# Presentation: 141009

## Captain Jim Coulson, USN

- Commanding Officer
- Naval ROTC Unit
- University of Minnesota

## Biographical

- Professor of Naval Science at U of Minnesota teaching Leadership and Ethics, leading staff/student load of 91
- Career aviator, non-flying tours:  Special Operations (counter-terrorism), COO of an aircraft carrier, senior executive trainer, CIO
- Graduate programs include Information systems (CIO) and Leadership

**Notes:**
Required by law to retire at 31 yrs of service/age 51 except general/admiral ranks...55 like VADM Dan Murphy or PD Miller at ATK.  Undergraduate BS at USNA.  Graduate military schools at Air War College in Montgomery, AL.
Relative newcomer to Twin Cities (May)
Relative newcomer to Twin Cities (May)

## Slide 4

## Informal Survey

- Show of hands
- ...how many people feel one person can change the world?

**Notes:**
Did George Washington?  Abe Lincoln?  Adolph Hitler?  Buddha, Jesus Christ, or Mohammed? 

- Can one person change your company, business, or department?

**Notes:**
Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Lee Iococca, Jack Welch  How about Martha Stewart, Ken Lay?

## Everyday Ethics

- Why ethics?
- Why now?

**Notes:**
When Mr. John Moorehead asked me to talk to this distinguished group, he mentioned that it was a group of seasoned veteran corporate executives.  I like to try to keep things relevant and timely.  Discussion about religion or politics would probably excite some, and bore others to tears.  In the next few minutes, I hope to give you something to think about, and hopefully challenge your thought processes a bit.  I’ll take questions at the end, but if something really piques your interest, go ahead and interrupt, we can always explore that together as a group.

## Not all companies created equal

**Notes:**
Before someone takes me to task, I realize that 

## Slide 9

## CEO of PeopleSoft fired last week

## Who is your head ethics advisor?  Do you have one?

- Chief Executive Officer
- or ...
- Chief Ethics Officer!

**Notes:**
Is it you?  Is it your Chief legal counsel?  Do you even need one?  Are all of your employees 100% ethical?

I recently sat in on a meeting at the Carlson Business school where a panel of 4 CEOs talked about business...the subject was supposed to be on ethics and leadership.  To a person, all 4 CEO’s said that there were no ethical problems in their company, and that everyone that worked for them was extremely ethical.

## Probably not, after all...

- Employees are honest (just like me)
- Employees came from families (just like mine)
- My lawyers and COO are looking out for me

## How well do you know your work force?

- Do you live with them nearly 24/7/365 (family owned business) ?
- Does your work force embrace the same core values as you do?
- Do you engage in dialogue, or do they just repeat what you say?

**Notes:**
How often have you discussed your own core values, and the core values of your company with your subordinates?  I sincerely hope that you know your workers very well.  If not, perhaps there is an undercurrent that may disturb you.

## US Naval Academy

- Highly selective institution with an honor concept run by the brigade itself
- In 1992, 133 midshipmen ~14% of the class were accused of stealing a copy of an Electrical engineering exam required for their graduation.

- Needless to say, alarm bells went off.

**Notes:**
Why would an extremely selective, highly competitive place have a scandal?

## Slide 16

## Mid-1980’s to mid-1990’s ...a decade of change

- First generation where large portion of both parents were in the work force
- Geographically dispersed from grandparents
- Decline in religious training country wide
- Rise in civil lawsuits

**Notes:**
After much deliberation as to what had changed, it was noted that the actual nature of the students had changed.  No longer were the students carbon copies of ourselves, baby boomers who reflected the values of our parents.  This was the first generation where reflections of major social changes were being reflected.  Student’s parents had been very mobile, often they didn’t know their neighbors, and those neighbors were often reluctant to discipline the children who misbehaved, or even to talk to the parents.  

## Mid-1980’s to mid-1990’s ...a decade of change (cont)

- 28% of 70 Million children below age 18 from single parent homes...40% of those from never married homes
- Additional 4% of the 70 million raised by grandparents
- ...so, 1 in 3 were “latch key” kids

**Notes:**
1 in 3 children currently live in non-traditional family situations.  70 million under the age of 18  Influence of parents and grandparents was weakened.  Values often taught by TV...MTV in fact via RAP videos and music...not necessarily bad, but glorifying guns, illicit sex, gratuitous violence certainly not some of the virtues you want in future leaders of our country and corporations.

