Where Is Your Line? by Reinaldo Llano

It’s 3:50pm, and I am thrilled to report that the first key program of the NAMIC Conference was a tremendous success. Each year, NAMIC puts together a compelling program which includes a session of continuing education for ELDP and Leadership Seminar Alumni’s. This year, we focused on Ethics. As I sat in my chair, I began to think about what would be covered in this conversation. Would it be applicable? Am I ethical enough? Do I have good ethics?

In true NAMIC fashion, we engaged in a creative and compelling simulation regarding ethical situations that were designed to examine our ethics barometers with respect to four characters engaged in five distinct situations. Initially, we were unaware that this was the case, so when our ratings got compared side-by-side our group began to feel uneasy. Thinking that we were all given the same situations as teams to discuss and reach consensus, we were somewhat horrified when not everyone reached the same conclusion.

Once we learned that there were indeed different situations for each character, we still couldn’t feel to comfortable because it was clear that each our of lines of what’s ethical and what isn’t is decided based on various different factors that relate to culture, backgrounds, situations, purpose and so on. For example taking $10 of pens and pencils from the office to donate to the local poor young boys club at the church for a weekend program was clearly very different from shorting an employee $10 from their paycheck due to a payroll discrepancy that would cost the company $20 to fix.

But, what became abundantly clear was that we may need to—more times than less—seek clarity in terms of where the lines are for each situation. The line will be different for each of us based on our up bringing, our work environments, society, and life in general. Being clear on the positioning of that line is the smartest thing that any of us can do—versus assuming that the line is there and being surprised when it’s not.

Reinaldo Llano, Bright House Networks