When reading “Why Ethical People make Unethical Choices” it reminded me of the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal and the Wells Fargo fake-accounts case. In both cases people didn’t start out trying to be dishonest. They were pushed by intense goal win a title, hit aggressive sales number and by a culture that praised results over how those results were earned. That matches Carucci’s point rules on paper don’t matter if daily incentives and messages reward cutting corners. The similarities are obvious. There was groupthink, the feeling that everyone else is doing it, and the idea that small steps weren’t really harmful. Jobs were split up so no one person felt fully responsible, which made it easier to rationalize bad choices. The differences show up in the fallout. The article gives general warning signs, but the real cases reveal the cost, championships questioned, customers harmed, fines, lost jobs, and long-term damage to trust. Both examples also show how silence protects the problem. People feared speaking up because it might hurt the team or their careers. For my leadership, the lesson is practical: set goals that can be hit the right way, make the how as visible as the what and open clear, safe channels to report pressure or conflicts. If honesty slows performance sometimes that’s a tradeoff worth making, because trust once broken is incredibly hard to rebuild. It also proves that culture design is an ethical decision not decoration only.

Carucci, Ron. “Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices.” Harvard Business Review (2016): “Clearly it takes more than a compliance policy to sustain a truly ethical workplace.”