Incorporate ethics in strategies

an organisation that can survive in this volatile and highly competitive business environment without a workable business strategy in place.
Through strategic planning, organisations consider where they are, where they want to be, and how they will get there.
Strategic planning enables organisations to review past performance in a systematic manner celebrating achievements and learning from their mistakes.
It enables organisations to prioritise objectives, deciding what most needs to be done and how this will be achieved.
It encourages a better use of resources, and encourages organisations to be more proactive and be in control than being simply carried along by events.
Strategic planning is an all encompassing process that is initiated by willing company leaders, spread to all levels of the organisation and branded to produce the best results possible.
With a sound strategic plan in place companies have a template against which they assess their company actions and outcomes against their agreed targets.
As organisations shape their destiny through strategic planning, it has become apparent that they seriously consider embedding ethics programmes in their strategic plans to effectively manage unethical behaviour among staff members.
Besides curtailing misconduct and other forms of inappropriate behaviour, ethics programmes help build company reputation and are a new frontier for competitive advantage.
The world over, strategically embedded ethics programmes have become a key success factor for organisations.
In many economies today, a firm’s competitiveness is now also measured on the basis of the existence of a formal ethics programme in its operational processes.
Ethics help to define a business strategy that will thrive even in difficult situations.
They are a cornerstone for building an enduring business model that looks beyond profit to define and inspire employees and rekindling their commitment towards achieving organisational goals.
Embedding ethics in strategic planning processes means incorporating values management into the DNA of the company’s business operations.
Company leaders should know that employees are more likely to trust senior management and commit to the company when company shared values are genuinely ingrained in the policies and activities of the company.
Ethics should be made part of the company’s mission statement, and long-term strategic plan as a way of integrating it into the business strategy.
According to Robert Finocchio, a professor at Santa Clara University in North America, business leaders have to ask themselves the following questions in order to integrate ethics into the company strategy,
l What do we stand for?
l What is our purpose?
l What values do we have?
Professor Finocchio goes on to give the following hints on embedding ethics to company strategy.
l Obey the letter and spirit of the law when you do business. Explicitly articulate ethical values as a key component of the strategy.
l Don’t rely on regulations, manuals and audits as the vehicle to insert ethics into the strategy. Emphasise principles more than rules.
l Be totally transparent with all stakeholders, and make that part of the strategy.
l Have a framework and process for the resolution of ethical issues. Have rewards based on ethics. Make ethics training part of employee development.
To add to this, it is important for companies to make ethics performance evaluation part of the organisation’s overall strategy evaluation.
A simultaneous evaluation of the organisation’s strategy and its ethics programme will bring about synergies to the firm.
The simultaneous evaluation will provide management with insight into the effectiveness of the ethics process, and whether it has fitted well with the overall strategy.
The evaluation can take the format of known evaluation models such as the renowned International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) management systems for quality articulation.
Strategic benefits accruing as a result of a properly embedded ethics programme include increased company productivity and competitiveness, improved employee and customer loyalty, reduced misconduct and enhanced community goodwill.

l Bradwell Mhonderwa is the Managing Consultant of Business Ethics Centre, a Corporate Governance and Business Ethics Management firm. Phone 04-293 2948, 0712 420 090, 0772 913 875, or email [email protected]