Ethics in Engineering and Science Forum—Sylvia Robins, Doug Ross and Ralph Nader

PENG: Good evening, distinguished panelists, fellow students, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Scott Peng. And I'm the chairman of Academic Projects and Policy Committee of the Graduate Student Council. And on behalf of MIT, I'd like to welcome all of you here tonight to the forum on Ethics and Engineering and Science.

Before we start, I'd like to thank a few people, whose efforts and time have made all this possible. First, I'd like to thank the following MIT individuals, President Paul Gray, Dean McBay, Dean Perkins of the Graduate School, the MIT corporation, and the MIT Alumni Association for their financial support of this forum. Secondly, I'd like to thank a few people who although are not members of the Graduate Student Council, nevertheless put forth a lot of effort on our behalf.

Dean Perkins, the Dean of Graduate School is one of these people. His advice and support during last half year's preparation has helped greatly. Professors Charles Weiner and Nicholas Ashford must be thanked for their advice, direction, and assistance. We'll also acknowledge the efforts of Professor Whitbeck, the moderator. Her experience in teaching courses on ethics in the engineering curriculum has contributed greatly to the fruition of the forum.

I'd also like to thank Ashdown House for graciously agreeing to host the post-forum reception for us, and Rich Callan and his people for volunteering to publicize this event. Last, and definitely not least, I'd like to thank the students who put this forum together. With the exception of the people mentioned above, this forum was conceived, planned, and put together by the graduate students at MIT, or more specifically, by a group of 12 students on my committee. Their efforts and dedication are what made this forum possible. Jeff Meredith, John [INAUDIBLE], Mark Hansen, Mike Warwick, Scott Maxwell, [INAUDIBLE], Scott Sikorski, Robin Michnick, John Hawkins, Mike Rosenberg, Steve Farber, and Maya Metrich. It's been an honor and privilege for me to work with them, the graduate students of MIT.

And now, on with the forum. You've all been provided with an index card upon entering. It is for you to write a question, should you have any, after the first part of the forum. After the speakers have finished their presentations, we will have people walking down the aisles collecting these cards from you, and a few questions will be selected to be posed to the panelists.

As I mentioned before, there will be a reception after the forum at Ashdown House here at MIT, which is located on the corner of Mass Ave and Memorial Drive. The reception is open to all. Now I'd like to introduce the moderator for tonight's forum, Professor Whitbeck.

She is currently senior lecturer in mechanical engineering and senior research scholar at MIT Center for Technology and Policy. She's been actively involved in bringing ethical considerations into the engineering curriculum and was recently named fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her work in engineering ethics. Professor Whitbeck.

WHITBECK: Thank you Scott. And I'd like to thank the Graduate Student Council for enriching our life with this discussion this evening. The intent of this forum is to discuss responsible and effective means by which engineers and applied scientists can raise their ethical issues in corporate and institutional environments. We will be discussing the subject of whistle blowing, that is, taking one's ethical concerns outside of one's corporation or institution.

But that will not be our only topic here. We're concerned with a variety of questions. For example, what avenues ought corporations to offer their employees for raising ethical concerns? And how may an engineer judge the quality and efficacy of these avenues?

Our first speaker, Sylvia Robins, has had extensive experience in raising ethical issues at her employment. She is a Rockwell Shuttle Operations company engineer, working on the space shuttle contract for NASA, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. She was formally a supervisor working for the Unisys corporation, another contractor for the for the shuttle contract. Prior to that time, she worked as department manager and project engineer for the Singer Link flight simulation company in Houston, Texas.

Mrs. Robins was featured in a February 1, 1988 issue of Time Magazine, which documented the harassment that she experienced when she raised her concerns about fraud and abuses in the space shuttle contract. These abuses included safety and security issues, as well as exposure of time card, fraud, sex discrimination in pay scales, and the associated cover up by corporate and NASA officials. On April 6, The Wall Street Journal carried the story of the indictment of Rockwell for $14 billion of fraudulent charges against the government. Many of the charges made by Sylvia Robins are echoed in this indictment. It's my pleasure to introduce to you Sylvia Robins.

ROBINS: First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to the Graduate Student Council for the opportunity to be here this evening and share with you my experiences. It is my sincere belief and hope that no one here tonight will be faced with the situations with which I'm about to discuss with you. I'd like to begin by reading the rules of the American Society of Civil Engineers code of ethics.

