Question

What are the two things you’ve learned about winning the right way that you didn’t know before? In what situations are you most likely to incorporate ethical decision making into your personal or professional life and why?

Answer 1

To most people, winning means you get what you want in a negotiation. Usually, there's also an assumption that it's a zero-sum game, meaning that if you win the other person loses. However, in truth life is rarely a game of zero-sum. There are almost always opportunities to work it out in such a way that both sides come forward. In all such cases, count it as a loss, if the transaction ends with either side not coming out ahead. Often, walk away because it's not a zero-sum game if it turns out that you can't reach a win-win deal. That is counting as a draw. Winning is not equal to being happy. It’s time we change our mindsets.

Decisions on ethics are generally restricted to acts and words (e.g., no deception in sales advertising, using words to influence performance) when confining ethical decision taking to a company or community background. Right behavior, through acts and words, can be measured, but there is no way to know one 's thoughts. Through our distinction, thoughts and beliefs (e.g., I want to help and benefit my customer as opposed to wanting their money without regard to what's right, personal gain at the expense of someone else's reputation) will be confined to moral decisions that are part of making personal decisions.

Addressing ethics in business decision-making or other large organisations or bodies (e.g., government) leads to the need to ensure the key decision-making emphasis has been and is in place. In particular, the business decision should be in place for core principles that include the goals / requirements that will be used to build and constrain the parameters used in the business decision network. This focused decision will affect requirements for decisions that directly impact ethical decision taking and organizational behavior within the network of business decisions.

Additional related decisions include selecting the business mission and code of conduct which will add compliance criteria to decisions across the network of business decision making.