Following is a journal entry I made in 1996:
The world seems full of bribes. Take for example the company-take-over game which is a bribery competition for stakeholders. Little thought or attention is paid to the people who work there; they are expendable – many are for sure. It seems that every company is for sale if the bribe is large enough.
This must be distorting. Boards of Directors [I do not see them as ‘trustees’ in the sense of holding in trust for the stakeholders, not simply stockholders] spend more time protecting their shares than overseeing the business. Shareholders become traders not owners. These folks seem to be pulled by the ‘dollar’ and they also seem to have a great deal of choice as to which ‘dollar’ to embrace. I believe in choice – choice is crucial.
Yesterday I found myself saying the following to a student in my Business Ethics Class: Choices are easier if you have principles to guide you. This young man looked at me and asked: ‘What principles – yours?’ I paused, then I replied: Yours – the only ones that actually hold over time are the ones you integrate; these become your guiding principles. He took a few deep breaths and said that many students were ‘buying’ papers for certain courses, ‘It seems everyone is doing it – and they are getting good grades.’ He paused again, tears were welling up in his eyes. ‘Choice is great, and having principles doesn’t make choice easier.’
As I sit here this morning writing this entry into my journal I am thinking that ‘Yes it does, having principles does make choice easier.’ However, in order for this to be so I have to affirm my integrity, I have to affirm my principles and I have to question ‘accepted practice’ as the easy way out. ‘Why lose out when the accepted practice seems to work so well?’ This is the tough question, the aching question that each of us who state that we have principles rooted in integrity have to embrace.
I love it when I hear that a man or woman is a person of principle; I believe that they are not slaves to accepted practice especially the accepted practices that call for them to ignore if not outright compromise their principles – and in the end, their integrity.
Searcher-Seeker 