"Engineers shall hold the safety, health, and welfare of the public and the performance of their professional duties. Engineers shall perform services only in the areas of their competence. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees and shall avoid conflicts of interest. Engineers shall build their professional reputation on the merit of their service and shall not compete unfairly with others.

Engineers shall act in a manner as to uphold and enhance the honor, integrity, and dignity of the engineering profession. Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout their careers and shall provide opportunities for the professional development of those engineers under their supervision."

I would like to share with you tonight my thoughts on ethics in engineering, professional responsibility and accountability, and my experiences as they relate like to the plight of the whistleblower. I'm currently employed as a systems engineer working for the Rockwell Shuttle Operations company on the space transportation systems operations contract at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. I was formerly employed as a section supervisor by Unisys on the same contract and was forced from my position after I voiced concerns about management abuses and illegalities.

Rockwell is the prime contractor to NASA, responsible for the overall operations of flight hardware and software for the space shuttle contract. Unisys, a subcontractor to Roswell, is responsible for the software. During the time, from February to September in 1986, in the course of my supervisory responsibilities, I identified safety problems, security breaches, management deficiencies, contractual illegalities, and violations of company policies and procedures.

Unisys was overcharging Rockwell for work as their subcontractor by padding unnecessary man hours and personnel on task resulting in a duplication of effort. There were security problems in the department, as one employee, who was responsible for handling red classified data, such as tapes, computer printouts, microfiche documents, and electronic data sets, was abusing drugs on the job.

When I reported concerns to my supervisors, I was told by Unisys management to drop the issue. The employee was a potential security risk and her actions constituted a security violation. Since the individual was one of my section employees, I tried to secure assistance through the company medical services. But management told me to butt out. The problem would correct itself.

Another security violation, which affected my department was our inability to maintain red or classified products for processing and distribution, due to the inadequate and improper operating procedures. These flight software product support classified DOD missions. There had been continuing company debate over the issue of how we could protect the integrity of the classified products, when we had no bonded warehouse, no secure containers, such a safes or storage of the classified data nor secure couriers.

Each time discussions were held concerning secure issues, I was once again pressured not to pursue the resolution. The classified issues had to be resolved in order for the company to fulfill contractual requirements. The products and support of the flight software could not meet customer delivery dates, because of critical problems with the processing of microfiche in the software production facility at JSC and Houston.

I was tasked in June, 1986 by Rockwell management to work and resolve the microfiche incapacity problem, because our product deliveries were habitually late and did not meet minimum quality standards. We worked hard to resolve the issue, carried it to NASA for sign off. And commendation letters were forthcoming to the section.

Because the budget was tight, the change request for replacing the equipment was postponed, and Unisys management let me know that they were unhappy with me, because it would cost them more money to produce quality products and to do things right. 13 days later, I was removed from my position, because they feared I would continue to address the problems.

Other issues included schedule product template compression giving my section no processing time for flight software product deliveries, incomplete backup flight software verification and reports, gross equal pay violation, and time card falsification. Improper procedures were being forced upon Unisys employees by management in the altering of the shuttle mission simulators and the software used for astronaut training. Test procedures were poor at best, and there was rubber stamping of the tests, which were not being properly performed. One of the most flagrant issues was the listing of a fictitious person, a stuffed, toy blue and white elephant in the official company telephone directory as a Unisys employee.

I reported and formally filed concerns with Unisys and Rockwell supervisors. Only after I was threatened with my job and told I would be fired if I pursued resolution of the deficiencies, did I take the concerns to NASA, the Inspector General, the FBI, and the company ombudsman. Because the deficiencies posed potential safety and security hazards to the crew and the overall program, I continued to try and resolve the issues. Even after I was demoted, I attempted to seek help from Rockwell's upper management to review the inadequacies only to be threatened again.

As a result of my whistle blowing, I have been harassed at work and home, verbally abused, telephone and activities monitored, followed by the Rockwell security department, home telephone wire tap, defamed, demoted. The company denied me sick leave. My privacy has been invaded, and there have been threats placed upon my home, family, and life. There was even a threat placed upon my nine-year-old son.

Every day men and women call a halt to mismanagement, waste, fraud, and corruption. Every day they save lives, money, and help build a climate of integrity in government, industry, academia, and local communities. The Challenger Space Shuttle disaster might have been averted had a corporation listened to the warnings of its engineers. That Morton Thiokol and NASA failed to act when engineers warned about the possible effect of the cold Florida weather on the booster rocket o rings seems astonishing in retrospect.

