Title: We're so obsessed with doing the 'right thing' : do we ever think we might be wrong?

Importance and Key Contribution: In this paper we consider the paradoxes held in the phrase ‘doing the right thing’. We report on our work with organisations in developing strategic responses to uncertainty and political... [ view full abstract ]

Importance and Key Contribution:
In this paper we consider the paradoxes held in the phrase ‘doing the right thing’. We report on our work with organisations in developing strategic responses to uncertainty and political pressure to improve services.
In public service, healthcare and organisational arenas where ethics are held to be central to good practice, there have also been a series of scandals (Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland, Mid-Staffordshire Hospital in England, sexual abuse in religious institutions worldwide) and growing anxiety and concern to ‘do the right thing’ and to seek new regulations and rule-books to guide our behaviour which are based on ‘best evidence’.

The publication of rafts of guidance and rules further entrenches the mind-set that if only we ‘do the right thing’ as has been laid out in some detail, then we can be certain we are not going to repeat our mistakes. Another by-product of the rulebook mentality is the emphasis on ‘being told what to do’. The capacity for critical questioning, and informed judgement gets lost in the system.

More than this, if we measure, assess, gain quantitative feedback, such as the Family and Friends test (Appleby, 2013) and even develop tools to quantify our compassion (Bradshaw 2009) and emotional intelligence (Bar-On and Parker 2000), then we can demonstrably prove that we have indeed “done the right thing” and score ourselves against perfection. To which, of course, we aspire.
In this paper, we argue that “doing the right thing” has become the central obsession of managers and workers in discussions of the delivery of the core purpose of the organisation. This focus on measurement and regulation as a tool used to “achieve the right thing” is doing considerable unintended harm.
In contrast, perhaps more time for critically reflexivity and the embracing of uncertainty and unpredictability (Cunliffe 2009; Shaw 2002 and Stacey 1996 ) is a more ethical standpoint for creating effective workable organisational strategy that can be enacted and embraced by all.

We’ve feared for years that we may be hitting the target but missing the point (Perrin 1998) but more than that, what harm are we doing ourselves, as highly managed, measured and organised, and indeed “rule-bound” communities and organisations, in the process?

Theoretical Base
The fields of public service, healthcare and government are arenas in which ethics have been a legitimate focus for some years. We can track the application of ethics through Beauchamp and Childress’ core text (1989) which established four healthcare ethical principles used to guide decision-making namely: respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Gillon (1994) claimed that whilst these principles do not provide a set of ordered rules they provide a common set of moral issues, a moral language, a culturally neutral approach and moral commitment to thinking about ethical issues in healthcare. The rhetoric of ethics in public service and organising became prominent with contributions from Lewis and Gillman (1991), Parker (1998), Chapman (2000), Baggini (2007), Frederickson and Ghere (2013), amongst many others. While in traditional management studies one of the premises for transformational leadership was ‘doing good’ (Bass, 1998).

Parker (2000) then went on to describe organisational culture as fragmented unities where workers act as a collective and also as individuals, so that understanding the everyday and working with inseparable binaries in organisations becomes an important ethical consideration. Similarly, for Cunliffe (2009) taking a critical management stance, ethics in organisations is about trust, the quality of working relationships, and critical reflexivity. It is important to question the taken for granted aspects of organisational life as part of an ethical positioning. While Western (2013) suggests that unless power structures and systemic violence in organisations are challenged, ‘doing good’ is a hollow activity. Clearly, organisations are complex and if Stacey (1996, 2012) and Shaw (2002) are to be believed daily politics (power dynamics) and interactions that are considered to be the micro aspects of organisational life can hold the macro of the organisation and therefore can be determinants of our understanding of working ethics.

Research Questions & Method
In other words, paying attention to the ordinariness in organisational life can speak volumes about the culture, purpose and values that the organisation holds. Fairclough, as far back as 1995, was interested in how hidden power was taken for granted in daily discourse and thus ordinary organisational conversation can tell us about the role of ethics in our organisations. As we have stated, it is not uncommon to hear politicians and workers from any organisation talk about ‘doing the right thing’.

