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Holistic ethics:

Fragment three - holistic ethics at work

by Suzanne Ross

The previous article in this series, Fragment two - four directions introduced the concept of a crest of ethics, as per the diagram below:

This crest could be either one's personal or organisational sets of values, principles, beliefs and understandings.

When the article was published I asked if Living Ethics readers would join us in thinking about the questions that one would need to ask if one were to formulate an organisational or professional crest. I only had two replies. However they were more about the model of the crest itself, as being a design based on the holistic ethics of spirit, heart, mind and body, rather than possible questions to guide us in formulating the content of the crest.

Before sharing with readers St James Ethics Centre's first attempt at these questions, I would like to consider the aspect of models, as it was this aspect that was brought to our attention by those two readers.

Models and muddles

One reader said that he had found the model helpful; he had been using a similar model in teaching leadership. He felt that this thinking had extended and completed 'his picture'. In short, the model simplified and 'held' the various characters in the dialogue in their individuality, relationship and oneness. The second reader found the model simplistic and unhelpful. Given that his response was quite lengthy it is not possible to give all the details. The following quote will give the flavour:

The approach offered in your articles so far is too simple, isolated, and thus fragmented as though Holistic Ethics is conceptually and practically 'self contained'. I believe that your 'holistic' is restricted to a very specific philosophical/social/psychological domain, ie. to the narrow context of ethics, whereas holism implicitly and explicitly means all-encompassing, global, universal. Thus, your discussions of Holistic Ethics (to deserve the term 'holistic') ought to be much broader in scope, namely to include all social (family, employment etc), business, economic/commerce/investment, educational, cognitive, political/diplomatic, health/medical, scientific/technological (research and environment), environmental, religious, cultural and many other milieux.

Dr Karl H Wolf

The comments from both readers caused me to think about the need for 'worthy models' to assist in the process of exploration and dialogue. I also realised that one person's model is another person's muddle. The model of course is purely a means to an end and not an end in itself. It is a tool that we can use to help our thinking rather than impede or restrict it.

I was very much reminded of the work of psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion and his concepts of 'the container' and 'the contained". 'The container' he associated with the maternal care-taking function and the capacity to hold or contain the infant's unformed thoughts and feelings, and translate them into useful thoughts, ie into 'aspects' that the infant can tolerate and understand.

The 'big picture' ethics is complex and at times hard to tolerate. Models that further our internal and external dialogue need to be firm, secure and large enough to 'contain' the whole picture. They need to assist us to transform in the present as appropriate and store for the future things that if available now in their 'raw state' would impede our development and progress, and increase destructive individual or social defences. If the model is, as the second reader suggested too small, too simple and too limiting we will have a safe, secure and painless experience but the thoughts will be 'small thoughts'.

So simply, the challenge for each of us is determining the fit of the model to our conceptual understanding, if the model fits then use it, if not, then find one that helps.

Finding a model that fits is not always easy but it is a journey of great value:

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes - O'Toole, J., p.5

James O'Toole, who wrote The Executive's Compass: Business and the Good Society (Oxford University Press, 1993) believes that before we can usefully simplify, we must fully understand the complexity of the issues involved and he says (p 7):

The art of leadership requires the simultaneous pursuit of several values – values that, in the simplicity this side of complexity appear incompatible. The simplicity of the other side of complexity offers a different prospect: that incompatible values might be made mutually achievable and reinforcing. The leadership challenge, then is to get to the other side of complexity.

Do we have a model or does the model have us?

Whilst reflecting on models I was facilitating a program for senior managers. They divided into groups to explore three questions. One such question was, “What is the relationship and interrelatedness between ethics, morality and the law?” This produced much animated discussion that finally saw one group devising and using a model to 'contain' their thoughts and to aid discussion. The model was a simple Venn Diagram as below.

In the ensuing discussion people wrestled with placing items into the various segments. They argued, for example, that tax laws are laws and so obviously fit into the law segment but had questions about whether they also fitted into the morality or ethics segments. They had similar questions around the placement of things like traffic fines, euthanasia and genetic engineering.

At one stage in their discussion it became clear that items were being pushed into segments that did not quite fit: a case of the data being made to fit the model. However, the question was then raised as to whether some of the boundaries separating the segments could be removed entirely, thus once again shaping the model to fit the data.

The model itself, through a process of testing the data for fitness, thus became unworkable, even though it was incredibly useful as a means towards generating dialogue and understanding.

Our model goes to work

Recently St James Ethics Centre had an opportunity to test its holistic ethics model. We were invited to participate in the assessment of Australian organisations for the Good Reputation Index (as published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on 22 October 2001).

