By Craig Perrin
Forgive another sports analogy. Hey, my blogmate made me do it!
In a recent French Open tennis match, Serena Williams cracked a ball point blank at her opponent, Maria Jose Sanchez Martinez – a painful and totally legal part of tennis. Slo-mo revealed that the ball ricocheted off Martinez’ arm, then racquet, and dribbled, unplayable, into Williams’ court.
Williams apologized, expecting the point to be hers (a player touched by the ball loses the point). To Williams’ surprise, the umpire gave the point and game to Martinez, who had to know she was hit – but said nothing.
An ethical lapse in sports usually does little lasting harm (here, Williams won the match). An ethical lapse or cascade of lapses in business can do tremendous harm, as we’ve seen in the global recession.
The recession in fact has raised global awareness of the need for ethical business practices:
- At the Harvard Business School, for example, many spring graduates are signing a new code of ethics. In their “MBA Oath,” students promise to “serve the common good” and refrain from advancing “their own narrow ambitions” at the expense of others.
- In a 2009 AchieveGlobal survey, respondents worldwide singled out at least two behaviors required for ethical leadership in the 21st century: “Openly admit your mistakes” and “Act not just to obey the law, but to promote the common good.”
