Of course, as we know, that's only part of the picture, because just doing
projects the right way means we have to operate in ways that are respectful
of others and maintaining personal integrity. We have to understand that doing projects right
means more than just getting the project done. Somehow it still falls back to
supporting others and maintaining our own standard of personal integrity.
So what does doing a project the right way mean for you?
For me, in many cases it asks us to answer that question, Am I
doing the project the right way? Do I have a reflection here ethically, that
what I'm doing, morally what I'm doing adds value, but it adds value at
a social level, not simply for my project or for the company itself.
And the second point then is doing the right projects.
We need to commit to developing projects that are themselves positive and contribute to social
benefits. There are so many examples, I've cited just a few. But there are so
many examples of of companies doing projects that they of themselves make little sense. They're
not good projects to engage in because they don't contribute to social benefits.
In fact, quite the opposite. They deprive society of benefits in the interest of short term outcomes.
Making a few Bucks or whatever.
Let me give you one example of a wrong project.
Some years ago, Nicaragua had decided that they wanted to
compete directly with Panama and create their own canal.
So they lined up some funding, including a Chinese billionaire who was willing to fund the
development of a canal through Nicaragua. And they were going to. It was going to run
through their country just like the one through Panama, as a competing alternative for shipping.
Part of the problem, of course, was that if you look at the country of Nicaragua, you discover
that the largest freshwater lake in Central America, Lake Nicaragua, is right in the middle of the country.
And so the plan for this project would have been to create a canal with the locks on
the Pacific side, then empty into Lake Nicaragua, run through the middle of the lake to the north
shore, and then start the canal there, which would eventually end up emptying out into the Atlantic.
Well, environmentalists and people who knew anything about pollution standards were appalled by this because they said, you're
taking ships, thousands of ships, and you're going to be running them through the middle of the largest
freshwater lake that ends up supporting thousands and hundreds of thousands of people with their water supply, and
you're going to be running ships through the middle of that. This is a terrible idea.
And for a long time, the Nicaraguan government was fixated on the ideas of the money they could make off of it.
And so they were gung ho to go ahead and pursue this, go after it. They were going to get it done.
And fortunately, at the end of the day, calmer heads prevailed. And they realized that from an ethical point
of view, from an international point of view, it just wasn't going to make a lot of sense. They
were going to lose money on it, but more importantly, they were going to lose huge reputation damage as
a result of it. So the government of Nicaragua decided very quietly to scrap this idea.
But we can look at that as one simple example of saying that was definitely not doing the right sort of project.
So at the end of the day, when we talk about the ethics and the ideas of ethics for projects, remember,
what I want you to think about is I want you to think about this in terms of two distinct ideas.
Number one, doing projects the right way. And we talked about the ethics involved in making correct
decisions, in engaging people in the right way, in doing the right things on the project.
But then we also have to look at are we doing the right projects themselves? Are we
doing projects that contribute value to more than the company, but to society as a whole?
These are two legitimate hurdles.
And I don't mean to minimize either one of them, but at the same time, it does our company no
good to sort of wink at them or ignore them or think, well, we'll just ignore this one. Because as
I said earlier, the penalties for being caught are simply too severe for us to make light of these decisions.