When acting in a professional manner within a group of informed individuals, it is of the greatest importance that an organization and the people associated with organization work within the confines of an ethical code of conduct. This code is not in place to inform the outcome or goals of any given piece of work, but to inform the methods, conduct and resolve that an organization or individual deploys in order to achieve those goals. To this end, it is not of importance that a person or organization states those goals to peers or the public, but it is imperative that they identify and abide by this code whatever it might be. For those it might concern, this is a short list meant to summarize my personal code of ethics. May this summarized list inform the reader of the standards I find most important.
Punctuality:
While necessity is the mother of invention, waiting until three days before your dissertation is due to start it is not the best way to go about that. It is human nature to assume that we can accomplish task, especially tasks we are unfamiliar with, in less time that reality would dictate. In truth, this is a well-studied phenomenon that impacts just about everyone. When starting any task, it is good to be ambitious, but also keep in mind time constraints. It is important to be honest with yourself and your peers about your progress on a task. Aim for the deadlines you set, but it is always good to plan for complications.
Diligence:
All of the trust, security and openness doesn’t account for anything if the organization or person fails to produce anything. For cooperation to work, everyone must contribute their part. In a perfect world, all persons involved would contribute their share and that share would be equivalent to the shares everyone else is contributing. In reality, some tasks will be more difficult, and when working with these variables things like trust and openness become really important. While it is really important for individuals to contribute their part, it is even more important that they be able to voice when they are struggling so that the project doesn’t suffer in silence. As long as everyone is doing as much as they can for a project, almost every issue that arises is fixable.
Openness:
A group or organization lives and dies by what it produces. Openness is the only way to insure that a company can competently take responsibility for what it produces. It is not just important in the workplace, however, as it is the only way to responsible interact with your audience. If information is omitted or inaccurate it can kill a project or the trust your customers give you. The only way to ensure that your organization can endure is to institutionalize this, and the only way to do that is from person to person.
Trust:
Trust is the only environment where openness thrives. Trust is the foundation of any good organization, and instances where organizations ignore or betray that trust are our most iconic instances of institutional break down. Without trust, it often doesn’t matter if you are open or actively attempting to fix a situation, the public or your peers will still brand you with whatever you did wrong. It fundamentally messes with whatever you wish to get done, and can fracture any crisis communications you might employ.
Security:
It is a fact of life that some projects are just not going to work out. Whether it is due to lack of time or lack of resources, at some point something will always go wrong personally or institutionally. When this happens personally, it is the inter-organizational trust that allows the individual to come forward with the issue. When the organization lacks trust, persons feel unable to voice these problems. This exists on a spectrum and can even lead to some being scared to even present issues within the organization. This lack of security can lead to critical instability within the organization.
Cooperation:
Cooperation is the life blood of any project. An organization cannot exist without cooperation. It is up to every organization to identify what it means to have strong cooperation, but fundamentally every plan has its roots in strong and accurate communications between peers and different work groups. Every individual can recall a time in their life where the lack of cooperation played a negative role in their lives, and for an institution it can be deadly.
Accuracy:
This often is easier with loose time constraints. Optimally, everything we say or print would be spot on. Since we are not beings of perfect information transfer, information can be lost, confused or extrapolated. It is imperative that your organization is honest about what information they have and what product they are pushing. In a world drowning in communication, it can be tempting to exaggerate information to inflate its importance. As this tends to devalue your message, it’s more important to be correct and honest than wrong and heard. This pursuit become even more difficult with time constraints. That stated, an effective and cohesive communications strategy can effectively be all of the above with institutional support.