NASA and Morton Thiokol management constituted the unethical decision making forum, which ultimately produced the management decision to launch Challenger without any restrictions. Roger Boisjoly, the senior engineer at Morton Thiokol, involved with the solid rocket motor since 1980, told me how he desperately made attempts to reverse the launch, the decision, on the eve of the Challenger disaster based on factual engineering data supporting his evidence of o ring failure. The documentation unmistakably supported a no launch decision, and yet there was no engineering assessment made during the caucus on the eve of the launch. And Morton Thiokol senior management reversed a sound technical recommendation without one shred of supporting technical data or any reevaluation of that data. They took off their engineering hats and made a management decision, as told to the Rogers Commission assigned to investigate the cause of the accident.

In a world of moral uncertainty, for many people, ethics has become a bellwether of right behavior and a barometer of public thinking. Questions about what is right or wrong are being asked more and more by a broad range of people in all disciplines, business, government, medicine, science, education, and the news media. Many claim to be caught in a moral bind as they confront ethical dilemmas and say they want, if not simple answers, morally acceptable choices.

Certain questions about right and wrong are not new. Once we get more and more into technological issues and questions of conscience, we found there are no simple answers. The increase in technology and knowledge has outstripped our values. We don't have a common value system on which to draw.

It is one thing to agree on ethical principles. It is quite another to live by them in a real world, where the issues are complex, the interests are conflicting, and where decisions must be made under stress. Ordinary pressures or compounded in many practical business situations where decisions must be made in the context of time and other pressures, which often preclude reasoned reflection and extended discussion.

Even when discussions or had, the pervasiveness of insider assumptions and the prominence of self-interest tend to cause decision makers to exaggerate the importance of their goals and minimize the significance of the ethical implications of the methods employed. These facts create a need for a more systematic and rigorous approach to making sound, practical, ethical decisions.

Through case study methods such as the Hastings Center in New York, a 19-year-old think tank, they have found that it's not an embezzler or kickbacks, but the misconduct is the manager, who is doing things he's ashamed of and that might violate company policy or law and yet thinks he can't keep his job without doing it. There has to be a way for good employees with good consciences to perform their jobs and meet their professional challenges without having their careers destroyed.

There is a great need for higher ethical standards in the workplace. People know that they have been operating in relative shades of grey for years. There's often more than innate morality that motivates people to behave ethically. If you don't have a positive attitude towards ethics, it can be costly. In the space program, it cost the lives of seven astronauts. And it can create a threat to our country's national defense.

We cannot allow ourselves to continue without stepping back and asking the question, what are the consequences? What are our ethics? It has been said that ethics is in a state of anesthesia. What is everyone's professional responsibility and ethical conduct code, which should be practiced in the workplace?

Engineers have a responsibility that goes far beyond the building of machines and systems. We cannot leave it to the technical administrators to decide what is safe and for the public good. We must tell what we know through administrative channels, but when this fails, seek whatever avenues we can find. Sometimes the penalty of protesting is to put disapproval, loss of status, and vilification can be severe.

Today we need more critical pronouncements and published declaration by engineers and high professional responsibilities. In some instances, such criticism must be severe if we are to properly serve mankind and preserve our freedom. It is of the utmost importance that we maintain our freedom of communication in the engineering profession and to the public.

In most companies, there is the tendency to kill the messenger bringing the bad news rather than punishing the wrongdoer. People who hang tough with the organization manage to do very well. Getting along by going along, hanging in there, and not protesting is valued highly. They manage to survive because of their fundamental and correct belief that the organization will protect them.

Upon exposing serious safety and security deficiencies in the space program at JSC in Houston, I became an example of shoot the messenger syndrome. A report prepared by a committee of safety experts for senior officials with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the safety risk assessment ad hoc committee report, submitted in August, 1987, cited disturbing that some of the pre-Challenger safety problems identified in the aftermath of the accident still exist today. The report was not discovered until much later and NASA officials in January, 1988, stated that it was not meant for public consumption.

The report revealed inadequacies in safety critical designs, hazards analysis, lack of quality assurance checks on interface controls, and integration hazards, errors in assembly and processing with improper quality on supervision sign-offs of flight critical items including flight hardware and software. There was evidence of rubber stamping on safety and quality products.

In the review of the safety critical redesign, the hazards analysis is being done to reflect the design selection. This follows the pre-51L pattern of safety documentation of risk decisions, rather than a proactive safety analysis, which influences the design. The report addresses the shoot the messenger syndrome and indicates on the hesitancy of individuals to be the bearers of bad news, because employees who have been such messengers have incurred a gamut of criticism, ranging from displeasure to outright wrath.

