Whoever the individuals were at the Navajo Nation who knew about these problems and took no action are not all that unusual. In fact, they are pretty average.
“ In company surveys done in 2005 and 2006, we find that about 50 percent of employees will report illegal or unethical conduct. Of those who would say nothing, nearly all of them (96 percent) indicated that the reason for their inaction was that they did not want to be called “not a team player.” Cultures of fear and silence nurture the team-player concept, borrowing the buy-in and strong hold that comes from groupthink and the inability...of most of us to speak up when we see something wrong if those around us either do not see the problem of have chosen to remain silent. Even the most honorable people are submissive and subdued in a culture of fear and silence.”
Remember that myth about we all need to just get along?
How do you combat this common problem? We have two recommendations to encourage people to speak out against unethical behavior.
- The first is to encourage, invite and emphasize honest feedback. When you do get honest feedback, as in Dr. De Mars' case, be sure that you don't "shoot the messenger". The first time you fire, demote or fail to renew the contract of someone who pointed out problems is going to be the last time any of your employees come to you.
- The second way to combat the tendency to ignore unethical behavior is to provide a means for anonymous reporting. The old-fashioned way was suggestion boxes, but those never worked too well especially in small organizations. We have anonymous reporting in this course. None of the "Your view" responses require you to give your name or email address. On our Spirit Lake Ethical Questions Forum, we also allow anonymous input. Anyone can login with the username anonymous and the password tribaljoe and post their opinions.
Irrelevant side note : When we first began the forum we allowed anyone to post without signing in, but we got so many automatic posts on porn, Viagara and cheap drugs from Canada, that we finally had to require registration.