Cheating Culture in the USA

John D. Willis

Leadership Ethics Online, LLC

info@leadershipethicsonline.com

www.leadershipethicsonline.com

Since around 1985, I have been studying trends on what I have called the ≥decline of the American social contract.≤ Now readers might consider studying the history of the idea of social contracts, from antiquity to the present. As I use the phrase, ≥the American social contract,≤ I mean the formal and informal, written or unwritten, values and rules for what are acceptable or unacceptable behaviors to be considered a constructive and valuable citizen in the United States. The social contract is, therefore, the ≥glue which holds us together≤ as a people. About twenty-five years ago, it seemed to me there were some very dangerous trends that threatened the future viability of the United States of America as a nation.

Initially, I began to study some of our charter political documents, such as The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. To be sure, there was a time when Americans were more familiar with these framing documents and their meaning. In our early years, there also was a sort of cultural Christianityãwhich taught such basic ethics as Mosesπ Ten Commandments or many of Jesusπ teachings in the Sermon on the Mountãthat also added some ethical content to American life.

Let us not be naÔve, however, as we look at American history. Whatever high and noble charter documents we have, or whatever religiousness we have, our ethical behaviors towards Native Americans, African slaves, women, organized labor, and political corruption demonstrate we often have been ethically challenged.

America has been unraveling as a society at a more rapid rate, it seems to me. Our attention in the 1960s to ≥doing our own thingäliving for today≤ has had repercussions throughout our nation, which does have elements of greatness. There are millions of wonderful citizens in our country who do not break the moral code of the U.S. military academiesã≥not to lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.≤ But there are millions more who demonstrate a willingness to do whatever they want, whenever they want, so long as they see acceptable risks of not getting caught, or suffering undesirable consequences.

In the 1980s, some Americans will remember the savings and loan scandals, the ≥Keating Five,≤ and the associated losses that ruined many vulnerable people. The ENRON scandal did the same. Sarbanes-Oxley will not curb the human capacity to use any means that appear to provide ≥manageable risks≤ achieving unethical ends. Human history shows that external controls can prevent certain people from certain behaviors, only when they perceive that risks are greater than benefits.

Now, the fast and loose practices in the lending industry have created a veritable tsunami of financial ruin for millions of Americans who may end up homeless, at risk, and angry at losing all they had. Petroleum companies are posting their highest profits ever, though there is no necessary business reason, no ethical reason they had to increase their prices as they did. We all wonder, with so much moral confusion costing us our financial future, what will be left of America when all the chickens come home to roost for our children and grandchildren.

One of the most interesting books on these issues is David Callahanπs provocative and sometimes-depressing book, The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead (Harcourt: Orlando, 2004). Callahanπs book reminds me of another title that appeared over twenty years ago, Who You Are When No Oneπs Looking (Bill Hybels, Intervarsity Press: Downers Grove, 1987). There is one enormous difference between the two. Callahan documents pervasive problems throughout American society, then suggests solutions and remedies. Hybelsπs argument was a direct challenge to Christians to avoid moral inconsistency and compromise.

Callahan demonstrates effectively how far and wide American society, businesses, government, and organizations, are facing a pervasive crisis in integrity. People in all walks of life, from owners and managers, to hourly employees and new hires, are demonstrating a willingness to be disloyal and dishonest, to lie, cheat, and steal, whenever they see some possible benefit. Cheating is costing billions of dollars, and is creating conflicts throughout American society.

David shows that, in 2005, cheating is a common, widespread, and acceptable way of living for many people all through American society. Many of his examples include quotations where ≥cheaters≤ in all walks of life seeing nothing wrong with their behaviors even after discovery and punishment. In fact, many are completely baffled, when caught, they did anything wrong at all. From their point of view, they intended no harm. They did not use violence. They reason what they did was not so bad, particularly if ≥everybody does it.≤

These are major changes. They do wrong without knowing it, at least in some cases. They have no regrets when caught. They appeal to othersπ behaviors as justification. It is precisely these kinds of change that symbolize the things that motivated me years ago to begin marking the deterioration of our society and to try to understand their motives. These are the kinds of reasons I founded Leadership Ethics Online and decided to do my part to teach American organizations and professionals what they can do to be good citizens wherever they are.