In our research and consultancy practice we are lucky enough to work with managers, strategists, healthcare and government leaders as they endeavour to develop and publish strategy. We help our friends and colleagues to resist the siren calls of measurement. We work together to bolster our courage in the face of enormous pressure to measure everything that moves (and doesn’t).
We, however, embrace methodologies of systemic inquiry and whole systems research, wherein we engage in whole system conversation and critical inquiry. Our postmodern methodologies are founded on collaboration, co-creation and nomadic ethics (Braidotti 2006). In this approach ethical practice is not encompassed and defined by statements of best practice, or rule-books, but in specifically located conversational praxis. Embedded reflexive processes lead us to more nuanced research findings, and practical organisational learning.

Findings and Implications
Our inquiries show that unpredictability in the organisation provokes anxiety. In response organisations develop a culture of managerialism and a tick-box approach to ethics. We have found that following the rules of predictability - measuring the organisation - whilst appearing to be a moral commitment to the organisation actually reduces the respect for the autonomy of the followers/workers in most organisations and is counterproductive. Leaders and managers get trapped into the ‘doing the right thing’ mentality.
Underpinning this, we argue that ‘doing the right thing’, and our obsession with measuring, is actually an unconscious response to our anxieties regarding an ethical engagement with, or struggle of some kind, about the purpose or direction of the organisation. Indeed, all of the ethical principles above could be incorporated into this one common phrase. We therefore propose that a dynamic, iterative process of constantly inquiring into “what is the right thing?” is more ethically sound than a reliance on the certainty of adopting a pre-ordained “right thing” which we can all proceed to “do” unquestioningly. It presupposes that everyone knows what the right thing is (after all, the great and good have told us) and that everyone consistently and unchangingly holds the same ethical values in an organisation; but do we?

The need to do the “right thing” is never more evident when connected to producing organisational strategy and five year plans. To what extent is there an ethical consideration given to the time needed and worker involvement or their autonomy in producing an effective organisational strategy? We argue it is the deliberation through a critically reflexive inquiry into the values of the organisation that produces an effective strategy that is ethical and that all the workers can sign up to. Yet this fluidity to strategy making often produces an intolerable anxiety so that the organisation is likely to re-entrench its original position through measurement and an ineffective tick box strategy.
Let’s be kind to ourselves and to one another, and let’s think a little more carefully and fluidly about the ethics of our organising practice.

References
Appleby J, (2013) Are “friends and family tests” useful: agree, disagree, neither, don’t know?. BMJ, 346, p.f2960.

Baggini, J, (2007) The ethics toolkit: A compendium of ethical concepts and methods.

Bar-On RE and Parker JD (2000) The handbook of emotional intelligence: Theory, development, assessment, and application at home, school, and in the workplace. Jossey-Bass.

Bass, B. (1998) The ethics of transformational leadership in J. Cuilia (ed.) Ethics the Heart of Leadership Westport,CT: Praeger

Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. (1989) Principles of biomedical ethics. 3rd ed. New York,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bradshaw A, (2009) Measuring nursing care and compassion: the McDonaldised nurse?. Journal of Medical Ethics, 35(8), pp.465-468.

Braidotti R, (2006) Transpositions: On nomadic ethics. Polity.

Chapman RA, (2000) Ethics in public service for the new millennium.

Cunliffe, A.L. (2009) The philosopher leader: On relationalism, ethics and reflexivity—A critical perspective to teaching leadership. Management Learning 40.1 (2009): 87-101.

Fairclough, N. (1995) Language and Power London: Longman

Frederickson, HG and Ghere, RK, (2013) Ethics in public management. ME Sharpe.

Gillon, R. (1994) Medical ethics: four principles plus attention to scope. British medical Journal 309 184-8

Lewis, C. and Gillman, S. (1991) The Ethics Challenge in Public Service Jossey Bass

Parker, M. (1998) Ethics in Organizations London: Sage

Parker, M. (2000) Organisational Culture and Identity: Unity and division at work London: Sage

Perrin, B., (1998) Effective use and misuse of performance measurement. American journal of Evaluation, 19(3), pp.367-379.

Shaw, P. (2002) Changing Conversations in Organisations: a complexity approach to change Oxford: Routledge

Stacey, R. (1996) Complexity and Creativity in Organizations San Francisco, CA: Berret-Koehler

doing the right thing ethics critical reflexivity [ view full abstract ]

doing the right thing
ethics
critical reflexivity