First we had the AWB scandals and now the revelations about the Reserve Bank’s subsidiary, Securrency, and the ongoing saga of the BP cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico. One could be forgiven for thinking that we, society, the business community and the hundreds of thousands of professionals who work in, with and behind all of corporate Australia and Corporate America have learnt nothing from the last 10 years.
Where are/were the legions of professionals who were involved behind the scenes in all of these public corporations that appear to have gone bad – the auditors, internal and external, the lawyers, the bankers, the diplomats and the MBA qualified business managers? Did all of these people suddenly forget what it means to be a professional and simply default to a ‘go along to get along’ collective mindset?
For us it begs the question: what does it truly mean to be “a professional”? Implicit in all professional codes is the principle that a professional services a public good beyond the immediate interests of the client. So, for the legal profession it’s the public good of justice rather than just the letter of the law; for the medical profession it’s the public good of health rather than the narrow confines of their individual specialty; for the audit profession it’s the public good of trust rather than merely inspecting the numbers; and for the professional manager it’s balancing the needs of all stakeholders rather than serving the narrow interests of shareholders.
Beyond that a professional signs up to a ‘duty of care’ because their professional training gives them licence to advise people who in many circumstances are unable to make informed choices due to their own limited knowledge. This is the base assumption that civil society works on, that forms the basis of trust in the professions.
But perhaps in the most recent cases of corporate malfeasance we have seen the separation of professional conduct and ethics, driven by a belief that they operate in separate spheres. To assume this is both artificial and highly risky as most business decisions play out in social, environmental and economic terms that cannot be neatly quarantined from each other. We see this now being played out on a daily basis as we see the desperate attempts by BP to salvage their social licence to operate in the face of an increasingly angry US public.
Another facet of this declining trust in the professions is what appears to be a belief system based on the doctrine of public virtue/private vice,that one can be a different person in one’s public office from that which we are in our private lives. The careers and reputations of many icons in the business, political and sporting fields have perished on the rocks of this particular fable, such as Eliot Spitzer, Tiger Woods and Justice Einfeld.
So how did an army of professionals fail to recognise the warning signs of the financial tsunami that was on its way? What is the price we pay for the collective amnesia or myopia around the obligations of professional status? Might it be too extreme to suggest the destabilisation of the western world as hundreds of millions of citizens found themselves thrown into economic hardship because of decisions not of their choosing?
Such is the indivisibility of ethics and professionalism.
In exchange for privileges not extended to other members of society, professionals need to honour the principles behind their codes and step outside the comfort of the boardroom to look at their superordinate duty to protect the interests of all they are licensed to serve. Otherwise we will see an inexorable race to the ethical bottom. As one wise person once said, “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything”.
What do you think: Do professionals have a duty to society to protect its interests even if it means compromising the interests of their client?
