As an entrepreneur, at times, you may have to adopt austerity measures to manage the financial affairs of the company or there may be many measures that may tend to make compromises on the quality of the products you manufacture or terminate the services of some of the current employees to increase profits.
The situation may require your immediate decision and the easy and simple solution may be to make such concessions. But if you are consistent in observing ethics in your work, then you may be equipped with the foresight to anticipate such eventualities and you may have taken appropriate steps which may free you from such difficult situations.
Some people may argue that work and ethics cannot go together. this is not true. If you respect the values in life, you will surely understand that ethical actions will definitely give you peace of mind effect in doing your work. To understand situations in the right perspective and consider ethical decisions to implement, you may have to know what methods are available to you.
1. You take a win-win stance, considering your business success, your business goals, your responsibilities to your customers, and your responsibilities to society as a whole as well as to your employees. This is called the utilitarian approach.
2. You can choose to stick to morals, no matter what. Don’t worry about the consequences of your decisions and have the courage of conviction and convention to assert that ethical decisions are supreme in business. Even if it entails closing your business, you stick to that attitude. This approach may not appeal to all entrepreneurs and we rarely come across entrepreneurs of this type.
3. The third approach is based on the golden rule. You clearly and unequivocally choose the decisions you know are right. If you don’t feel good about making the decision, it’s wrong. But, if you have a good feeling, then you think it’s the right decision.
4. In certain situations, you will have to weigh the cost of decisions against the benefits derived from them. If the consequences of the decisions will cost you more than the benefits you may reap, you may not choose it and if the benefits outweigh the cost, you can move forward with those decisions.
Experience shows that making decisions based on ethics helps companies overcome many ups and downs. Business history clearly shows that adopting unethical means of conducting business almost always leads to a reversal of fortunes. Hence, while making decisions during such situations, the most important consideration should be ‘business with morality’, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi.