Ethics and Crisis Prevention

Don’t follow temptation into disaster

Although our threshhold for outrage over unethical behavior is being pushed on a daily basis, the fact remains that doing “the right thing” is still an important aspect of crisis prevention.

Why should your business be driven by anything other than making as much money as humanly possible? Vuma Reputation Management’s Janine Hills addressed this point in a recent blog post, sharing the wisdom below:

Nowadays, communications flow faster and farther and people have changed, moving from being CONsumers to PROsumers with far more influence than ever before.

PROsumers transformed from being professional consumers to product and brand advocates. Rather than simply consuming products, people are becoming the voices of those products and have the power to significantly impact the success or failure of companies, products, and brands.

Hills says, “These changes affect most aspects of how and with whom we do business, and corporations need to understand, if they want to remain in business in the 21st century, they will have to be ethical in all their dealings.”

Stakeholders don’t want to put themselves out as the voice of a brand they see as unethical. Not only do they not want to support behavior they don’t approve of, but nobody wants to be associated with “the bad guy”. Cutting ethical corners can be appealing, especially when it means you can significantly boost sales or reduce expenses, but in the long run it will come back to hurt you.

Even if you’re not guided by a moral compass, realize this – unethical behavior will put you in crisis, and crises will cost you. Keep that in mind, and suddenly any transgression looks a whole lot less tempting.

Jonathan & Erik Bernstein