Condensing business ethics: ‘Focus on problems you can solve’

Financial Management (FM) magazine

Author Alison Taylor, a clinical associate professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, explains the reasons business ethics has become a “confused topic” and why treating ethical problems as “tick-the-box PR” can make leaders look directionless.

Taylor’s book, Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World, opens up a discourse on new ways to approach this complex landscape and highlights the importance of prioritising fundamental values, with the impact on human beings at the centre of decision-making.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Why business ethics is a complex issue.
• The problems arising from conflating ethics and ideology and treating “CEOs as politicians”.
• How to cut through the noise by taking a people-centric approach.
• The reasons that leaders should avoid treating ethics and impact issues as public relations problems.
• The importance of understanding and focusing on your core values.