Also, there is evidence that even the astronauts may be reluctant to complain because of the fear of being prevented from flying. This 68 page safety report with 72 recommendations suggested to correct the problems in the organizations, which are responsible for the implementation, had not even been given to several of the astronauts who were scheduled to fly on the next flight. This report confirmed the very issues I voiced two years ago. It was this report, of which I had no knowledge, that triggered this February 1 Time Magazine article.

As I stated earlier, I sought help from the company president, supervisors, managers, the NASA Inspector General, the FBI, congressional representatives, before I went public in September 1987. Within two hours of my press conference, the walls moved in around me. I returned to my office the following Monday, to find that my office walls had been moved in 3 and 1/2 feet. I endearingly referred to it as my dog run. I'm the only employee who can sit in the building and touch both walls.

Shortly after I discovered my cozy new surroundings, I was summoned down to the company's security department. I had been told that DOD investigators wanted to interrogate me about the reported security breaches. I had no problem discussing the security violation, but if that wasn't an intimidating enough experience, I was not allowed a witness nor a tape recorder and was threatened by company security officials informing me that I must cooperate under all circumstances, or I would lose my secret clearance.

Of course I complied. Since that time, I have been monitored outside my home and work. Threats have been made upon my home and family members. And my property destroyed. The life of one of my witnesses daughters was threatened just moments before the press conference. My co-plaintiff has equally been harassed and eventually fired because she refused to participate in a meeting as part of the company's strategy to remove me. She was ordered along with my subordinates to falsify time sheets. And when she refused she refused to charge time that she has not worked, she too was demoted.

Management then altered her sign in outlog and wrongfully terminated her for inattentiveness. We have both been verbally abused and harassed by the department manager, who physically attempted to strike me in October, 1986, and charged at my co-plaintiff in the spring of '87. To date, the harassment continues.

In a letter to NASA's top brass in March, 1986, just after the Challenger disaster, John Young, one of our most decorated astronauts wrote, "There is only one driving reason that such a potentially dangerous system, such as the Challenger, would ever be allowed to fly. Launch schedule pressure." John Young was immediately reassigned as assistant to the director of the Johnson Space Center. Some NASA insiders say the move was made to silence Young because he publicly criticized safety efforts and management at NASA after the disaster. Young broke the unwritten rule, NASA's astronauts are supposed to remain silent.

This is the same kind of climate that prevails within the Rockwell Houston facility among the subcontractor work force. The workers that protest safety or management issues are threatened, silenced, suspended, or fired. Needless to say, management by intimidation is not conducive for the teamwork required for a safe return to flight.

It is unfortunate that most corporations continue to view whistle blowers as malcontents, troublemakers, or disgruntled employees. Many companies actively take retaliatory action against the whistle blower, such as I had described. Historically, government agencies and corporations have reacted to employee disclosure of improper or illegal activities by punishing the employee.

Although the techniques vary, corporations employ a wide variety of options to retaliate against the bureaucratic dissenters. Frequent choices have ranged from outright termination on trumped up charges of incompetence or wrongdoing, transferred to a bureaucratic Siberia, forced psychiatric examination, to the removal of all meaningful duties. A recent study of 233 whistle blowers surveyed has been published by Dr. Don Soeken, President of the Association of Mental Health Specialties in Laurel, Maryland, and his wife Karen, an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.

According to the survey, most whistle blowers reported that the first sound they sounded the alarm, nothing happened. For 80% of the sample, the initial action was considered unsuccessful, and they subsequently pursued other avenues, primarily external routes. What does this suggest? It says that if a whistle blower goes to his supervisor, who often has a bureaucratic tie-in, he's making a mistake. The manager, rather than to try to remedy what went wrong, is more likely to get angry at the employee. Rather than work to correct the problem, Rockwell chooses to remove the employee.

Management generally does not want to hear about the problems. And if they are serious in nature, the result is most likely that the corporation overreacts to the allegations, and retaliation generally follows. In Dr. Soeken's study, he professes that harassment came from supervisors 82%, as well as from peers, 53%, included verbal harassment and abuse, telephone and activity monitoring, denial of sick leave request, or being ignored. Job-related retaliation included demotion, firing, and forced retirement.

Corporate whistle blowers are more likely to lose their jobs, 84%, than in government, 49%. For whistle blowers in the nuclear industry, retaliation was likely to mean being blackballed from the entire industry.

