Many readers are either in one-person businesses, in very small departments in companies with just a handful of employees. Still others of you are in large organizations but doing some kind of freelance work on the side. What are the ethical challenges of "flying solo" or virtually so?
In my experience, the issues are really no different in small organizations than they are in larger ones. However, there are few things that I find occurring with particular regularity in solo or small companies and departments. Consequently, they make a kind of 'caution list' particularly applicable to you folks in those surroundings.
The list includes:
• Inflated billing for goods, services and, especially, time. If your paycheck depends on the hours you put in, and you're the only one who knows how many hours (or widgets or whatevers) the job took, it is easy to feel incentivized to artificially bulk up your bill. Just like in any other sized organization though, this practice is fraud, plain and simple.
• Arrogance (v.1). Arrogance is obviously not intrinsically an ethical problem but it can be the foundation for many ethical and legal issues. When it leads you to believe that you know what your customers want better than they do, you have set the scene for all kinds of problems. Maybe what you want to create is better than what your customer wants but, if it isn't what they want, you still won't haven't delivered the goods as you promised. By all means try to educate them as to why your idea is better but if they don't give you permission to make the change, don't make it—they are the boss. (For your own sake, do make sure that you clearly document your having explicitly told them of your concerns in advance of doing it their way, though.)
• Arrogance (v.2). When arrogance leads you to believe that what you do makes more sense than what the laws says, you have set the scene for rationalizing virtually any imaginable illegal activity. If you don't feel the laws are fair, by all means do your best to help get them changed. In the meantime, no amount of rationalizing will turn an illegal activity into a legal one.
• Destructive rumormongering about your competitors. In solo and very small businesses, one's customers and colleagues are often one's friends or, at the very least, the folks with whom one speaks most frequently about business. It is extremely easy to slip into conversations about the perceived wrongdoing of a competitor. Such conversations are a slippery slope, however, and doubly so if your perceptions aren't based fully on fully established fact. If your competitors had concerns about your practices, especially if unfounded, would you want your reputation poisoned by their spreading those rumors or perceptions? Certainly not and the same professional courtesy should be extended to them.
Of course, each of the above ethical risks are found in organizations of all sizes. However, if you are "flying solo" or working in a very small company or department, your risk may be especially great. Make it a point to monitor yourself for these risks with the greatest regularity and objectivity that you possibly can.
Christopher Bauer helps companies of all sizes create and implement high-impact, high-ROI ethics and values training programs. In addition to consultation on program development and implementation, he also provides keynotes and seminars on how to reduce and prevent costly employee ethical and legal problems on the job. Information on Bauer Ethics Seminars is available at
