Giving ‘good’ an equal seat at the table
Why moral positioning?
Integrity is a term most of us can relate to really well. We feel motivated to contribute to a better world, and we see how there are many opportunities for the organisations we work for to do just that. At the same time, it can be hard for us to see how we can contribute as an individual or team, and often pressure from operational and financial targets on the one hand, and administrative or regulatory burden on the other needs all of our attention. Question is: How can ‘good’ get an equal seat at the table when we make a decision?
Three competing perspectives
If you work for a commercial organisation, it is logical you feel the need to ‘be successful’ in an operational and financial sense. Also, we all understand the need to ‘comply’ and stick to policies, regulations and other agreements. And finally, most of us feel pressure to ‘be good’, both from external forces such as regulators, media and friends, but also from our internal moral compass.
Figure: Three competing perspectives
Ideally, we want all of our choices to be successful, legal and good (1). However, since we have trouble figuring out what ‘good’ is, there is a risk we end up striving for maximum success within the boundaries of the law (3). This is not necessarily good or bad, but you could say it’s ‘amoral’.
An important challenge is that while in the commercial and regulatory world we work with numbers and words respectively, in the world of ethics, we work with feelings mostly. The opportunity (2/4) therefore lies in better defining these feelings about what’s good so they can compete for attention with the other two perspectives.
A scale of good
What if we not only define what we think is good, but also measure it? For this purpose, I developed a ‘scale of good’ and a method to determine how well our choices do on this scale. Integrity means that we look for opportunities that score higher on the scale of good than the ‘as-is’ situation. The alternatives we consider are placed on the scale by determining whether they are in line with our values (y-axis) on the one hand, and if we think they have good consequences for our stakeholders (x-axis).
Figure: Scale of good
After having determined how the scenarios we can choose from do on the scale of good, we will need to take a position as to which alternative we think is good enough. It is not always possible or desirable to simply choose the scenario that scores the highest on the scale. After all, commercial and legal considerations should also be taken into account.
Moral positioning in short
The moral positioning process leads to several valuable insights. Next to determining how good a scenario is, moral positioning provides several ways to zoom in on why a scenario is good or bad and what can potentially be done to improve it.
Typically, it takes about 3 sessions of 45 – 90 minutes each to properly determine an initial moral position, but this is highly dependent on the complexity of the case at hand and the potential impact of the decision. Participating in the moral positioning process is generally highly appreciated for its practicality and concreteness by both expert and executive participants.
The moral positioning process and outcomes can help executives show stakeholders how they formed their own norm, rather than follow others’ and better explain the choices they make as an organisation. In an extended version, it allows for the inclusion of internal and external stakeholders in the decision-making process.
What is moral positioning?
Moral positioning is an important step in the process of making good more doable. It provides a structured approach to weighing alternatives in the case of an ethical dilemma. It makes the overall process of doing good more achievable.
Doing good process
If you want to do good, obviously it is important to recognise opportunities to do so. For moral positioning, it is assumed you already recognise the dilemma at hand and see the urgency to determine a position on it. Please note that is often not the case. Once the position is determined to a satisfactory level it is up to those involved to commit to implementing the position or not. It is very important to not see a moral position as a decision, but rather as a norm that can (or probably should) be used as input for a decision.
Figure: Doing good process
It is therefore best to see the norm-forming process of moral positioning as separate from the actual decision-making process. Ideally it should be performed before a commercial or legal position is taken. As can be seen in the figure above, in the overall process of making good more doable, moral positioning focuses on the middle step.
Moral positioning process
Zooming in on the ‘position’ step, we can distinguish four separate phases in the moral positioning process. In a sequence of sessions of 45 to 90 minutes with 2 to 12 people present, a moral position is determined. First the dilemma is defined in a short session with one or more people with enough knowledge on the situation and context of the dilemma. Next, in a session with 5 to 12 people with knowledge of the dilemma, the options available are evaluated and an initial position is determined and shortly discussed with the group. This can result in a group position or a set of individual positions. In a next session, the moral position(s) and ethical analysis is evaluated and finally follow up actions to improve the position are determined.
Figure: Moral positioning process
This process should at all times be an iterative process. Even if at some point the group arrives at a moral position that is ‘mature’ enough to commit to, it should be noted that this will always remain a chosen position, and never the truth.
Moral positioning outcomes
The most substantial difference between moral positioning and other moral deliberation methods is the way in which results are recorded. In more traditional approaches to navigating ethical dilemmas, outcomes are often recorded in a way that is reliant on lots of text if done properly at all. Compared to moral positioning, it requires a lot of interpretation and research to combine outcomes of different dilemma sessions into a consistent position. Besides this, the overreliance on text reduces the explainability to stakeholders that often have a low appetite for nuance.
Moral positioning outcomes are explicit, highly specified and visualised. We might never be able to determine if the outcomes are an accurate reflection of what is in fact good, but it might be the closest we will ever get to that. As the results are very well ‘codified’, they are easily recorded, stored, shared, and -most notably- combined with outcomes of other sessions. Records of a multitude of moral positioning sessions can be analysed for common denominators, and sessions of different groups can be compared in detail. This is needed to create moral knowledge of a higher order, needed to compete with the higher order knowledge we often already have in the area of commerce or regulation.
Please contact me if you would like more information, a demo or if you would like to determine your own moral position on an ethical dilemma.