The emotional and financial toll of the retaliation is severe, as one sees their life's work going down the drain. Many engineers with years of education and experience see themselves losing all of that. A feeling of powerlessness takes hold. I was demoted, transferred, and then given responsibilities of tasks with impossible constraints and unrealistic deadlines. The finale of this tactic is to dismiss the employee as incompetent.

One of Soeken's whistle blowers, who had worked on a nuclear power plant, was sent literally to the desert in California. They are uprooted, isolated, and may be told, we no longer have a need for this particular job, so we are dismissing you. 17% of the whistle blowers lost homes. 8% filed bankruptcy. 15% percent ended in divorce. And 10% committed suicide. Only 20% indicated that positive changes were made as a result of their activities, such as personnel changes, changes in company policy, indictments, improved safety, or official investigations by the FBI or NRC. Whistle blowers are warned to expect retaliation, financial loss, and mental anguish along with the deterioration of one's physical health.

My health is much worse today than it was two years ago. I went public in hopes of protecting myself, my family, and to inform the general public of the serious nature of some of the Space Shuttle program deficiencies. In my case, I failed to recognize that I was a whistle blower until after I had acted. Only then did I discover the cold consequences.

I had never worked in a company where I was punished for doing my job. I didn't realize that exposing the companies abuses would set off such an alarm. The cover up activities by the companies which quickly followed were equally shocking. I feel that management should welcome the employees' concerns and that whistle blowers should be recognized as corporate assets.

I'm referring to substantive issues, not the petty day to day problems. How then, can companies protect whistle blowers? The company ombudsman is not the solution, since the ombudsman works for management and can't remain neutral. In the Rockwell facility in Houston calls to the ombudsman are routed back to the company's security department, who in turn puts you on their hit list.

The ethics committee at Rockwell is directed by the same security department whose very individuals monitored my activities and tapped my office telephone. Did the Morton Thiokol NASA Challenger disaster have any discernible effect on how corporations have behaved since toward whistle blowers? If Morton Thiokol had lost the government contract, it might have had more effect, but it didn't. To some extent, it's business as usual.

The best way to reduce problems is to get the company healthy. Corporations should develop policies, which require free and open discussion with management support for disclosure of problems with no fear of reprisal or retaliation taken against employees. Blowing the whistle is one of life's tests of values, personal strength and stamina. It is a task in which the stakes may be professional, emotional, and financial survival.

Even with strong legal protection, whistle blowers pay for their integrity with their careers. Whistle blowers do not need a big brother. However, they do need the same access to the courts for defense of their constitutional rights as consistently enjoyed by the American public that benefit from their dissent.

If you are confronted with the ethical dilemma of blowing the whistle, and you feel that the company does not openly accept problem issues, then my suggestion is to report the concerns as a group. It is harder to dismiss a department of engineers than it is an individual. Group petitions sometimes work effectively to bring about change. That way, a single individual can't be incriminated.

These are lessons I learned just a little late. Of course, you can always report problems through anonymous letters but seek whatever means are necessary through alternate channels. Some think the erosion of our standards has crossed the line of reversal. I do not share that pessimism. I prefer to think that there is enough tough genetic material in the American people to rebound.

All of you must evaluate your careers and emerge with the knowledge and conviction that you have a professional and moral responsibility to yourselves, to your fellow man, and to defend the truth and expose any questionable practices that may lead to an unsafe product. Don't just sit passively when you know in your heart that you can make a constructive contribution. And also be prepared to share your ideas with others.

You have a responsibility to promote the best product for the company and put personal pride aside. This is the best way to cultivate colleague respect and friendship, which in the industry always results in a positive long term benefit for you, the company, and its product line. I have been asked by some if I would come forward again if I knew in advance of the potential consequences to me, my family, and my career. My answer is always yes.

I couldn't live with any self respect or command respect from others if I tailored my actions upon personal consequences resulting from my actions. Together as colleagues we can all accomplish the goal to reduce unethical decision making practices, policies, and procedures within our industrial and government communities.

The space program, as well as other interests, cannot be allowed to become wrought with attitudes of indifference, complacency, greed, carelessness incompetency, nor lack of attention to details, which fosters unethical decision making. We must regain dedication to excellence and workmanship as there was during the days when space quest inspired all of us. Management must provide the leadership and inspiration to rekindle the team spirit and pride of accomplishment.

