It’s 9 AM on a Monday, and the headlines are already out. Your organization is under fire for a decision made weeks ago that no one flagged as a risk at the time. Now, your inbox is flooded with emails from angry stakeholders, employees are unsure of what to say, and social media is ablaze with criticism. All eyes are on you to respond—but do you know what the right thing to do is?
Behind the tactics and methods of communication, a smart strategy for any organization needing to manage organizational crises starts with doing the right thing and builds out from there. But what is the right thing to do, how do you know that your organization is doing it, and if you’re not doing it, how do you start?
Ethical conduct, a.k.a. the right thing to do, is as vital in communications as it is in every other field of human endeavor. As an organization, you want your audience to understand what your stance on critical ethical issues is and why. If your actions misalign with your stated position, or if your stated position is ethically questionable, your communications run the risk of being perceived merely as spin—which can undermine trust with your stakeholders and ultimately cost your organization.
Understanding what the right thing to do is—and ensuring your organization is seen as doing it—is where communication professionals and ethical leadership play a crucial role.
Navigating ethical decision making for your organization
One of the key roles of a communication professional is to understand what people outside the boardroom will feel, see, hear, and understand, then take that knowledge back to your organization’s decision-makers to ensure it informs strategies. Wise organizations recognize this feedback and strive to “do the right thing” in the eyes of the people watching from outside.
Navigating these choices often comes down to a critical question: who decides what the right thing to do is? Choosing between right and wrong may seem straightforward at a glance, especially as an organization working hard for the betterment of the community. But the challenge comes when you must choose between competing rights and competing wrongs. In a world where organizations are almost always choosing between competing shades of right and wrong, how can you ensure you’re making the right call?
Who decides what the right thing to do is?
Ultimately, the right thing to do should be guided by your stakeholders’ needs and values. While your organization has to make initial decisions about what is right, the people watching what you do will make the final call. In any ethically grounded decision, there will be people offside with the choice you make. It’s up to you to decide if that’s something you can live with—and if you miscalculate, it's a lot harder to make up ground after the fact.
Sometimes doing the right thing means admitting you’ve done the wrong thing
If there are things you’ve done wrong as an organization, it’s important to admit it and work on remedying them. If all you’re dealing with is a communications issue and your organization has already staked out a strong ethical position, then it’s just a matter of changing your communications. The challenge comes if you’ve made mistakes. That’s when it’s time to work with a professional to fix the problem and communicate what the remedy is going to be.
Let the right thing be guided by your organizational values.
Your organization’s values are important guideposts in helping you determine the right thing to do. Behind those values, however, is the fact that no organization is a monolith. The people within will have different positions and opinions on how to deliver on those values. Having those priorities in place provides a frame for the discussion on how to do the right thing. You can deviate from your values if you choose—but having them there means that if you do veer away from them, that can be pointed out.
Understand the risks and rewards of doing the right thing.
Picking the right thing to do isn’t without risks. Even if you’ve settled on the right thing to do, there’s bound to be someone else in your organization—or among its stakeholders—who will be upset that you didn’t decide something else was the right choice. Within organizations of all sizes, people often become too close to issues and take decisions personally. That’s why it’s important to have a strategy to manage the internal frictions that spin out from decision-making. An outside set of eyes can help create emotional distance and provide a dispassionate, clear-eyed opinion on what to do.
Outside eyes can often see the right thing more clearly
In environments where decision-makers are intimately tied to positions, organizations need clarity more than ever. That’s why many companies and associations seek external counsel, like lawyers or consultants: Outside parties aren’t as close to the issues and are better positioned to look at situations without emotional baggage.
Over time, organizations can also develop into accidental echo chambers. They can slip into their own groupspeak, with most people within the organization becoming aligned and divergent voices being drowned out by the larger consensus. External counsel can enter a situation without that baked-in culture and provide the objective assessments a strong and decisive organization needs.
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For any organization, doing the right thing is about ensuring your values and actions resonate with the people who matter most. But navigating these complexities isn’t always easy. From figuring out what the right thing to do is to understanding the risks and rewards that come along with the right thing, ethical communications are not always as straightforward as they seem. Often, you are where you are because of a series of past decisions. Completely turning the ship—or even partially turning it—can be incredibly difficult.
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