According to Marianne Jennings, 99% of employees surveyed believe that they are more ethical than the majority of their co-workers. Our own research at SLC certainly bears that out. Whenever Erich goes to a reservation and discusses our new course on Ethics the same thing will always happen. First, someone will say
"The Housing Board really needs this ethics training. Boy are they unethical."
When he talks to the housing board members, they'll say,
"The Tribal Council really needs this. You just won't believe some of the decisions they make."
Talking to the tribal council, we hear,
"This is something the Project Directors could use. Some of them really need training in ethics. It's a big problem."
It's always someone else's problem. There are many aspects of this situation I don't understand. First of all, if these are such big problems and you know about them and you haven't done anything - doesn't that make you part of the problem? Everyone likes to point at the boss who is charging the tribe for days he doesn't work or took a computer home that was tribal property.
I am having difficulty writing up the by-stander portion of our Ethics course because I am trying to find a way to not make it sound too accusatory. I do understand that it is hard to speak up, to stand up, particularly when no one else is doing it. When you really are the most ethical person in a room, it can be a pretty lonely room (Erich has also written about that, which I need to find some place to include in the course).
Yes, it's hard, but it's not impossible.
As we say over and over in our course, major ethical violations don't occur in a vacuum. If someone is taking thousands of dollars in tribal funds or program funds, putting unqualified relatives on the payroll, missing work 50% of the time and still getting full pay, they need a lot of other people to turn a blind eye to it and pretend it never happened so they can get away with it.
I have to give Erich credit that he is really committed to trying to establish an Ethics education program on the reservations. He will be meeting with the Spirit Lake TERO Board at 5 pm November 13, on November 20 with the Spirit Lake Tribal Council, on November 21 with the Tribal School Board. He has already had one meeting with the Three Affiliated Tribes and is planning more, along with traveling to Turtle Mountain and other reservations.
Why? This is from the home page of our Ethics course:
Ethical violations are costing tribal organizations hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Most of these costs are not from large-scale embezzlement or kickbacks on multi-million dollar contracts. Small violations on a large scale are what bleed money from tribal and federal funds. If we are ever to move from 'survival' mode to 'success' mode in Indian country, we need to address these constant, daily ethical ''cuts" to our funding that are bleeding our tribal nations. We need to heal ourselves.
We write a lot of grants here at SLC. It is expensive, time-consuming and the grants don't always get funding. If we could cut half of those small violations and increase the percentage of money going where its supposed to go and being used how it is supposed to be used, that would be millions of dollars, equivalent to getting several new grants.
AND it would be what the most ethical person in the room would do.
"The Housing Board really needs this ethics training. Boy are they unethical."
When he talks to the housing board members, they'll say,
"The Tribal Council really needs this. You just won't believe some of the decisions they make."
Talking to the tribal council, we hear,
"This is something the Project Directors could use. Some of them really need training in ethics. It's a big problem."
It's always someone else's problem. There are many aspects of this situation I don't understand. First of all, if these are such big problems and you know about them and you haven't done anything - doesn't that make you part of the problem? Everyone likes to point at the boss who is charging the tribe for days he doesn't work or took a computer home that was tribal property.
I am having difficulty writing up the by-stander portion of our Ethics course because I am trying to find a way to not make it sound too accusatory. I do understand that it is hard to speak up, to stand up, particularly when no one else is doing it. When you really are the most ethical person in a room, it can be a pretty lonely room (Erich has also written about that, which I need to find some place to include in the course).
Yes, it's hard, but it's not impossible.
As we say over and over in our course, major ethical violations don't occur in a vacuum. If someone is taking thousands of dollars in tribal funds or program funds, putting unqualified relatives on the payroll, missing work 50% of the time and still getting full pay, they need a lot of other people to turn a blind eye to it and pretend it never happened so they can get away with it.
I have to give Erich credit that he is really committed to trying to establish an Ethics education program on the reservations. He will be meeting with the Spirit Lake TERO Board at 5 pm November 13, on November 20 with the Spirit Lake Tribal Council, on November 21 with the Tribal School Board. He has already had one meeting with the Three Affiliated Tribes and is planning more, along with traveling to Turtle Mountain and other reservations.
Why? This is from the home page of our Ethics course:
Ethical violations are costing tribal organizations hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Most of these costs are not from large-scale embezzlement or kickbacks on multi-million dollar contracts. Small violations on a large scale are what bleed money from tribal and federal funds. If we are ever to move from 'survival' mode to 'success' mode in Indian country, we need to address these constant, daily ethical ''cuts" to our funding that are bleeding our tribal nations. We need to heal ourselves.
We write a lot of grants here at SLC. It is expensive, time-consuming and the grants don't always get funding. If we could cut half of those small violations and increase the percentage of money going where its supposed to go and being used how it is supposed to be used, that would be millions of dollars, equivalent to getting several new grants.
AND it would be what the most ethical person in the room would do.
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