A vigorous and extensive manned spaceflight motivation program must be revitalized in order to regain national prestige, progress of science and technology, and the aspirations of mankind. Most significant, however, all members of the engineering and scientific communities must defend their professional integrity with the same intensity that they defend their political freedoms. As with political liberty, the price of professional freedom is eternal vigilance. Thank you very much

[APPLAUSE]

WHITBECK: Our next speaker is Doug Ross. He has had many contacts with MIT since coming here in 1951 as a teaching assistant in mathematics. In the 1950s and 1960s, he headed the computer applications group of the electronic systems laboratory with achievements in APT language for programming numerically controlled machine tools and early work in computer aided design, graphics, and software methodology.

In 1969, he founded SofTech, now a 600 person company with headquarters in Waltham. As founder, president, and now chairman of the board, he has acquired a great deal of experience relevant to the issues that we will be considering this evening. Doug Ross.

[APPLAUSE]

ROSS: That was quite a tale to follow, right? But actually, if you find me sort of stumbling around getting started with remarks I intend to make, that's because I have a problem. In fact, I have a personal, ethical dilemma.

You see, and it's not unlike the kind of ethical dilemma that an ordinary scientist or engineer would find as they go enjoying just some ordinary company, never mind all this big gun stuff. It's very easy to stumble into situations where you find that you have an ethical dilemma.

Now in my case, I have to decide whether or not to be a whistle blower, because something's wrong here. You see the organization that I agreed to join-- I agreed to serve on this panel-- was much like a company. They have their own objectives. I've liked very much those objectives. I feel very much in tune with them. I thought I could make a contribution. I've enjoyed meeting the people that I'm serving with. So I'm very pleased with my job.

And yet as soon as I get in here, what do I find? A problem. And it's one I can't dodge. Because I'm involved, even though I had nothing to do with making it a problem. Again, this is typical of what you actually will encounter when you're not in the real hot soup like Sylvia was just describing to us.

Now I have to face this, you see. And I'll tell you what the problem is. It's whether or not I should be a whistle blower, right now. Because you see, on all the bulletin boards that you've seen as I walk down the Infinite Corridor down there, all over the place are little yellow sheets encouraging you all to come here tonight and be the customer for what this organization is going to deliver to you as the marketplace.

And right there it says, Doug Ross CEO SofTek. My problem is I'm not the CEO of SofTek. I haven't been the CEO of SofTek since before I stopped being president of SofTek. I'm a technical person more than a business, business person. And so way back in the early days, I decided that in order to have SofTek be healthy, I'd better make somebody else senior vice president, CEO for the company, even though I was the president. We didn't even have a chairman then. And that situation has remained as I moved up to chairman position, you see.

So now that I've got this off my chest-- and most of the time, chairmen turn out to be CEOs. But it's not necessarily true. And so even though I don't want to have anybody feeling badly about having this false advertising all over the place, now I'm actually quite pleased with it. Because it gave me this way of introducing what I had to say.

Things have a way of working out, as well as being bad. You see it's impossible for me to stand up here and be a representative of all CEOs. And as you've just heard, it's impossible for me to be even a representative CEO. I'm not.

But I have been through those routes. And I've had my own versions of ethical dilemmas over and over, making really tough decisions along the way, many of them affecting lots of people, lots in my terms. And that's just what goes with the job. But I don't think I could supply you any rational set of war stories that would actually give you anything to walk away with.

And so I decided that I would actually confess to what I really do these days, and what I've been doing all along. I'm really just a professional thinker. On occasion, I put my thoughts into action. I become a doer, and I start companies and things like that and get on panels and so forth. But my real purpose in life is to understand how we understand problems and try to do that understanding by understanding how the words that we use work. Because that's what we think with. That's what we understand through.

And so I had it in mind that because it's impossible to make a useful distinction between ethics in business and personal ethics, or personal ethics and personal morals-- you see, there's two different words coming in again-- all I can really do here was try to set the stage, leave you with some memorable thoughts that you could take off yourself into your own future, and maybe that would turn out to be helpful in understanding some of these things that make such very difficult problems to think about, these ethical dilemmas. So I'm going to try to provide a framework for reasoning about these kinds of problems in general. And hopefully, when we get to the discussion in the panel context, my efforts to apply this framework for reasoning, my particular use of the terminologies and so forth, will bring the ideas to life. And you will see that maybe there is something useful to it. And that will be the contribution I think I can make.

