It's About Excellence: Building Ethically Healthy Organizations

It's About Excellence: Building Ethically Healthy Organizations   For too many businesses and their leaders today, business ethics is just about staying out of jail. "Litigation, indictment, and penal system avoidance" is not just the first but the only reason they think ethics is important. It's about "damage control." It's not by accident that these damage control ethics programs are generally under the guidance of legal and compliance departments.   Of course companies need a damage control, crisis management, trouble-shooting component in their ethics and management toolbox. But if that's all there is, something of critical business value is missing.    It's About Excellence tells the larger story. Ethics is about identifying and pursuing excellence and business achievement. It's about getting clear on an inspiring corporate mission and vision, building a value-embedded culture, and pursuing principle-guided practices. Ethics is not a patch-and-repair add-on here; it's something woven through the whole organization, created and owned by the whole workforce.

David W. Gill is an Oakland, California, writer. He studied at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State, and the University of Southern California. He served forty years as professor of ethics at New College Berkeley, North Park University, St. Mary's College, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He has authored ten books, including Workplace Discipleship 101: A Primer (2020) and this memoir. He is founding president of the International Jacques Ellul Society (www.ellul.org).