Enigmatic Ethical Dilemmas
Zen Benefiel
LDR 520
Organizational Ethics
University of Phoenix
Enigmatic ethical dilemmas are prevalent in today’s world. Our society faces such perverted business practices, i.e. the push for the pipeline, in a surrealistic daily life. Yet, it is up to each individual to recognize his or her own accountability and act responsibly. Relationships, personal and professional, engage prioritized needs in the quest for balance and appropriate service to family, friends and profession. Family presents a plethora of enigmatic dilemmas on all levels of intimate vulnerability. Friends, especially close ones, transcend boundaries of vulnerability to truly demonstrate their willingness to address concerns. Professional environments require a certain reticence toward the vestibule of vulnerability. Facilitating positive outcomes often requires one to be instantly critically self-reflective toward self and others in order to empower harmony in the world around them.
Family order, in its purest sense, relies on the familial sense of community within the core of the emotions that provide the foundation for action, engagement or response with the world. As a teen, we engage life in a more irresponsible manner as we search for identity and purpose. Our behaviors as teens and young adults do not always reflect the same desires for our children as they reach these critical periods of their maturation process. Observing certain behaviors or habits in teens is not too difficult, especially having been down many of the same paths. That does not always make them pleasant. As a parent, we face a new level of responsibility for our beloved babies, yet nurturing their growth is often a moment-to-moment action driven by a desire for complete honesty. Truth does not always mean full disclosure. My father said those words to me as a teenager. It took me years to realize the depth of their meaning, let alone apply them with my children.
Now, nearly 14 years after our divorce, I find an entirely new experience appearing as an epidemic of euphemisms spiced with sarcasm in my environment. Entering into a new empowering and powerful relationship brings great joy. As with most new relationships today, they come with children. Children have established habits and patterns and single parents often develop complacency toward affecting behavior as a coping skill in child rearing mixed with home and career. Teens nearing the point of being on their own develop certain attitudes as part of their process, to greater or lesser degrees, depending on their past environments. As flexible and malleable as children are to their own desires, they lack critical reflection of their action’s affects on their environment, specifically the ‘harmony’ of the house. Emotional stability, i.e. the single parent’s self image, is important to the well being of the house. The enigmatic ethical dilemma here: How do you affect change with the least disruptiveness and still require integrity and respect toward others in the teenage behaviors?
In the quest for successful outcomes, critical conversation between parenting parties is most important. Obvious as it may be, even adults often have considerable problems when critically reflecting on their child rearing skills. Vulnerability transcends timidity as a unified front evolves through this discovery process. It is the discovery in the sense that we, parenting partners, are establishing what we consider to be agreeable levels of acceptable accountability. How does one inquire of what another feels acceptable without creating defensiveness or self-judgment of parenting progress to date? Interpersonal skills undoubtedly come into play, yet critical reflection of assumptions regarding discovery of another’s value system may not always produce pleasant results.
Friends, on the other hand are usually less intimate in their levels of expressed vulnerability. The best friends are those who risk their friendships to be direct and honest in respect of their friendship. Longevity of relationship often allows greater levels of vulnerability and depth of conversation. Shared activities in specific areas of passion, such as playing music, increases the opportunities for in-depth conversation and discovery of deeper connections to each other and to life. Some types of music require a much greater sense of openness due to the nature and style of music and the need for ‘feeling’ each other’s groove, so to speak. Great improvisational artists are often deep thinkers and tend to relate to their environment more from a feeling level; a ‘gut’ instinct response as opposed to calculated reasoning.
Recently, while working with a long-time friend and fellow musician, honesty became an issue. We were working together as merchandisers for concerts. Merchandising was not a new experience and past accounting practices demonstrated little or no errors in the final tabulations. However, a couple of incidents were very unsatisfactory. There were some major discrepancies when cash receipts were counted. The first time, a comment was made that things like this happen, especially in the ‘show’ business and not to be concerned. Income was lost. Concern was well founded. The second time there was an even greater discrepancy and the night out became fruitless. It was noted that financial issues were present with this friend and they obviously had an effect on the outcome of the nights’ work. How does one address the issue? What is the issue? Is it accounting practices or a simple lack of integrity and disregard for another’s time and effort?
Unfortunately, there was no way of determining the cause of the losses. I had to critically examine my own efforts to keep track of the money in hand during those nights. Being able to honestly believe that I had no cause for alarm, the enigmatic ethical dilemma was in how to deal with obvious problems. Whether the problem was a lack of attentiveness or dishonesty and thievery only exacerbated emotions that were already in the undesirable category. A wise man, rector of a Taoist sanctuary, once shared that there is no right or wrong, only what is more desirable or less desirable in regard to outcomes. The desirable outcome for me was to back away from future involvement in a work-oriented relationship. What still troubles the heart and mind is the question of how this behavior reflects in other aspects of our relationship and whether he can truly be counted on when we begin to market our music. Patterns are prevalent, whether obvious or not so obvious. Unfortunately, these types of situations have the potential to damage relationships when they are not addressed. Occasionally situations cause normally honest people to act dishonestly. Can we forgive and forget? Are we are brother’s keeper, and as such, empowered to confront in kindness? What are the risks and rewards?
