Business Ethics and its Role in Company Success

For a sector like financial services that relies on trust, the fact that it is regularly rated amongst the least trusted (see the Edelman Trust Barometer) should be very concerning to all interested parties. The high esteem in which practitioners of financial services were once held is now, to a large extent, a faint memory – often replaced by the pejorative term “Bankster” (phonetically similar to the word “gangster”). Of course, this does a great disservice to the many men and women who are dedicated to achieving the financial goals and objectives of their clients. But this fact cannot avoid the reality that a reputational crisis has engulfed the sector since the 2008/09 global financial crisis. To rectify the situation, every organisation, board member, employee and associate should make best effort to restore the public’s trust.

Not surprisingly, the Edelman Trust Barometer has identified an organisations ethical standards as one of the most important drivers of trust. As a result, a thorough understanding of what drives ethical behaviour should be clearly understood – and in a way that can be put to good practical use. Importantly, therefore, ethics training needs to go beyond theory and move towards a real awareness of self, others and the wider environment in order to help good people navigate safely through a potentially bad situation. In particular, the role human psychology and emotions play with regards to ethical conduct should be given the emphasis it deserves.

Course Content

Using the ‘ABC of Ethical Conduct’ model, this course provides an overview of the drivers of people’s attitude that influence our behavior and, collectively, results in organisational culture. The course is divided into the following parts:

• Introduction & Background: Sowing the seeds of destruction (15 mins)

• A look at Attitude: Mud wrestling with PIGS (1.5 hours)

• A look at Behaviour: Builders and Biases (1.5 hours)

• A look at Culture: Common Phenomena and Red Flags (1.5 hours)

• Wrap Up (15 mins)

Who should attend

Everybody working in financial services and, in particular, those people who are a position of influence.