We need timeless principles to steer by in running our organizations and building our personal careers. We need high standards – the ethics of excellence.
You can’t put someone else in charge of your morals. Ethics is a personal discipline.
Ethical dilemmas have a way of sneaking up on a person. If something smells funny, stay away from it. Or help get rid of it.
The ethics of excellence requires a sense of perspective. Look at the big picture. If you live for the moment you might mortgage the future? What happens if you put your reputation at risk and lose the bet?
The ethics of excellence are grounded in action – what you actually do, rather than what you say you believe. Talk, as the saying goes, is cheap.
Until I test the limits to what I can achieve, I won’t really know how well I can do.
How can we be trusted with big things if we’re not trustworthy with things that are small? Don’t allow your finer instincts to become a casualty of the little everyday crimes of ethical compromise.
You carve out the organization’s character through your daily choices. You shape its conscience as you exercise your own.
We’ve got to start thinking of school as a lifelong process. That’s the only way we’ll keep abreast and be able to share in the wealth of the new “knowledge society.”
The world behaves differently when I take action to go after what I want.
Act as if success is certain.
Narrow life down to what’s precious and necessary. In a world of complexity the best weapon is simplicity.
As tough as it sometimes looks on the front end, it’s easier to do right than undo wrong.
Live according to the ethics of excellence, and you can always stand proud. Pride – not vanity, but dignity and self-respect – should carry a lot of weight in helping you make decisions. Let pride help you decide.
If you’re unwilling to defer pleasure or endure some “pain” for now, are you likely to end up later deep in the hole?
In these times of self-directed teams, empowered employees, and “boundaryless” organizations, your worth as an individual employee will also get measured by your work group’s collective results.
Notice that “I” is at the center of the word “ethical.” There is no “they.” Achieving the ethics of excellence is our individual assignment.
As consumers we get more demanding all the time. We want better quality. We want it faster. And cheaper. Plus, we want more choices. Whoever comes along that can satisfy all these ‘wants’ gets our business.
The only way we can develop muscle is through regular exercise. As soon as we stop stretching and working toward higher ethics, our standards start to sag. The muscle gets soft, and instead of excellence we have to settle for mediocrity. Maybe something even worse.
If you become a giver, you’ll make them feel like they want to reciprocate.