Why Most Corporate Ethics Training Is Worthless

Why is so much of corporate ethics training about rules and regulations and so little about practicing the behaviors that can create an organization that is truly ethical? Why is so much of leadership development about decision-making and so little about how leaders influence the moral lives of their organizations and people?

These are key questions being asked by Craig Mindrum, author and professor, and the CEO of Mindrum Northstrong, a consultancy that specializes in talent, change, ethics and leadership. “Most ethics training,” he says, “is worthless if your measuring stick is, ‘How have we created more trustworthy and principled people within our organization?’”

Leadership training, done properly, actually is ethics training. Every manager and executive at every moment is serving as an example of the company’s moral design, and helping to define what that design is. Behaviors of people in power are far more indicative of the character of the company’s culture than the statements on its website.

It’s not good enough, says Mindrum, to post a code of ethics and then do CYA training to check a regulatory box. Nor is it good enough to post a statement of “core values” or similar. “You may claim,” says Mindrum, “that ‘We treat our customers with honesty and integrity,’ but what does that mean, exactly? How do leaders live out that value and demonstrate it to employees? What behaviors would demonstrate that value and how could a company instill those behaviors during leadership development?”

Leaders hold great influence and “power” within their organizations and, interestingly, that’s actually what the word “virtue” means. It’s power that derives from a kind of excellence that can be compared with what professional athletes describe as “being in the zone.” They achieve a level of excellence that doesn’t depend on “thinking about it.” Similarly, virtuous leaders don’t have to think of a rule and then act accordingly. They are always and already grounded in a virtue such that their behavior arises naturally.

“I’m not saying,” says Mindrum, “that delivering knowledge about laws, rules, guidelines and statements of value is worthless. Far from it. But call it something else—’compliance training,’ for example. To imply that you have contributed to the moral development of people through such training is no more accurate than saying that a mandatory course on safety makes a construction worker better able to help create a beautiful building.”