Last week, in a lecture given at Domaine Les Pailles, British Baroness Usha Parashar, CBE, of Runnymede, Surrey also talked of integrity. Advocating the overhaul of the Civil Service management, she laid emphasis on the ethical behaviour of civil servants: they should not be politically biased and should uphold the values of impartiality, integrity and transparency, she is reported to have said.

Integrity is an old concept – so old that it is probably remembered only by a few! – that means doing the right thing even when no one is watching you. Integrity is, as medicine, holistic. One often labours under the delusion that one can live by a given set of rules and values in one’s private life and by another set in one’s public or professional life. This common fallacy is totally anathema to integrity: one cannot be both honest and dishonest at the same time or at times honest and at other times dishonest!

Integrity is a vital trait for earning people’s respect and trust. Everyday, in our private or professional lives we face ethical dilemmas. Bruce Weinstein, author of Life Principles: Feeling Good by Doing Good, contends that one is faced with an ethical choice whenever one, aware that one’s decision is likely to affect others, is led to ask ‘what is the right thing for me to do and not merely what does the law require of me’. Doing the right thing is not always easy, though. Financial hardship, fear of losing face or his job often drives an otherwise honest person to unethical choices.

What is it that prompts corporate managers to adopt unethical behaviour? Attempting to answer the question, Executive Consultant N.S. Kumar, in a recent article published in a Singaporean daily entitled Character Education for Managers identifies three types of mentalities that influence Managers’ behaviour: the Bottom-line, the Exploitative and the Win-at-any-Cost mentality. The first one promotes a belief that everything boils down to a monetary game. Rules of morality are therefore seen as obstacles to achieving the bottom-line financial success. The second one sacrifices concerns for others in favour of benefits to one’s selfish interests and the third one drives people to want to be more powerful and influential than others. A win-at-any-cost mentality results in moral decadence.

<B>Team goals and corporate values</B>

What is important to remember is that corporate integrity starts with people of integrity who, within an organization, act as role models. Next and of equal importance is the incorporation of ethics into the business enterprise, with clear guidance that establishes a commitment of ethical standards. There should exist in all organisations, besides an in-built system of checks and balances, sufficient encouragement for employees to report unethical or illegal behaviour without any risk of repercussions for themselves. As an incentive to promote ethical behaviour, Management should adopt new and different rules for reviewing performances, based on team goals and corporate values.

To create an environment conductive to ethics and ethical conduct, a programme of education and training should, within an organization, be given as much importance as Research and Development (R&D). Such training is best done through using case study analysis and discussions of situations relevant to the employees rather than preaching and sermonizing.

However, it is not possible to have an islet of integrity or two within an ocean of corruption. Hence, the imperative need for our educational institutions to adopt a comprehensive programme of teaching ethics as early as the primary level if we want society to act with a higher sense of integrity and probity. We could then expect the emergence of the new breed of Mauritians, all persons of character, trained and ready at all times to apply Lou Holtz’s three rules:

Do what is right.

Do the best you can.

Do treat others as you wouldlike to be treated.

<B>Cassam UTEEM</B>