SaturdayMar 14, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
'You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by-'* You'll find universal agreement on the value of a behavior code, on the need for some sort of ethical system. Even the crooks count on 'honor among thieves,' and countries actually wage war according to certain rules. On the job and in the rest of our day-to-day living, we each need a 'code for the road.' *Crosby, Stills & Nash in a hit song.
Eventually we have to 'settle up' and pay the price for our ethical violations. Just remember the old line that says, 'You can pay me now ... or you can pay me later.' Often you can buy some time, but when you 'pay later' you'll probably have to pay more.
The legal system doesn't always serve as a good guide for your conscience. You can step way over the ethical line and still be inside the law. The same thing goes for rules, policies and procedures you know, the organization's 'internal laws.' You can 'go by the book' and still behave unethically. Still not move beyond mediocrity. High standardsthe ethics of excellencecome to life through your basic values, your character, integrity and honesty. Obeying the law is the bare minimum.
But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the 'M' disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence.
We need timeless principles to steer by in running our organizations and building our personal careers. We need high standards ... the ethics of excellence.
The world behaves differently when I take action to go after what I want.
Until I test the limits to what I can achieve, I won't really know how well I can do.
When you hold out for high standards, people are impressedbut they don't always like you for it. Not everybody will be on your side in your struggle to do what's right and ethical. In fact, sometimes even you won't be on your side. You'll wrestle with inner conflict, torn between what you should do and what you want to do. You'll also aggravate other people. Seems when you walk the straight and narrow you always step on someone's toes. Don't count on the ethics of excellence to make you popular.
Live according to the ethics of excellence, and you can always stand proud. Pride not vanity, but dignity and self-respect should carry a lot of weight in helping you make decisions. Let pride help you decide.
Pay attention to the voice within.... Sometimes the voice of your conscience gets drowned out by crowd noise or by the pep rally of temptations. And your mind may put some selfish spin on the ball, rationalizing that it's okay to veer away from the ethical route. When we run into conflicts between ethical 'shoulds' and our selfish 'wants,' we all argure out ways to con our conscience. But take pains to listen, because it has your best interests at heart.
You carve out the organization's character through your daily choices. You shape its conscience as you exercise your own.
We all faced painful ethical challenges before we even knew how to spell our names. There were tough choices. Tradeoffs. Confusing signals regarding how to live one's life. And here we are now, today, still struggling. Still trying to sort things out. Still trying to work our way through life effectively. About the only thing that has changed is the scope of the problem. There's more at stake now. And we're in a position, as grownups, to do a lot moregood or badfor ourselves, our organization, our world. But we still must wrestle with our imperfect ethics.
Give people, including yourself, clear permission to make mistakes ... and to fix the problems. Since nobody's perfect, mistakes should be allowed. Cover-ups shouldnt. Cover-ups create twice the trouble.
Everybody makes honest mistakes, but there's no such thing as an honest cover-up.
The ethics of excellence require a sense of perspective. Look at the big picture. If you live for the moment, do you mortgage the future? What happens if you put your reputation at risk ... and lose the bet?
How can we be trusted with big things if we're not trustworthy with things that are small? Don't allow your finer instincts to become a casualty of the little everyday crimes of ethical compromise.
When you can make it this simple, though, just do the right thing. Even if you could get away with less. Even when other people are doing the wrong thing. Even though the wrong thing seems like no big deal.
High personal standards aren't enough for organizational excellence. You've got to be intolerant of low standards in others.... If you accommodate questionable practices in others who touch your organization, you risk soiling its reputation. Anybody whose hands aren't clean can get the place dirty.
The only way we can develop muscle is through regular exercise. As soon as we stop stretching and working toward higher ethics, our standards start to sag. The muscle gets soft, and instead of excellence we have to settle for mediocrity. Maybe something even worse.
High standards leave no room for mushy morals.
Excellence is a process, not just an outcome. Sure, we have to hold out for high standards in the products or services we provide. The goods must be more than 'good enough.' But so must our approach you know, our methodology, the way we do business and deal with people. How could the ends be considered excellent if we can't be proud of the means?
Excellence calls for character ... integrity ... fairness ... honesty ... a determination to do what's right. High ethical standards, across the board.
You can't put someone else in charge of your morals. Ethics is a personal discipline.
You have to get beyond blaming others ... give up your excuses ... stand responsible for what you do ... ultimately, ethics ends up an individual exercise.
Notice that 'I' is at the center of the word 'ethical.' There is no 'they.' Achieving the ethics of excellence is our individual assignment.
We can't win the struggle for high standards if we just talk a good game ... we've got to play a good game.
The ethics of excellence are grounded in action what you actually do, rather than what you say you believe. Talk, as the saying goes, is cheap.
Ethical dilemmas have a way of sneaking up on a person. If something smells funny, stay away from it. Or help get rid of it.
When you see people with 'the right stuff,' those who choose the right over the wrong or the 'iffy,' let them know you're proud of them. Encourage the courageous, so they'll have the will to carry on.
As tough as it sometimes looks on the front end, it's easier to do right than undo wrong.
If you're unwilling to defer pleasure or endure some 'pain' for now, are you likely to end up later deep in the hole?
We can't achieve excellence through talent alone. Or merely by making technological improvements. We can't even buy our way to excellence, no matter how much money we have available to spend. More dollars will never do it. We have to develop a strong corporate conscience. Ethical muscle. And that doesn't happen by accident either.
As consumers we get more demanding all the time. We want better quality. We want it faster. And cheaper. Plus, we want more choices. Whoever comes along that can satisfy all these 'wants' gets our business.
We've got to start thinking of school as a lifelong process. That's the only way we'll keep abreast and be able to share in the wealth of the new 'knowledge society.'
Act as if success is certain.
Your ethical muscle grows stronger every time you choose right over wrong.
The question is, when so many others cut corners, shave the truth, self-deal, believe in the fast buck, and follow the crowd along the low road of least resistance, can we even afford to travel the high road of ethical behavior? Frankly, we can't afford anything else. Any other competitive angle is a pure crapshoot in today's business world. Companies with shaky ethics and shabby standards will be crippled as they try to compete in our changing world.
Who is this vague 'they' we blame for so many of our problems? 'They' is the obscure party we use as our whipping boy to camouflage the fact that we you and I and other specific human beings just like us have to start doing things differently. 'They' can't fix anything. We can.
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