Now in order to make a framework for this framework for reasoning, over the years as I've tried to understand business, it always comes back to just one thing. There's one principle thing behind business, and that's delegation. And we have delegation of responsibility, delegation of authority, and delegation of accountability. Those three things, all are needed, and all are different.

Now delegation of responsibility, in order to make this make sense, let's think that I'm a manager, and I have a certain amount of turf that I've gotten from my manager. And I'm delegating to one of my subordinates. And what I do is I take a great big cookie cutter, and I cut out a piece of that and I pass it over to him. And I say, I'm delegating you responsibility for that piece of my turf.

Now delegation is 100%. When I do that, all I'm doing, and the only responsibility I retain, is responsibility for the defined boundary. In order for that person to rationally take their job, they have to accept, and I have to give, 100% responsibility for the inside of the cookie. I will continue to monitor the boundary and that sort of thing. That remains my responsibility. But they have responsibility for what's inside.

Now when it comes to authority, the delegation of authority. That's different. Because delegation of authority always must be limited. It takes the form of the limited amount of resources that I turn over. How much money? How many people? What rights to use those? What accounts with the customers? Those are the things that are passed over.

And at the same time, though, I also always put a limitation on the authority that goes with the use of those resources. And that should be in a formal memo that actually is titled, limitation on authority. And what this says is in the memo, I say to my subordinate, I say, within policy and procedures, the guidelines that the company corporation has set up in general, you can act entirely on your own in that area of your responsibility. You have complete authority there. On this place, these kinds of things, you have complete authority, as well, but I want to know what you've done. Report to me promptly on those.

In this area, before you act, please counsel with me. You still will be responsible. And you'll make the decision as to what to do. But I do want you to at least hear my counsel. So at least, I'll understand that you'll understand better on those. Now in everything else that I have not just delegated to you, I retain authority. I'm the one who's going to act. So I require of you there full reporting of that situation, so that I can act. In other words, my authority does penetrate that boundary in those areas.

So what do we have? We have responsibility is delegated 100%. Authority is delegated in a limited fashion, for good reasons. What about accountability?

Well accountability is really interesting, because accountability cannot be delegated, period. If you think about it, accountability can only be shared. My subordinate is accountable to me for his actions. But I am accountable to him also to provide the ability for him to do his job. I can't ask for the unreasonable.

And in the same way, I'm accountable to my boss, right up the chain. And my boss ends up with the CEO. And above that is the board of directors. And what's above that? Societal matters, the society itself. The corporation is chartered in the same way by the state to act as an individual. Corporations are, in the eyes of the law, an individual. And the board of directors is the one that keeps the CEO in office, and so forth on down the line.

And what's above government? The laws of nature themselves. Nature has follows the same pattern of what is allowed and what is not allowed. So when we pollute things and so forth, and our corporations become responsible for the actions of their workers in polluting, you see the whole chain. That's this tied together system of accountability that nothing can be done about. That's the nature of it.

So this view, as I say, this is sort of my Rosetta Stone, if you will, for understanding business in general. It's good for understanding management by objectives or for setting up of just compensation schemes, along with incentive compensation for extraordinary performance. It's good for career path development and guidance and counseling and training, teaching. But the interesting thing about it for tonight's context is that it also provides a very concise framework within which we can address and understand the impact of ethical dilemmas on us as individuals.

And I'd like to get into that as the next thing. Let's just take those two words, moral and ethical. What's the difference between them? Do you have a good idea yourselves as you just sit there? Think about it just for a moment.

You see, words, and the ideas that go with words, are the building blocks out of which we make our whole world view. That's us inside, seeing through those meanings and those words as they are used. So what I do in my professional thinking, you see, is I frequently go back to my great big thick, 1961 edition of the Webster's, and I look up the words. And boy is that enlightening. What do I find?

Well when I look up moral, it says, "moral comes from the Latin word, mos, m-o-s, meaning custom." What's customary for you? In other words, your morals come from who you are as a member of some culturally backgrounded tribe is the way I'd like to say it. In other words, how you were brought up, no questions of ethnic background. You see, that's not the important thing. It's who are the people you came into contact all the way along with, even right up to yesterday. How has that affected you? Who are you? That makes your total moral fiber.

And you look up ethical, the other word. Ethical in the dictionary comes out, it says it comes from the Greek word, ethicos, meaning, guess what, moral, ethical. A loop. But if you dig a little bit deeper, you find that the difference is that ethical is always used in conformity to a code. We have codes of ethics

And those codes come from this same kind of delegated, hierarchic structure building, organization building, world organizing with us in there and looking out at the world in that particular pattern, because that's where we're built, you see. That's where the rules come from. They're those very ones that we were talking about in the delegation.

