{"id":33,"date":"2017-09-17T19:30:47","date_gmt":"2017-09-17T23:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/?p=33"},"modified":"2017-09-25T19:31:34","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T23:31:34","slug":"codes-of-conduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/2017\/09\/17\/codes-of-conduct\/","title":{"rendered":"Codes of Conduct"},"content":{"rendered":"

Codes of Conduct are largely ineffective because they don\u2019t require much buy-in. A few years ago, I read an interesting book which highlighted this point effectively. In <\/span>ReWork<\/span><\/i>, a team of consultants discuss positive and negative tactics for successful businesses to both emulate and reject. One of the chapters that sticks out to me to this day was on mission statements, which are a close cousin to codes of conduct in my book. Both are pieces of language handed down from superiors that represent the company. <\/span><\/p>\n

It’s like when you’re on hold and a recorded voice comes on telling you how much the company values you as a customer. Really? Then maybe you should hire some more support people so I don’t have to wait thirty minutes to get help.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Or just say nothing. But don’t give me an automated voice that’s telling me how much you care about me. It’s a robot. I know the difference between genuine affection and a robot that’s programmed to say nice things.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Standing for something isn’t just about writing it down. It’s about believing it and living it.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This point can stand alone but I\u2019d like to elaborate more on it in the context of our ethics discussion. It\u2019s clear that people can take the same language and misinterpret it after an incident. The fallout surrounding James Damore\u2019s internal Google memo is an illustration that codes of conduct might actually be misunderstood. From his perspective, his writing fell within the bounds of the community rules at Google and he felt entitled to share his opinion. From the perspective of many company leaders, such writing was invective and against Google\u2019s code of conduct.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m wary of decomposing the issue to pure relativism, however. That might state that no one is truly correct. For instance, \u201cJames was correct in writing this memo because he actually believed it was factual and the right thing to say.\u201d That stands in contrast to, \u201cGoogle was right in firing James because they believed it was the right thing to do.\u201d There has to be a line somewhere–somewhere between free speech and censorship. James addresses this in his op-ed to the Wall Street Journal after his firing, where he quotes the famous American linguist, Noam Chomsky:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This full linguistic spectrum truly ranges from end to end, with obvious undesirable consequences at the extremities. One end devolves into unfettered hate speech–Nazi propaganda, terrorist threats, and comments that cause severe emotional pain. On the other end is censorship: political correctness and limits to free speech. There has to be a way to reconcile this division.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US Supreme Court has many times addressed such extremities and revised protocol over time, in an effort to protect perhaps the greatest freedom afforded Americans: free speech. Today, the doctrine of clear and present danger is the current test for protected speech–if someone threatens imminent danger, such speech is illegal. However, this very legal definition may not suffice for safety in the workplace. People can feel emotionally threatened without an imminent physical threat. I think our companies now need to define where they stand in this free speech spectrum–clarity will help everyone communicate better.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Codes of Conduct are largely ineffective because they don\u2019t require much buy-in. A few years ago, I read an interesting book which highlighted this point effectively. In ReWork, a team of consultants discuss positive and negative tactics for successful businesses to both emulate and reject. One of the chapters that sticks out to me to … Continue reading Codes of Conduct<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2739,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2739"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}