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Interview with Simon L Dolan on Building Ethical Organizations
August 2009
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By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
Prof. Simon L Dolan Professor of Human Resource Management and International Organizational Behaviour, Esade Business School. 
For the benefit of our readers and
business ethics teachers across the
globe, can you please share your
delivery approach to business ethics /
honesty and fairness in organizations
course? Is there a bestway to sensitize
and sterilize the managers and
would-be managers on corrupt
business ethics practices?
in esade, we do not teach directly a
class called ‘business ethics’. I do
teach, however, values and culture
reengineering classes. I have modules
in all my classes, (i.e. managing
people or managing human
resources) on ‘managing by values’.
And during these modules i am
trying to let people identify their core
values and see if these are alligned with the culture of their corporations.
I am also convinced that teaching
values while using entertaining yet
precise tools, makes students (or
managers) understand the concept
better, empathize with it, and
hopefully retain the message for a
long time. So, i use games and
simulations. I have developed over
the years very interesting tools. In a
typical setting i then ask my mba
students (or executives when i teach
the executive education seminars) to
use the structured exercise and
identify their core values (what is
important to them) and that of the
companies they work or have worked
for. Then there is a very interesting
dialogue and debate on what
happens or can happen if your core
values and your organization are
incongruent; what can happen if the
values will be shared and be
congruent? I found out that when i
draw a parallel between a larger
organization and a tiny microscopic
one that all students know (i.e. a
family, and a couple), students’ eyes
become wide open. They see for the
first time that incongruences in values
amongst an organization of two
people (a couple) or a larger one
produces the same negative results.
For example, most students confirm
that they will not stay and will not
enjoy being in a relationship if the
two do not share the same core
values. I had developed a concept, a
methodology and tools to assess the
core values (see for example in:
www.mbv suite.com) and now i do
the same with a new tool which is
less sophisticated but very enjoyable
to use: it is a card game on values, that
i labelled: the value of values card
game. The results are excellent, and
these generate a dialogue and also a
plan for action. The consequences
following the dialogue after
identification of the value gap is
amazing. Sometimes people realized
that they need to leave the organization in order to be happier
and more productive; in other cases
they engage in a plan to reengineer the
culture and reduce the gap. The
methodology is well explained in our
book (dolan et al: Managing by
Values: Corporate Guide to Living,
Being Alive and Making a Living in
the 21st Century, palgrave macmillan,
2006) Recently, Jon M Huntsman wrote
an interesting book, Winners Never
Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned
as Children (But May Have
Forgotten), wherein he chronicles the
story of Huntsman Corp’s
extraordinary perseverance in doing
the business the ethical way. Why
don’t we see more of such companies
and what, according to you should be
done to see more of such companies?
I can assure you that we will see
many more cases like this in the
future. There is only one problem:
some companies that do not cheat
and reallymanage by values, see their
culture as giving them a competitive
advantage and they do not always
wish to get the media attention. I had
helped dozens of companies across
the globe change their culture and
develop their management by values
of philosophy; many of them ask me
not to reveal their experience or
identity. They see it as a competitive
advantage. I can divulge the
information in my classes, but not in
the media. This is a pity. However,
once we get into a critical mass where
many companies will follow this
route, we will hear more and more
about the positive experiences. What
does it mean? When you open any
gossip magazine in any country, you
will notice many more negative
stories, about divorce, scandals,
deaths, tax evasion, etc. Very rarely
you will find articles about a football
or movie star that lives happily and is
not involved in scandals. I hope that
you can see the analogy. In addition,
the scientific community is also beginning to pay attention to the
positive impact of values and value
congruency. In the last issue of the
journal of applied psychology, there
is a fantastic paper on the value of
value congruence (edwards and
cable, 2009: 94(3): 657-677). This is
an excellent breakthrough in the right
direction.
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