The Great Debate

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

How do you teach Ethics?

There have been a lot of op ed and blog posts lately about how US and European business schools need to increase the focus on business ethics within their curriculum. On one level my reaction is, "well, duh!" Academic research has overwhelmingly confirmed that companies with strong cultures of integrity suffer fewer incidents of fraud, have lower turnover, decreased costs and outperform their less "ethical" competitors.

But on another level, I wonder to what degree a university or graduate school can truly change the nature of an individual with 18-25 years of life experience. Furthermore, how effective will that learning be if higher principles are not adhered to in their work environments once the students leave academia?

I bring all this up because our CEO, David Childers, is participating in the OICF Ethics Bowl and Great Debate this weekend. A lot of schools have ethics bowl challenges for their students (which I think is a great experience for all involved), but I really like the twist the OICF has introduced this year with the Great Debate. On Friday night the tables will be turned, as the judges - including David and other local CEOs - will be asked to debate an ethical challenge and subsequently judged by the student debators. David has written about this year's subject in his blog.

I see this as a great way to reinforce with the students that business leaders truly do care about making decisions of integrity, and that the lessons of the classroom really do have applicability in the outside "real" world. What do you think - can ethics be taught?

Proud Papa

If you read my first blog post, you’ll probably remember that I promised to try really hard not to let this become just another vehicle for pushing corporate marketing messages. I may be on the fine edge of breaking that promise today, but I just have to do it.

Over the weekend we launched a brand new web site, and I am really proud of it. I think it really accomplishes what we set as our objectives for the project:

• Make it simple to understand what we do
• Provide content that can help our existing customers do their jobs better
• Represent who we are as a company and individuals – open, approachable, friendly

There’s still a LOT to do; more content to be added, a new section with photos and bios (not of our executives, but of all the people who make us successful; our client service representatives; our sales people; our call center specialists, etc.), more case studies – the list goes on and on.
In the meantime, I encourage you to check it out and send me and my team your feedback.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t do a couple of very well deserved shout outs:

To the team at Pollinate Media, for exceeding our expectations and being such a great partner in this project.

To Grady Locklear, for spearheading our effort to highlight all the cool things our customers are doing.

And finally, to Rodica Buzescu, for everything. There is no way we could have made it to this day without your energy, enthusiasm, skill and dedication. You truly exemplify the values that make EthicsPoint great!

Don't Waste My Time!

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve wanted to write this post for the past two months, but have held off so as to protect the innocent. You see, I’ve spent a significant amount of time lately reviewing and interviewing candidates for a Product Manager (Welcome Scott!!!!) role on my team. This is a time consuming job in the best of times, but much more so now - there are a LOT of people looking for jobs.

What’s been especially frustrating in this process are the people who make it to the initial phone interview and are unprepared.

My first question is always, “Based on your research, what do you think are our biggest challenges?” I can’t tell you how many educated, experienced people told me they really didn’t know much about our company so they couldn’t answer the question. Look, I’m not expecting them to have insider’s information – I just want to get a sense for their business savvy (especially since my follow up question is always, “how would you solve that challenge?”).

I’ll be honest - I find it insulting and disrespectful of my time to come to an interview that unprepared, and if you can’t answer that question, you probably aren’t getting into the second round. With the Internet, there really is no excuse for not knowing what we do, with whom we compete, who we list as customers, etc. (this is far easier than calling up companies and asking for their annual reports, which is what I was taught to do in college!)

I thought about these encounters the other day at our 2009 sales and marketing kick off meeting. Our sales team has been organized by industry segment for the past 3-4 years, and it makes so much sense (I really don’t know why so many software companies organize by geography). When our sales reps get on a call with a prospect, they are prepared to discuss the relevant regulations, laws, challenges, etc. that a company in that segment would face. They are able to offer concrete evidence of how we can help mitigate those challenges, including a litany of customers just like them who have successfully used our technology in their daily lives. In short, they can have a valuable conversation right off the bat, rather than wasting the time of the person on the other end of the phone!

Watch for the changes in the way we market coming soon – and let me know if you ever feel I’m wasting your time!

2008-2009 Integrity Survey

Image by ~jjjohn~ via Flickr

I just started reviewing KPMG’s Integrity Survey 2008-2009, and a bit like the Edelman Trust Barometer I mentioned in an earlier post, this is a pretty staggering report for anyone concerned with the state of ethics and integrity in business today. I’m pretty consumed right now getting our new web site ready for its imminent launch, so don’t really have time to highlight all the great statistics – I’ll do that in a later post. In the meantime, I’d encourage anyone with an interest to download the report.