Professionally speaking, one has a commitment to performing in order to fulfill job description requirements. Right action is predicated upon desired results. In large companies, many people must work together cooperatively to fulfill the needs of the company, be it building widgets or providing software support. In these environments, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs plays a major role in personal motivations. When one is confident and produces results with relative ease, others begin to question their methodology. Some will look at the success with disdain while others will inquire of the secrets to their success. A good manager will usually empower the people below them by capitalizing on the successful techniques and sharing them through less direct methods, such as interpersonal skills development.
In one particular case involving the aerospace industry, the use of interpersonal skills gave this one quite an advantage in an arena that seemed to be bereft of these types of individuals. Promotions came quickly into the most dynamic area of the company; production control. In a departmental meeting, consisting of nearly 40 individuals, the basic reaffirmations of job duties and requirements were made with special emphasis on soliciting ideas from the group as to how management could better support the department and its people. This one, not realizing the inherent snake pit, spoke up with the request for interpersonal skills classes. He honored the ability of those who came up through the expediting realms and their success. He also stated that now the daily dealings were with professionals, most of which held degrees and had been in professional environments for some time, requiring a greater skill level to accomplish tasks without any real authority.
Traditionally the power hungry, go-to-your-boss types exacerbated these environments and inherent difficulties with production schedules if their needs were not met. Success was had at the expense of others in most cases and too often one had to watch the back to make sure that nothing was sticking out of it. Some of the personalities were so blatantly self-serving that production flow was stifled just because of insubordinate actions of others in retaliation of aberrant attitudes. After suggesting interpersonal skills classes, this one was shunned by many of the department’s staff. Nearly a year later there was another meeting and it was discovered only after its completion. Acknowledging the faux pas, the suggestion of interpersonal skills classes was made again, citing that the job was people working with people no matter what the product. A request for a consultant was made and the search performed by myself, accessing the network of professional through University of Phoenix.
Three weeks later we had a small meeting, the consultant, the general supervisor and myself, who was still just a member of the department with no management involvement. The consultant presented his team building approach, referencing work he had been doing for the Navy, Motorola, Sperry, Honeywell, and Intel. The general supervisor genuinely liked the prospects of what this program offered and acknowledged that he would have to consult with his superiors before making a decision. Another three weeks passed. One day my supervisor, along with the general supervisor came up to me with the news that I was being demoted. It was decided that I was not performing up to standards and with my personal problems, an imminent divorce, they thought it best that I return to second shift for a while, resuming work in an old position as an expediter. I was at a loss and felt totally degraded. What could I do?
Just out of curiosity I had a friend look into the statistical records of department performance. My rating was one of the highest in the department, always exceeding goals. The one thing that I could take pride in, having accepted the demise of my marriage, was taken away. To this day I have trouble rationalizing the results of my best efforts to serve the company. How could this have happened? There were no other warning signs, or at least none I felt apparent. Now, what could I do to show the iniquity? Was it worth the time and effort to stir the pot to find out? Would it have been prudent to file a grievance with our human resources department? What could I base it on? The department statistics were supposed to be confidential and available only to managers.
Unfortunately I took the easy road and did nothing. I was emotionally bereft from major efforts to keep our marriage together. I felt like I’d put my best foot forward in both worlds and was currently legless, having lost both at the hips. Somehow I made it through and came to the belief that it was all for the best. I was fine being responsible for production of units used in commercial applications. I had recently just come off a task-team that had been working on reducing military spares delinquent shipments. I’d made a suggestion to the team leader that, when he followed through, brought him an $800 suggestion award. It was apparent that if I was going to stay in that environment that I was going to have to become just like it. Rather than having to make the choice, it was made for me. Still, if I were in a similar situation today, I would do it all over again. The company eventually brought classes in a year after I left. The job got done, even though I wasn’t there to witness.
How does one guard against such situations in management today? Can companies truly excel when their employees are under constant threat of retaliation? Have we lost the concepts of doing good business with a handshake and your word as your bond? Are we so blind as to not see that true selfish motivations of even our president? Was the 9-11 event a total scam just to get to the oil in Afghanistan? Obviously there are conflicting opinions. What is the truth? Are we not in a major enigmatic ethical dilemma as a world? Are the ‘best practices’ taught through programs in current masters and doctoral programs truly worthless on the global scale? If I had arrived from another planet just recently and were attempting to figure out the society here, I’d have great difficulty with the so-called ethical and moral behavior that is acceptable as the best that can be done presently. So what do WE do about it?