Callahan describes (pp. 20-24) four ≥key reasons that have led to more cheating.≤

• new pressures
• bigger rewards
• temptation
• trickle-down corruption

The ≥new pressures≤ are related to increased competition for survival, such as physicians ≥accepting bribes from drug makers, as HMOs have squeezed their incomes.≤ The ≥bigger rewards≤ are higher benefits from stock inflation, cooking the books in large corporations, and steroid use in sports. ≥Temptations≤ are stronger since there are weakened deterrents against punishment, some due to losses of government regulation, where netting $70 million looks far better than getting 12-24 months in federal prison. ≥Trickle-down corruption≤ is where ≥ordinary middle class persons≤ become disgusted with what they read and hear in the media and so decide to get what they can.

The trickle-down corruption is the kind of thing Iπve been studying for so long. One of the great reasons average people have decided NOT to do the right thing when no oneπs looking is they have lost faith in themselves. They have lost faith in others. They have lost faith in being the best human beings they can be. So they just have given up and decided to do what others seem to be doing: getting all they can, while they can, before they die.

Callahan does propose a solution, in three phases (pp. 262-263), that will be noted but not elaborated. It was interesting to me that his first course of action is one I felt we needed a quarter century ago.

• forge a new social contract in the United States
• reform key professions and instill new codes of conduct in the workplace
• strengthen the ethics of new generations of Americans

Considering a New Social Contract

Yes, we need a new social contract. I agree with him. Nevertheless, this is a far, far more difficult thing to do than it is to say. There is an old saying, ≥It is easier to tear down than it is to build.≤ It requires decades and decades for large groups of people to develop values and to embrace them finally and officially as their moral code. It may be that the moral revolutions of the 1960s have effected so many negative changes that America cannot be turned around. Let us look at some signs of hope.

The attack on the World Trade Center brought forth a wonderful national unity around that tragedy. This often is the case in life. Extreme circumstances pull us out of complacency. What is encouraging about the national response is that Americans showed they are capable of much more than unified rage and aggression. Remember all the firefighters and EMS personnel from all over the country who offered they services in love for their neighbors in need. We also see this in our local communities. Americans are a loving and giving people, even though sometimes we acquired our wealth through less than ethical means.

At the date of this writing, Senator Barack Obama is gaining more and more support for his message of ≥hope and change.≤ Regardless of his preparedness, or whether he will be elected, many Americans are exhausted by a feeling of hopeless corruption, of leaders willing to sell out to the highest lobbyist bidder. There is, like the World Trade Center horror, a strong feeling of national peril due to domestic and international conditions. Were we in a very safe and ≥cushy≤ environment, I would guess that millions of Americans would be less interested and less proactive in becoming involved in this presidential election cycle. But note how many people want change. They are willing to leave past behaviors of passivity to become involved in change.

As a historian who studies long processes of development in society and culture, Iπm not very confident about ≥forging a new social contract.≤ On the other hand, I am not a pessimist. People can and do change. In fact, great movements of people can change. Whether we look at the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960sãas an example of positive changeãor whether we look at the entire German nation in the 1930s and 1940sãas an example of negative changeãhuman being CAN be motivated to make great changes for good or ill.

For that reason, I urge readers to be encouraged. Do not despair. President Franklin Roosevelt famously said, ≥All we need fear is fear itself,≤ and there is truth in that. Shirley Temple, the wonderful child actress of the 1930s, encouraged many people during the Depression because of her bright attitude. Though she was in extreme circumstances, she presented a positive, hopeful response to bad people and events. Some ridicule those old movies. I do not because I think all people, in their heart of hearts, want to be good. They want to do good. There is hope for Callahanπs suggestion that we make a new social contract. But will we?

Forge Your Own Social Contract

There is an old song, ≥Let There Be Peace on Earth,≤ which has a pragmatic and determined conclusion, ≥and let it begin with me.≤ The principle of personal responsibility of a cornerstone of what Leadership Ethics Online, LLC, teaches our clients. The very existence of this company is my personal affirmation and good faith application of that principle.