## How to deal with a difference in generations?

- Not everyone had ethical problems
- Preaching didn’t work...
- If some of the Officer Corps (white collar) had this problem, what about enlisted (blue collar)?

**Notes:**
Unfortunately, it appears that the problem was more widespread than initially thought.  The officer corps was an accurate reflection of the enlisted, just that the shorter training track and less academics involved for the Enlisted made it harder to quantify/track.

## US Navy

- Instituted core values:  Honor, courage and commitment.  Ethics training from day one of entry for 100% of personnel
- Sailors start in boot camp
- Officers start in OCS/NROTC/USNA
- Mid-grade leadership schools
- Annual ethics refresher for senior officers

**Notes:**
How did the Navy deal with the challenge?  First they decided that they had to throw out all the old assumptions.  They set milestones targeting key developmental points of a sailor’s career.  These classes use a combination of classical ethics training (which often are in philosophy departments in college) and energize them with real case studies of either career ending decisions, or ethical dilemmas that put the person into the shoes of having to substitute for decision makers.

## Ethics Training

- Training not just “legal versus moral” and philosophy
- Centers on understanding the moral point to the case, brings ethics into the first person...what would I do?
- Focuses on character and moral courage

## ...How this applies to you !

- ...if the American all-volunteer military accurately reflects the American population, how well does this reflect on the population at large?
- Do your employees know what your company core values are...and do they think it is only begins with Dollar $ign$?

## Survey says...

- "I actually think cheating is good. A person who has an entirely honest life can't succeed these days."** **
- "We students know that the fact is we are almost completely judged on our grades. They are so important that we will sacrifice our own integrity to make a good impression.“
- "I believe cheating is not wrong. People expect us to attend 7 classes a day, keep a 4.0 GPA, not go crazy and turn in all of our work the next day. What are we supposed to do, fail?"** **
- "What's important is getting ahead," CNN survey April 5 2002

**Notes:**
I realize that surveys can be skewed to show whatever the writer is trying to accomplish.  However there are some detailed scientific surveys that show some of these trends.
Center for Academic Integrity:  A study of almost 4,500 students at 25 schools, conducted in 2000/2001, suggests cheating is also a significant problem in high school - 74% of the respondents admitted to one or more instances of serious test cheating and 72% admitted to serious cheating on written assignments. Over half of the students admitted they have engaged in some level of plagiarism on written assignments using the Internet.

## Rutgers University	Grad School Survey

- Blind survey of Students admitting to cheating to get into professional school
- Education 		57%
- Law 			62%
- Medicine 		68%
- Business 		76%
- 2003 Donald McCabe, Center for Academic Integrity

**Notes:**
The proliferation of technology and the ease of proliferation of devices such as camera phones, palm pilots, calculators with large memories coupled with decreasing focus by families on right from wrong and decrease of the concept of social shame (dishonor, etc) are contributing to this.

Who wants a lawyer who cheated on his entrance exams advising him on ethics.  What if your Doctor cheats?  Are you comfortable with that?  How about an MBA grad you are hiring...are you going to trust the data she sends you?

## Survey: Many students say cheating's OK

**  **_[ ](file:///return(ETMouseOver())%3B)_
**Confessed cheater: 'What's important is getting ahead'**
**(CNN) --** **"Cheating is a shortcut and it's a pretty efficient one in a lot of cases."**
- A national survey by Rutgers' Management Education Center of 4,500 high school students found that 75 percent of them engage in serious cheating.
- More than half have plagiarized work they found on the Internet.
- Perhaps most disturbing, many of them don't see anything wrong with cheating: Some 50 percent of those responding to the survey said they don't think copying questions and answers from a test is even cheating.

**Notes:**
April 5, 2002 Posted: 1:05 PM EST (1805 GMT)April 2002

##  How did you do?

- Can that one person change your company?  (Ask Martha Stewart about her broker!)
- Remember, these college students are entering the work force...yesterday, today, and tomorrow

## Recommendations

- If you do not have annual ethics training for your employees (especially in key positions) consider it
- Just because it is legal, it might not be moral...consider the implied message you send to your people
- Make sure your company core values are not just a slogan and are well understood

## Questions?

- Questions ?

## Thank you for your time !

- Time for me to “punch out”