And so if you want then to understand what happens and what the link is between ethical and moral and this business of delegation, this business of business, because business is only what people do. What people do in their roles is what makes business. What people do in their roles is what makes ethical dilemmas too. That's what we're getting at here.

And so if you think about what I've talked about with responsibility and authority and that shared accountability, it's the shared accountability that ties these things together. Think about that little piece of turf that I delegated with the subordinate inside. As he looks out, and as he delegates to his subordinates, up and down through that accountability chain that's the ethical thing. That's the thing that has the rules that has to have the rules in order to function. That's where the codes come from. So ethical is external directed.

Now moral is who is that person inside. Whether it goes up or down in the hierarchy, who's right there at that node in the system? Who's playing that role, really? So again, as I say, my little picture of delegation provides a very solid framework for getting some very concise, technical use of these words to maybe give me some help. I say maybe only though, because let's proceed with the dictionary.

If you look up lemma, we've all had lemmas when we took mathematics courses, but in general, what is a lemma? It's just an assumption that is adopted in order to derive some bigger thing from it. What's a dilemma? It's two lemmas, two sets of assumptions that come together, both of them equally drivable, equally good, and they come up here, and bang, they clash. That's a dilemma.

Now the interesting thing about tonight's subject matter is that we have a built-in dilemma. And you can't escape it. That's the dilemma of ethics versus morals. There is no way you can separate yourself from who you are organizationally, who you are as a member of these various tribes that you belong to, not just at your job. What school did you go to? Where did your family come from? Where do you spend your summers? What do you do for hobbies?

There's you in the middle playing all those roles. So there's no way out of this fact that I have a moral dilemma every time I have an ethical situation, whether it's a problem yet or not. I do have a dilemma.

Now my personal understanding, you see, of the ethical side, the one that has the structuring, comes because I joined the company. I liked what they were going to do. I thought I could make a contribution, have a good career. And I'm really glad to be here on this panel. I'm thrilled. And I really want that to be so.

And yet I find myself in a situation where something is wrong. Even if I'm the lowest person in the organization, just a worker with no more responsibility, authority, nor accountability than from my own individual time on the job, even at that level, I may very well be stuck with one of these situations where I have the question, am I to be a whistle blower or note? Not part of my job, but there I am.

The middle managers are really stuck. Because they frequently find themselves in situations that make them start to question the efficacy of the whole structure. They thought they liked what was going on. But now they see these things. They start to have all these really tough questions.

And the higher up you go in the management structure, the tougher that becomes. Because as you get to any levels, but especially at the higher ones, the managers are the ones who make the efficacy. And it's their responsibility. Remember, they held onto the responsibility for those boundaries for the structure itself. So they have to stay on top of it, monitoring, cajoling, educating, tweaking, poking they're nose in, trying to get communication that doesn't normally come up to them and so forth. That's maybe why they're paid so much. I don't know. I think they're overpaid most of them. That's what goes with the job.

And so no matter who you are in that structure, no matter what's your job or what's your role, when you have one of these awkward, real ethical dilemmas-- they don't come all the time. They don't come frequently. Hopefully, they very seldom, almost never come in Sylvia's heavy dose, you know, where she really had a thing to live through. But we all do face them. You're always stuck with this fundamental, ultimate dilemma of how do you ethically balance off all these things that you'd like to see happen, that you'd like to contribute to and so forth, and yet be true to yourself morally.

There is no way out of it. It's got to be a very personal thing. It's got to be hard. And it's seldom entirely satisfactory.

Now hopefully, any particular case will be helped by doing your own mental exercises with this kind of framework and picture. And the distinctions I've been trying to make, you'll be able to see more clearly what they are, sort of like coming up to a problem and being able to apply an appropriate coordinate system. You all remember, back when I was teaching freshman calculus here in 1951, that the key thing was to find the right orientation for the coordinate system. And then all the complex equations came out simpler, and you could bang right through the solution in no time at all. Well I'm hoping-- this will never happen for these things-- but I hope it's that sort of thing that these thoughts will do.

But I'd like to end up these thoughts with one last one, again, founded in a key word. And that word is integrity. Let's again go to the dictionary and see what it says for that. "The quality or state of being complete and undivided." The quality or state of being complete and undivided, that's a really good definition.