Articles & Dilemmas
Take the Oath
You are here: Home/You are here: Home/Articles & Dilemmas

The ethics of responsibility

Thursday 19 October, 2023

room of people with one person holding their hand up

You are in a team working on a long running and high-profile job that has not been going well.

The team has been asked to report on next steps to the board. The project lead wants to bring in consultants to evaluate, but this project is effectively already redundant, and the consultancy costs will come at a significant additional price to the stakeholders.

Bringing in consultants will not bring an immediate end to the project, in fact, it will draw out what has already been a lengthy project, and your sense is that it is not an attempt to save the project, but rather an attempt to transfer responsibility and avoid reputational damage to the person responsible and by extension the business.

What do you do?

Please share your ethical dilemmas with us - we can post them anonymously. You can email your dilemmas to  dilemma@ethics.org.au

Photo by Marcus Luiz on Unsplash

 

Comments

There are 2 comments for The ethics of responsibility.

Re: The ethics of responsibility

Tuesday 24 October, 2023
by IanS
Absolutely no thought of employing more consultants and protecting someone's ego. The moral and ethical thing to do is recommend that the plug be pulled and any future project costs be eliminated or carefully controlled while looking at what can be salvaged.
Reply

Re: The ethics of responsibility

Thursday 9 November, 2023
by Lea
Need more information,
Why is the project redundant, who made that call and on what basis
Why does the lead want to bring in a consultant ? - is it an assumption or fact that this is to mitigate responsibility, rather than gain an outside perspective ?
What is the consequence if the project is deemed to be redundant ?
Is there an alternative idea/ direction . ie should we pivot rather than fold ?
Understanding comes first, ethics - aka asking what is the right thing to do often become clear when you have done your research and you understand the what and the why.
Reply

Leave a Comment

Join the conversation. Your email address will not be published.

Required fields are marked: This is a required field.

Add a Comment
Input Verification To help us avoid spam, please enter the text exactly as you see it in the image below. If your text doesn't match the image, you'll be able to try again with a different image.
Load a different image
Submit Form

The Oath

  • Trust is the foundation of my profession.
  • I will serve all interests in good faith.
  • I will compete with honour.
  • I will pursue my ends with ethical restraint.
  • I will help create a sustainable future.
  • I will help create a more just society.
  • I will speak out against wrongdoing and support others who do the same.
  • I will accept responsibility for my actions.
  • In these and all other matters;
    My word is my bond.