Not so long ago, a reader sent me an email, wanting to share his experience in several companies where unethical behavior was a norm. In these organizations, he shared, sales and marketing employees were encouraged to "do whatever it took" to make the sale, even when "what it took" was unethical and in some cases illegal behavior. The issues he raised, to his dismay, were never discussed in sales or marketing circles, much less the organizations themselves.

The leaders in these companies fostered these policies, though always with a certain "plausible deniability" at the very top layers of the leadership hierarchy. The unwritten rule was that you make your quotas, no matter what you have to do. You make the sale, even if it requires "shady" or illegal means, so long as you cover your tracks and look the other way when others do the same. You increase your market share even when it requires, say, promoting insecurity, fear and illness so people will need and then buy your drugs.

Such environments have been maintained when a good number of other people were content to look the other way, not wanting to put themselves in a difficult situation which would require sacrifice or any sort of discomfort or inconvenience on their parts. Vaclav Havel writes poignantly about this phenomenon in his essay, The Power of the Powerless.

On one hand, such scenarios are distressing to those concerned about issues of integrity and ethics, and such things as "engaged spirituality" or "lived faith". Unfortunately, even in a "post-Enron" business environment, ethics breaches are still rampant. On the other hand, it provides an opportunity, both as an item of an individual's applied spiritual or religious values, and for organizational integrity and ethics. There are also people, after all, who are unwilling to act unethically or illegally, and aren't content to be complicit in silence, either.

Ultimately, it comes down to individual behavior, and there are a lot of factors that need to be in place for an individual to feel clear about and able to make the decisions that are integrity centered. Until a majority of individuals are centered in integrity — heart, soul, Spirit, God, faith, etc. — there will be those who have "a certain moral flexibility", and a good number that will look the other way lest they have to make some sacrifice, face fears, be uncomfortable, be visible, etc.

Once a majority of people decide to live in integrity, the few who take advantage of unethical "loop holes" and the many who are content to look the other way will decrease (after all, "the many who are content to look the other way" often go with the predominant group-think).

For someone as an employee in such a situation, the challenge can be difficult, because in order to live in integrity and one's faith or spiritual practice, the person would have to (1) decide not to engage in such unethical practices, and (2) not be complicit via silence or "looking the other way" (e.g. one might voice one's awareness that the practice is unethical and perhaps illegal, while allowing others to do what they will), and (3) either find another way to do one's work in a way that's ethical and based in integrity — what Don Miquel Ruiz calls "being impeccable" — or find another place of employment where ethics and integrity are more aligned with one's values and preference for living those values.

Of course, this path isn't easy, necessarily, as many have said. Yeshua, for example, said "many are called but few respond" and "the Way is narrow, and most people take the broad (and easiest) path." But ultimately, the cost of being out of integrity, of walking the broad path because it seems easy in the short run, are far greater.

For more on ethics and engaged spirituality or lived faith, surf the Ivy Sea Online Ethics Portal, Conscious Enterprise Portal, or Wisdom and Mastery Portal.

© 2006, Jamie S. Walters, Ivy Sea, Inc. Want to reprint this article? Contact us for single-reprint permission, or become a VIP member.