While reading “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making”, I made a lot of connections to the first article I read, titled “Thinking Ethically”. Many of the general topics discussed in this article are similar, but viewed from a different perspective. While the previous article viewed them as a decision-making “approach”, this article looks at them through a “lens” or a viewpoint.

It starts out by talking about the Rights Lens, which made me think of the Rights Approach from the previous article. Although similar, they are still different. While the approach had specific rights to be aware of when making a decision, the lens says that people have the right to do whatever they want, on the basis of dignity, and simply to make sure the decision would maintain that. It then begins talking about the Justice Lens, one that was not seen in the previous article. It talks about how people should all be treated the same way in all situations.

Following these, the lenses talked about again connect back to the previous article. The Utilitarian and Common Goods lens are talked about. The Utilitarian lens looks at which decision would help the most people possible, and the common goods lens looks at making sure the decision is good for the shared interests of a community.

Overall, I found it interesting that this article used many of the same ideas and concepts as the previous one, but was able to frame them all in a different way, looking at them as a “lens” for decision making rather than an approach.

Santa Clara Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. (2021, November 8). A framework for ethical decision making. Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/

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While reading the article titled “Thinking Ethically”, I found it very interesting that there were this many recognized approaches to thinking ethically. It is something that I guess I had never really thought about before, and this article made me do just that.

It starts by talking about the Utilitarian approach, where we look at a decision and make it based on which action will cause the most positive outcomes and the least negative outcomes. Honestly, this was one that I felt like was a basic approach to decision-making, and I did not realize it had a true name. The second topic it talks about is the Rights approach. This approach is one that I had not heard of before and was unfamiliar with. Essentially, it says that when you are making a decision, you must take into account if that decision takes everyone’s rights into account. This, I thought, was an interesting one that was kind of similar to the Utilitarian approach, but different because it focuses on rights instead of just overall effects.

It continues on talking about many other approaches to making ethical decisions, but one of them stuck out to me, and this is the Common-Good Approach. I found this one interesting because the way it is described, it seems like it would be the “perfect world”. Public safety, world peace, clean environment, good legal systems, etc. How this approach works is when you are making decisions, you look to see if which outcome of the decision will take you closer to the society you want to become. I thought this was a very interesting way to look at it, as you are looking at the decision as a stepping stone towards the society you want to get to. This made me think of my life, and how when making decisions now, I look at how they are going to help me to get where I want to be in my life. So interestingly enough, in a way, I use the Common-Good approach a lot, and I did not even know.

Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre,Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. (2015, August 1). Thinking Ethically. Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/

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As I read “40 Years of Storming: A Historical Review of Tuckman’s Model of Small Group Development” by Denise A. Bonebright, I was very intrigued by the article. This is because I personally had never heard of the Tuckman model. The paper talks about how the model consists initially of four parts, later five, those being forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. What this model showed was a clear and easy way to understand the stages of group development.

As I was reading this, it made me start to think about my football team back in high school, and how these steps aligned with our development as a team. When we came in as freshmen, we were essentially in that “forming” stage. We were getting introduced to the coaches, the team norms, etc. Then, as we got into more around sophomore year, I think it’s when you get into that “Storming” section. Players started to feel like they deserved to be pulled up to varsity, and hostility could grow between teammates if one got called up and another did not. Finally, I think as we got towards the end of that year and into our junior year, we were more into the last two stages of “Norming” and “Performing”. This is because at this point, most of the guys had accepted their role on the team and wanted to do whatever they could to help the team. We all had a similar goal in mind, or rather a task to complete, and we did it as a team. Finally, the “Adjourning” stage took place once we were seniors, and after our last game. This is because at this point, this was the natural separation of the group. I think these stages could also be broken down across a single season; however, I chose to look at it from a broader outlook.

Bonebright, Denise A. 40 Years of Storming: A Historical Review of Tuckman’s Model of Small Group Development. Human Resource Development International, 2010, pp. 119.

As I read “How to Link Personal Values with Team Values” by Jaffe and Scott, I found it very interesting to see how companies displayed their values and how they aligned and incorporated with their employees’ values. The paper begins by discussing Levi Strauss and the way it turned incorporating values into somewhat of a team activity. It allowed coworkers to see the many different things people valued, and then they all got to come to a consensus about what values the company should adopt. I thought this was a great way for a company to go about personal and team values, and something that other companies should possibly adopt.

It talks later about AT&T and how they did something similar in their southwest regions. They had managers and fellow employees share their personal values, and then as a group come together and decide on shared values as a team.

Throughout the article, companies giving employees and managers a platform to talk about their personal values and be able to share them is greatly emphasized. The importance of this and companies being able to adopt some of these values as a team is talked about as well. I think that this is very crucial for a company to do, because if employees feel as if the company is committed to the company’s values and their employees’ personal values, so much so that they are allowed them to share them and vote to have values as a team, employees will work better as a team and for the company.

Jaffe, D. T., & Scott, C. D. (1998). How to link personal values with team values. Training & Development, 52(3), 24–30

In the article “Why Ethical People Make Unethical Decisions” by Ron Carucci, he talks about the phenomenon of seemingly ethical people making unethical decisions. To me this is an interesting topic, because I feel like a lot of people, myself included, automatically assume that people who do bad business, such as committing fraud or something of that nature, are horrible people. In reality, however, and the article hits on this, they are usually normal people like you and me. This phenomenon made me think about college sports before the NIL era. Schools all over the country were committing recruiting violations, whether through paying players or incentivizing them in another way, and many were caught. Even NC State, the school I attend now and grew up cheering for, got in trouble for such recruiting violations. This is a clear example of ethical people, or in this case, ethical universities, making unethical choices.

              One of the biggest reasons, in my opinion, that ethical people make unethical decisions, especially when they are in positions of power, is due to the unhealthy amount of pressure to succeed. The article states something similar, saying that, “Significant research from Harvard Business School suggests unfettered goal setting can encourage people to make compromising choices in order to reach targets, especially if those targets seem unrealistic.”  (Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices, pg 3). Connecting back to my connection to college sports, the intense pressure for teams to succeed led to programs illegally trying to recruit players. In the business world, if a manager and his team are given unrealistic sales goals, they might be tempted to cheat the system in some way to reach these.

              Another connection I made with this was with the article we read about the Titan submersible and OceanGate. Their CEO was most likely not a horrible person; however, he made very unethical decisions while trying to get his expedition to succeed.

              There are many pressures and reasons why ethical people make unethical decisions; however, we should all try and act with integrity and morals when making decisions in any aspect of our lives, and especially in a leadership role.

Carucci, R. (2016, December 16). Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/12/why-ethical-people-make-unethical-choices