Ethics Compliance Officers - a dangerous trend

DealBreaker.com is a blog site at Forbes magazine that comments on various corporate trends. A posting today by Bess Levin speaks to the dubious value of Ethics Officers to monitor ethics compliance in companies.

While the idea of an Ethics Compliance officer is not wrong in and of itself, it creates a sense that ethics is about compliance, or even about "doing." I believe it is important that people throughout the entire organizational structure understand that ethics is about "being," and that each and every one of us is responsbile for that.

Our belief at SWiM™ (Starting With Me™) is that ethics is a practical, everyday melding of our values and behavior and that we are all responsible for our corporate ethics. Boards and management ought to be accepting the challenge of creating a sense of ownership among all stakeholders for ethical corporate behavior. It would be time and energy well spent.

Instead of an Ethics Compliance Officer, bring in an ethics facilitator, empowered to move about freely among the employees, management and board raising awareness of current potential ethical issues and opportunities.