#EthicsMatter – Ethics is for Life - Not Just for February
Watching ethics month unfold I was reminded of the campaign slogan that runs ‘a dog is for life, not just for Christmas’. As it popped into my head, into my timeline popped pictures of a Russian dog pack, their fur turned blue, possibly contaminated by waste from a derelict industrial plant, underpinning my next thought that ‘ethics is for life - not just for February’.
Like New Year resolutions, it’s possible to plan big but do little when it comes to ethical practice. We’re full of good intentions but a week or two into March, when the hashtag slips beside another trend, ethics finds itself frozen in February while the rest of the year rolls on.
A major problem for ethical behaviour is how it gets ‘talked up’, cast as an abstract or lofty concept handed down by the Ancients. For a new entrant to public relations and communication management - wherever they are in the world - there’s often the sense that ethics belongs to the highest paid person on the Zoom call and not to them. And in many respects they are right, because for all our codes and protocols, special months and talks, we seldom demonstrate the practical enactment of everyday ethics in our organisations or for our clients.
I’d love to start a register of public relations and communication teams that have ethical behaviour as the first module in their employee induction manual along with some video reports from new additions on how they approach ethics in the workplace - and if you’re out there, shout it from the rooftops, as your good example should be recognised. Let’s fill award programmes with gold star accolades for ‘Best Behaved Business’ or ‘Most Improved Culture’. Let’s see people witness true transformation within an organisation.
Ethics is practical. It looks at processes, procedures and agreements that have ugly consequences down the line - like dogs with blue fur, engineering contracts placed with warmongers or online deception that incites violence and hate. Ethics dissects behaviours. It picks apart culture. It scrutinises intent. It must not languish on a hard disc or in an old draw - it needs to be present every single day, set against every decision, clean and bright at the heart of the organisation.
Ethics should inform strategy, with nothing actioned until true intent is determined and every tactic viewed through an ethical lens. There are many tools out there to help - even something as simple as having your association’s code of ethics pinned to the wall can be a start (and I know of several organisations that do this). The Global Capability Framework has ethics right up top, playing a leading role in leadership communication and professional expectations - consume it, learn it, teach it to your people.
Public relations builds and sustains the relationships an organisation needs to maintain its licence to operate. Those relationships are supported by communication, behaviour and understanding and our role has always involved guiding - and, where necessary, calling out - organisational behaviour. The greatest competency for a practitioner is courage. Courage to speak out and speak up, to challenge and to question.
That said, I’m optimistic about the conduct of our present and future practitioners. The last decade has seen a real change in practitioner understanding as to their ethical responsibilities thanks to better education, greater association support and guides that bring good ethical practice to life. When we ran the last GA review of the ethics protocol it was heartening during the research phase to speak with those who didn’t just talk a good game - they played a good game too. We all recognise the complex challenges out there and it may be hard to find the courage to take them on, especially when livelihoods are on the line - but that’s our job.
Relationships don’t survive when there is bad behaviour, poor communication or misunderstanding. We all hope to nurture honesty, transparency and trust but, as Tim Marshall, one of New Zealand’s most respected practitioners often says, it’s easy to behave well when times are good - it’s when times are hard our behaviours are put to the test. If ethics is seen as removed, remote or something for someone else to worry about, the consequences are dire, both for the organisation and society.
We’re still in hard times, with even harder to come so, as we near the end of the shortest month, perhaps we can test our mettle, take the long road and resolve to make ethics for life - not just for February.
Catherine Arrow is Executive Director of PR Knowledge Hub Ltd. She is a Fellow and Life Member of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ), a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (UK) and a Founding Chartered Public Relations Practitioner (UK). Catherine has served the public relations profession for many years contributing at national and global levels. She is a former Secretary of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, serving on the board from 2008 – 2015.
As part of #Ethics Month, Catherine is delivering a webinar - You are what you click - on Friday 26 February, which looks at how the silent hand of the algorithm is quietly reshaping society. Details available here - https://prinz.org.nz/event/you-are-what-you-click/
Russian Dogs references:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56129464
https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/stray-dogs-with-bright-blue-fur-found-in-idUSRTR4Z65B
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/12/blue-russian-dogs-spotted-near-abandoned-factory-a72915
Any thoughts or opinions expressed are that of the author and not of Global Alliance.