CASEINPOINT

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By Mary C. Gentile APRIL 2007

: Giving Voice to Values

Why is it so difficult to talk about ethics in our management classes? Perhaps one reason is
because we – both faculty AND students -- are not convinced that it is, in fact, possible to voice
and act on one’s values successfully in the workplace. Let me offer an example:
When MBA Accounting faculty are asked to integrate questions of ethics into their courses,
the topic of “cooking the books” often surfaces. I have seen faculty develop teaching materials
that identify the most frequently used methods to smooth, inflate or deflate reported earnings; the
organizational pressures to engage in such activities; the consequences to individuals and firms of
doing so; the legal and regulatory requirements; the analytic mechanisms for detecting distor-
tions; and the reporting methods that discourage inappropriate statements.
But often, faculty will still say something like: “I can present all this, Mary, but in the end,
my students and I know these distortions still occur. They may have even faced such situations in
their pre-business school jobs. And I don’t know what to tell them about HOW to respond when
that happens. And frankly, that’s not what I became an accounting professor to learn or teach. I’m
not even sure what kind of choices these students really have when they face these organizational
pressures.”
This strikes me as a reasonable response. That is, faculty can teach the Accounting content
relevant to the issue; they can present the legal and behavioral limits. But they are not necessarily
trained to teach students how to discuss those limits with their bosses and peers. Nor are they
necessarily equipped to instill the courage students will need to do so. In particular, they aren’t
prepared to signal that this earnings management doesn’t happen all the time – because it does.
Until faculty feel confident that it might be fruitful for students to address these issues with
their future employers, these professors are not going to be very effective in teaching about how
to do so. They don’t feel honest.
It seems to me that we are doing a disservice to our students if we pose ethical dilemmas
that we don’t believe in. That is not to say that we need to have all the answers, but rather that
we need to at least have a basic faith that there may be a way to resolve them. That it is at least
important to try. This is an important distinction – that is, the difference between not knowing the
answer and not believing there could be one. Personally, I think this is an often unspoken struggle
within faculty, students and managers.
I see this as a fundamental challenge in the arena of leadership and values education, and
it is one of the triggers for Giving Voice to Values, a research and curriculum development initia-
tive sponsored by The Aspen Institute and the Yale School of Management. The Giving Voice to
Values initiative (GVV) identifies ways to learn from business practitioners who have already acted
on their values -- and most powerfully, to discover that those practitioners are sometimes
ourselves. Recognizing the fact that we are all capable of speaking and acting on our values, as
well as the fact that we have not always done so, is the empowering and enlightening starting
point for GVV.
The "bottom line" in the Giving Voice to Values approach is to provide opportunities for
participants to focus their energy, their intellect and their passion on finding ways to implement
their values, rather than focusing that same energy, intellect and passion on asking whether their
values are actionable.
This is not to say that it's always clear what the "right" thing to do is; in fact, those times
of lack of clarity are exactly what more traditional ethics classes illuminate best. However, there
are times when participants know what they believe is the right course of action, but they may still
feel disempowered, unsure or unable to find a way to confront conflicting pressures in the work-
place. That is what Giving Voice to Values is about.
Although informed by scholarly research, GVV is a practical curriculum, grounded in
peer-coaching and composed of short cases, scripting guidelines and exercises. It is “post-decision
making.” We are not looking to prove that most folks want to act on their values; or to identify
strategies that always work; or even to prove that a particular response was the “right” one.
Rather we are trying to provide an innovative laboratory where discussants – both students and
current managers -- are explicitly asked: “what if you were going to act on your values? What
would you say/do?”
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This seemingly straightforward question is often not posed – save for the final moments
of a discussion after the bulk of the time was spent identifying the countervailing pressures and
rationalizations. And I’ve seen it have real impact when it is. When addressed in depth, this
question takes the discussion out of the realm of “right and wrong” and into the realm of practice.
This is a terrain where discussants, faculty, students and business people alike, are often much
more comfortable, and it is a terrain which triggers the “can do” attitude that is sometimes
peculiarly disabled when the question is framed as one of ethics and social responsibility.

Thoughts, discussion questions, or comments for the author? We welcome them all! Please send
all responses to Alex.Roberts@aspeninstitute.org, who will pass your praise, questions, and
criticisms onto the author.

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Mary C. Gentile, Ph.D., is the Research Director for the Giving Voice to Values initiative and Senior Advisor to The Aspen
Institute Business & Society Program. Giving Voice to Values is a research and curriculum development project,
sponsored by The Aspen Institute Business & Society Program and the Yale School of Management. Currently we have
over 150 pages of readings, short cases, teaching plans and annotated bibliographies, and the Collection is still growing.
For more information: Mcgentile@aol.com.

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