Ethics

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week I will be out of the office leading an Ethics Workshop for National City Management Trainees.

Each year NCC selects the best and the brightest from several MBA programs around the country and offer them opportunities to work in different areas around the bank in a rotation. Hopefully by the time they have finished their rotation they have found an area that suits them and a manager has taken an interest in them.

The workshop was designed to help them identify a sense of who they are as people and as National City Employees and what impact who they are has on their ethics. I first developed and taught this workshop in the fall of 2002 for lending managers. A year later I was approached to teach it once a year to these management trainees.

I enjoy these three days every year because this folks are bright and willing to learn. I also enjoy engaging them about ethics and ethical behaviors.

We still do not talk enough about ethics in the workplace and in our personal lives. How do I know? Just look at the headlines for the last few weeks…convictions, investigations and subpoenas.

When we lose track of who “we” are - our world can spiral out of control pretty quickly.