Thursday, June 24, 2004

Communicating ethical corporate behavior

Hill & Knowlton's Jim Sloan makes some relevant remarks in an article on communicating on ethical standards. He says the public has grown cynical about corporations acting ethically, and people are convinced that it's impossible to succeed in business without cheating. Day-to-day life reinforces this theory on many levels. Simply brandishing an ethics manual and stating proudly that all your employees must read it and sign it won't do, nor will putting an emphasis on teaching values and enforcing them - essental though that is. So convincing the public that you are not cheating today requires an extra dimension of persuasiveness about the business itself - conveying, in a believable way, just how you are going to succeed in an admittedly dog-eat-dog climate. Article Do you agree with Jim?