Ethics in Business
There are two things that keep me up at night, if a hard working student is struggling with grades or wondering if we are portraying ourselves falsely in the public sphere. One of the potential problems of running your own business is falsely exaggerating when you are marketing yourself. Advertising yourself with that "extra spark" can sometimes take you on to the side of lying. In fact, marketers are commonly touted as "Liars". To be clear, I am not talking about fraudulent marketing by companies such as Fyre, but simply discussing where we draw the line from a moral point of view.
We need good and ethical values for everything, otherwise this world will not function for us as we envision it to in our dreams. As a famous Islamic tradition states:
"Everything has its own particular drawback, and the fault of trade is telling lies"
I vehemently feel exaggerating in advertising, even if it is somewhat true, should not be done. Let us take an example of our 100% success rate with GCSE students. I put this out there in the public with an asterisk on our advertisements to explain that this is only true when you complete our Full Course with all the bells and whistles. We have had students in the past who have not got the grade 5s let alone grade 7s,8s, and 9s since they didn't complete the course. Even though I put a caveat on the advertising, I am acutely aware most parents just read the headline and skim the rest. They perhaps don't internalise this full understanding. Thus the compounding effect of all of this is, that I feel parents are requesting our services on a false understanding of what we offer.
The fundamentals of the modern economy are based unnecessarily around praising the product - I find this reprehensible. Of course, this isn't just limited to me, it also extends to my employees, who may unwittingly oversell the service. E.g we have a social media team who work on our pages here, here and here. How do I ensure their seemingly innocuous marketing isn't praising our services more than we deserve?
The problem is that the companies we see on the internet like Ucademy are often flawed, but it is difficult to scratch underneath the surface when all that is published on the net, is the best versions of themselves. You really only find out about the true nitty-gritty from the unruly student in the class. I think on a personal level our superheroes are very deeply flawed whoever they may be. All that has happened is that they have leveraged one area very well (in my case the ability to relate education to students). They/We have flaws just like everyone else - you just don't know them. So you as a student need to look at your own path as well as any teacher or guide.
The ideal path I see is for each and everyone, individuals and companies, to highlight their own issues and be transparent. In the short/medium term this may harm the business, but the suffering will allow us to forge our own path. Every suffering can be viewed with an optimistic lens. When I am ill, I cherish my health more, when I am restricted by social distancing, I cherish my family more. Of course, implementing this in modern society is a whole different ball game.
What would the answer look like if it was easy?
Stolen straight from Tim Ferris's musings, I have begun asking my self this question on problematic areas of my life. What would it look like if it was easy?
The idea is to completely reframe your problem, where in an ideal world this task is easily done. So for me the path to business ethics and transparency would be easy if:
Other competitors didn't use unruly tactics to get their noses ahead
We are not competing with others
We are not playing a status signalling game
The intention is to help the community grow
1 is clearly not in our control, and my simple motto is don't worry about things not in our control. So ignoring point 1, we can focus on points 2 and 3 where I can consciously aim to not be competitive with other education providers. Likewise, it is easy to fall into the trap of status signalling to your friends that you are doing well every time a student achieves a place at a top university/school. Status signalling leads to a race to the bottom of humanity.
The most important aspect in my eyes would be the intention. I need to constantly correct my intentions to ensure the main aim is to grow the community and not to simply "look like the best company".
As always, your comments and thoughts are welcome on the topic.
Like what you see, sign up to the email newsletter here, to get early and full access to these newsletters. [This email was originally sent out in the mailing list and is one of a selection from our newsletters.]
Comments