March 2009-Local Resource of the Month

Fine reporters and local resource finders we are! We have just missed the opportunity to tell you beforehand to attend some of the many events keeping business students at the Eastern Michigan University College of Business in a job this week. And that event is the Third Annual Ethos Week.

Actually, we don't feel that bad. We might even feel a bit good about not telling you about it in advance. Our procrastinating and after the factedness may strike you as a bit like the very few friends of yours who smugly have told you too many times that  their procrastinating ways prevented them from putting a chunk of cash into a mutual fund or the stock market early last fall. And that their financial laziness has  saved them from a serious cash flow situation.

So, having a cash flow situation ourselves, regarding the $30.00 we would have to lay out for all our Board and ethics correspondents, not to mention their avatars, to attend the annual luncheon which capstones Ethos Week, we decided we would tell you about the purpose of the week and of the work of the Ernest and Jeanne Merlanti Business Ethics Initiative at Eastern Michigan University.

Besides, we have been to the luncheon before. Last year. For the second annual Ethos Week. It seemed as if there were over 500 people in the room. All wanting to be ethical. Or all  thinking about ethics, at least during lunch.  And believe me. We wish we were able to go this year.

Think of all the ethics meat we could chew on! Bernie Madoff. AIG. The Merrill Lynch bonuses. Lehman Brothers, WaMu and IndyMac seem so long ago. And Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski's $6,000 home shower curtain appears almost dumpster diving to the recently unearthed story about Mother Merrill CEO's pricier office wastebasket and commode choices.  And no, the commode former CEO John Thain ordered is not a toilet.

Ethos Week. First, such a focus is a great idea to our way of thinking. It reminds people about the absence of ethical thought and action throughout the rest of the year. In our view,  it is an annual accounting or audit by the ethics CPAs. Oh yea. Ethics. It is still there. Like the styrofoam peanuts on the designer suit of writer Tom Wolfe's wildly unethical, hit-and-run driver and Master of the Universe in the 80s business classic, The Bonfire of the Vanities. Or like the undercover wire that actor Charlie Sheen wore to whistleblow on the 'Greed is Good' Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas in the popular film "Wall Street."

Further, Ethos Week at Eastern is part of a larger business ethics enterprise. If it were only a week, we would find it even flimsier than the public relations programs of the gambling and casino companies reminding us all to 'Gamble Responsibly.'  But Ethos Week is just the biggest event and most well known of the Business Ethics Initiative founded and funded by local entrepreneurs Ernest and Jeanne Merlanti  back in 2001.

The Merlanti Initiative also includes a range of ethics activities available to business students at Eastern's College of Business, among them membership in a Student Ethos Society, a Best Practices Award, honoring businesses whose practices aspire to do the right thing, a corporate responsibility seminar and an online ethics module on relevant professional ethics topics, such as, well yes, what the Enrons, Global Crossings, WorldComs and Tycos of the world wrought:  the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

It is hard to tell at this moment what legislation business students will be learning about in newer versions of the online courses the Merlanti Initiative will offer in a few years. The Barney Frank-Maxine Waters My Bank Got The Bailout First Act of 2009? 

Yes, we love Eastern's Ethos Week.  And we want there to be more ethos weeks, maybe even an ethos year or two. How about an ethos century?

We know. It will never happen. Nevertheless, we have some advice. Meat to chew on for next year's luncheon. Throughout Ethos Week, the organizers have astutely determined that many people, if not most, require incentives  to attend. So, there are raffles and gifts associated with them, to get people to go to the ethics lectures and events. All part of building in self-interested reasons and risks for participating, that is for benefiting the public good and for doing the right thing. For being ethical in business. While these incentives may be perceived by some as sullying and sleazy, or even exploitative, they may well be one of the best ways to get people to be ethical in certain circumstances. Especially in business situations.  And in some instances, the riskier the better.

Yet, at the end of the week, there is a tradition at the end of the luncheon. The organizers ask everyone to stand up and to recite an oath. An oath to be virtuous, honorable and ethical in all our business dealings and in our work for all time.

We have just witnessed one of the grandest failures to live up to business virtues and honor in our recent history. The real initiative and challenge for those committed to ethics (like the Eastern Michigan College of Business) and to a business ethos that benefits the public good, is to establish traditions where the best risk and the largest incentives are for business people to be ethical, virtuous and honorable in their business dealings and work. For all time.

For information on the Ernest and Jeanne Merlanti Business Ethics Initiative at Eastern Michigan University College of Business: http://www.cob.emich.edu/

There will be plenty of time to attend the events for the Fourth Annual Ethos Week in March 2010.