Callahan indicated that the ≥trickle-down≤ effect is part of our problem. When we see so many people doing the wrong thing, how many of us have the confidence to go against the grain, to push against the tide? We know from experience that ≥whistle-blowers≤ often suffer. We know that heroes and heroines often are shot during their heroics. So, there is a sense of risk in doing the right thing when others fear their actions may be betrayed.

LEO teaches that personal responsibility is more than that. Character is something within. Itπs a reflection of our very core being as a human person. We teach this. So while we grant the power of ≥trickle-down≤ pressures to conform, there is an enormous danger of surrendering our inner happiness when we do things we know, deep within us, are wrong. There is a price that will be very costly when we cash the check of moral relativism.

Reader, if you are unhappy with the direction of your life and career, let me be bold enough to suggest some things you can do to reclaim your character.

• Look at your children and grandchildren, or those of other persons. You want the best for children. You want them to grow up not only emotionally and physically healthy and secure. You want them to be men and women of character when you are gone. Your moral decisions will be seen by them, and they will be affected by the adults they love most. This is a question, then, of your love for your children, or your love for yourself. Accept your responsibility to love them by doing what is right and good, even when it has risks.
• Consider your mortality. You are going to die, sooner or later. In the medieval period, there were manuals of spiritual guidance, ≥On the Art of Dying Well.≤ They taught the principle that, in order to die well, one must live well. In fact, every day of life was an investment in eternity. Though I am a Christian (and I surely am not pressing readers to join a faith that often has been ethically-challenged), this point still has merit. I suggest to you that we ought to weigh our daily decisions and actions as investments in the meaning, value, and integrity of our lives. When we are on our death-beds, do we want our minds to be clouded by memories of so many wrongful and bad deedsãas our children gather around usãor by a deep sense that we lived well when we had the opportunity. Accept your responsibility to act morally as daily investments which eventually will sum up the total value of your life, your legacy to yourself, your loved ones, and those you have affected.
• Consider the effects of your moral choices on others. Now self-love is a powerful force. Many in the United States and world simply love themselves and disregard adverse impacts on others, period. Readers will agree with me that none of us like to be mistreated or abused. Not one of us willingly would give up one penny a month, taken out of our bank accounts throughout our lifetimes, by an artful embezzler. We want what is ours to remain ours, under our control. Yet the embezzler could say to us, ≥But itπs only a penny.≤ And what would you say? ≥But itπs my penny.≤ Nevertheless, we pick up a small box of paper clips or ink pens, a ream of copy paper, whatever, because we believeãyes, we have allowed ourselves to believe trulyãit is such a small act, or we see so much waste, or we are paid insufficiently by our employers. Accept your responsibility to practice the Golden Rule, to treat others as you wish to be treated, understanding that even small moral choices bear on large principles of trust and commitment to others.
• Consider your nature as a human being. There are many surveys that allege that Americans are predominantly a theistic people; that is, that the majority believe in some Supreme Being. There is a great difference, of course, in being a theoretical theistãone who believes there is a Beingãand being a religious personãone whose life is guided and shaped through doctrines, behaviors, and rituals of any religion. Based on American history, it seems to me that some very religious people have been both very loving and constructive, and very hateful and harmful. For readers who believe there is a Supreme Being, it is appropriate to ask whether their Being really cares about their morality or immorality. If so, then moral decision making has increased urgency, particularly is that Being loves truth and honesty. If not, then morality must come from personal reasons, such as those above. For readers who do not believe in a Supreme Being, but who see themselves as sentient beings from an evolutionary process, many atheists and skeptics of organized religion have been some of Americaπs great architects for social change and justice. Search the internet and see. In any case, how we view ourselves, our nature and place in the world order, can affect our commitment and applications of personal and social morality, or not. Accept your responsibility to think about your nature, place, and mission in the world, to consider yourself as an essentialãnot tangentialãpart of all living beings.

Changing a Cheating Organizational Culture

Callahan is correct that new codes of conduct in the workplace can help. Most people will change bad behaviors if coerced by fear of punishment through stiff professional codes and adverse actions, or through disciplinary actions and terminations. Some persons are incorrigible, of course, and may even have value systems that are untouchable by external controls, even to preserve their own employment.