We decided to evaluate the participants on four criteria, relating to the four aspects of our model. As such we developed the questions that would go towards composing a crest of ethics for an organisation. The following questions are just a selection from those that we asked the organisations who participated in the survey.

Criterion one - spirit:

• Definition of ethics and its relevance to the organisation.
  • Describe how your organisation deals with ethical complexity. What happens when the choice is not between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, but between ‘right’ and ‘right’.

Criterion two - heart:

• The quality and character of the organisation's relationships with its stakeholders
  • In relation to the stakeholder(s) identified please give at least one example of something that your company
    • currently does that is a matter of pride and some satisfaction
    • currently does that is in need of further improvement
    • in relation to b: how would your organisation need to change in order to enable this improvement?

Criterion three - mind

• The organisation's ability and intention to increase its peoples' capacity to develop ethically.
  • How do individuals in your organisation continue to develop their capacity to operate ethically?

Criterion four - body

• The relationship between ethics and the organisation's policies, systems and structures
  • Various policies, systems and structures support the development and/or maintenance of a company as an 'ethical' organisation. Provide a total of up to five examples that enhance ethics in your organisation and describe how they
  • a: were developed
  • b: are used every day
  • c: are currently monitored

A word on methodology

We were somewhat surprised to see that neither our methodology nor our statement of disclosure were printed in the Good Reputation Index. The inclusion of those two documents was integral to our participation within the survey. So, for the benefit of all concerned they appear in the accompanying text box [see original in Living Ethics].

Celebrating best practice

The top organisations overall for our survey are listed below, followed by the top positions for each criterion.

Overall top five organisations

(Score out of 28)

• Westpac (23.5)
• AMP (22)
• BP Australia (21.5)
• Ford Motor Company of Australia (20.5)
• Boral (20)

Criterion one – spirit

(Score out of 7)

• Carter Holt Harvey (6.5)
• Wesfarmers (6)
• AMP (5.5)
• BP Australia (5.5)
• Westpac (5.5)

Criterion two – heart

(Score out of 7)

• AMP (6)
• Boral (6)
• Ford Motor Company of Australia (6)
• IBM Australia (6)
• Leighton Holdings (6)
• P&O Australia (6)
• Transfield (6)
• Westpac (6)

Criterion three – mind

(Score out of 7)

• AMP (6.5)
• BP Australia (6.5)
• Lend Lease (6)
• Westpac (6)
• CGU Insurance (5.5)
• Wesfarmers (5.5)

Criterion four - body ...

(Score out of 7)

• Westpac (6)
• BHP (5.5)
• BP Australia (5.5)
• Ford Motor Company of Australia (5.5)
• Normandy Mining (5.5)
• Shell Australia (5.5)

Achieving the holistic balance

We found that the combination of the questions under the spirit, heart, mind and body criteria provided a fascinating insight into the ethical structure of an organisation. For example, with Westpac it was clear that they had a well-established capacity in all four areas, featuring within the top three in all criteria. Definite patterns emerged where some organisations were strong in certain criteria but weaker in others. The profiles below show three variations that emerged. Two typical patterns can be seen in profiles I and II.

profile I

Profile II

With profile I there is a significant imbalance where both heart and body fair well, yet the spirit and mind of ethics are distinctly lacking. What does this mean? One way to interpret this is to suggest that the organisation is well aware of its stakeholder responsibilities and that there are policies in place that give guidance in maintaining such responsibilities. However, this emphasis upon policy, combined with a deficiency in both the spirit and mind areas could indicate that the organisation is one that grows through compliance rather than learns through aspiration.

Profile II is in stark contrast to profile I. Profile II shows reasonable development in both the spirit and mind of ethics and yet the heart and body fall short. The culture of this organisation would thus appear to promote little in the way of formal codes and that ethical growth comes not through discipline but specific learning opportunities that are based within a well-defined understanding of ethics.

Finally, profile III below shows a different form of imbalance.

Profile III

Here there is growth in both heart and mind but the influences of body and spirit are negligible. Profile III shows that this type of organisation has a clear understanding of the importance of stakeholders and that there are learning opportunities in place that provide further growth in this area. Yet there is no comprehension of the breadth of ethics, nor are there any policies in place indicative of a compliant culture; instead, it's all heart! They have a great awareness of the people with whom they have dealings (presumably clients) and work hard to improve their ability to relate with them.

Finally, congratulations to Westpac who featured highly in each criterion and whose profile shows a broad and comprehensive balance.

Profile for Westpac

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