Most people are not incorrigible. Most are like us, I would argue. Most people gradually have developed habits they know are unhealthy, contrary to parental teaching, against published policies, or even illegal in the strict sense. Most people want to be the best they can be. Everyone wants a second, or even third, chance to respond to correction and potential for growth.

Granted, organizational leaders must keep risk management in mind. There are certain behaviors and events that call for swift, clear, decisive actions against the actors. Litigation still may still occur even after bad employees are terminated, in consequence of things they did from which organizations must suffer. Consider the enormous high-dollar awards in Roman Catholic dioceses around the United States. The same is true for other class-action suits brought against corporations where one or two people may have introduced widespread harms.

Still, it is my conviction that creative potential exists even in such tragic circumstances as the Roman Catholic litigations. Attorneys are not necessarily gifted with talents or insights to ≥think outside the box≤ of mitigated damages and negotiation, though many may be so gifted. LEOπs mission includes working with organizations to assess, analyze, plan, and implement organizational changes leading to healthy conflict prevention, intervention, and management.

Here are a few suggestions to readers, leaders and led, who can create better conditions towards reducing cheating, misrepresentations (lying), theft, and many other values and behaviors that harm their organizations.

• Awaken each day to a renewed commitment to your own social contract
• Rid yourself of moral schizophrenia, one person at home and another at work, since this eventually will be revealed and you will suffer for your lack of moral integration
• Be alert and diligent of personal or financial pressures that have power to crack your moral code and moral armor, making you vulnerable to escape-choices and short cuts
• Listen to peers and subordinates share their pressures, so you can help them stay morally strong and avoid harming themselves, your organization, or you
• Practice the smallest actions of moral integrity, and stop taking paper clips and pens!
• Admit and correct mistakes in a professional manner, being careful not to share the wrong information with the wrong people who may harm you
• Accept admissions of error from others with compassion and professionalism, actively helping them demonstrate and document their corrections and improvements for their careers
• Pay attention to every opportunity offering reflection on honesty, integrity, and integrity in all phases of relationships in the home, workplace, and societyãsuch as paper clips and ink pens!
• Make alliances with people of integrity for encouragement
• Institute regular brown-bag lunches and seminars (such as LEO speakers!) to lift up the importance of these subjects
• Be saddened and discuss compassionately othersπ moral failures, refuse gossip at all times, and privately correct those who enjoy the suffering of others
• Institute performance appraisals with higher standards for management than with labor
• Institute mercy-by-policy which will build trust for self-reporting, or constructive whistle-blowing
• Remember at all times the old teaching, ≥You reap what you sow≤
• Begin and end each day with joy in knowing you are alive and have a chance to make your contribution to practice the ≥art of dying well≤!

Summary

Whether you have scanned or read carefully this document, thank you for your investment of time of reflection. As you can tell from the conversational style and candid content, I have not sought to ≥make a sale≤ here but to share some serious reflections aimed to give you at least ≥one good thing≤ of benefit to you and your organization.

Leadership Ethics Online, LLC, practices what we teach. Lessons we share in seminars, or in creating online distance education training programs, are built on learning from education, professional experience, and personal life experience. In everything we offer, we give the best we have to you because we do remember our mortality. Our next client might be our last client, and we want to leave a legacy and impacts that continue after we are gone.

Contrary to good business practiceãat least as commonly understoodãLeadership Ethics Online, LLC, does not exist fundamentally to make sales, though thankfully, we do! Neither do we exist to please clients, in the sense that our ears are tuned to give them whatever they want so as to profit from them. We do please our clients because, when they contract with us, they understand who we are, what we are about, and what we offer. They contract with us in that knowledge and so both enjoy and benefit from our services and friendship.

We are here to serve the clientπs best interests as we have the insight and experience to make that happen. We practice the Golden Rule, trusting that our clients will be pleased by what that means in our business practice and the final products we create for them within our mission and capacities.

Whether we will serve you in the future or not through a contract, if you have enjoyed our little time together, I encourage you to contact me for advice or questions about issues you face as a leader, or a professional developing yourself for leadership capacity. I will freely give you the time I have in the firm knowledge that no time is wasted when invested in people searching for the best within them.

John D. Willis, President

Leadership Ethics Online, LLC

info@leadershipethicsonline.com

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