I have spent some time thinking about what should be in a professional code of ethics. The nub of it comes down to four basic ethical imperatives:
1. The client comes first.
2. Fairly represent yourself.
3. Avoid conflicts of interest.
4. Protect confidentiality.
In my mind, it’s all about trust. A professional who commits to a strong code of ethics will be easier to trust. Specifically, it’s easier to trust someone’s intentions if s/he has publicly committed to such a code of ethics. And following such a code isn’t always an easy process. Let me explain by considering each of the four imperatives separately.
1. The client comes first.
Professionals have knowledge and skills that are not generally shared by their clients. The client will not be in a position to fully assess what the professional recommends. It’s all to easy, and tempting, for the professional to recommend a course of action that will maximize the professional’s gain, but not the client’s. The client isn’t in a position to really assess such a recommendation. The profession who offers such a recommendation isn’t behaving ethically.
That is stating it in black-and-white terms. But if the professional develops two courses of action, (nearly) equal in value for the client, then it’s okay for the professional to recommend the course of action s/he prefers. There can, in addition, be difficult questions about the relative value of different course of action. If a course of action is very valuable for the professional and would incur only a minor cost for the client, then it could be discussed with the client.
It comes back to a question of trust. Can the client trust that the professional has looked out for their best interests? In any case where an outside observer might question this, the ethical step is for the professional to lay out the relative values as s/he understands them. Anything less and the client should seriously question the ethics of the professional.
2. Fairly represent yourself.
Winning assignments can critically depend on the professional having relevant knowledge, skills, and experience. All professionals will put a favorable light on their accomplishments. But there is a fairly clear line between putting a favorable light on previous accomplishments and blatant misrepresentation. Claiming to have led a project in which you were only a team member is misrepresentation. Claiming success that never happened is misrepresentation.
The challenge can be one of finding ethical ways to win new kinds of assignments. Clients are comfortable dealing with professionals who have done it before. How does the ethical professional win the first assignment in a new area? It’s not impossible. Success is most often seen as depending on a mix of previous knowledge, skills, and experience. To win a new kind of assignment, trade off what you have done in the past. Make yourself an attractive match for what is needed.
One obvious approach is to lower your price for undertaking an assignment. In extreme cases, it can even make sense of the professional to undertaking new assignments for no fee. A different approach is to concentrate on leading edge assignments. No one can point to extensive previous assignments. Knowledge can win out over experience, especially in areas where there is very limited previous experience.
3. Avoid conflicts of interest.
The problem with conflicts of interest is that there will always a degree of tension between different interests. At what point does the ethical professional have a responsibility to tell the client about a possible or potential conflict of interest? There is a conceptually simple answer. Would the client raise conflict of interest questions if hidden information were made public? If that is likely to happen, then the professional has an ethical responsibility to present that information.
Are there different professional “sales commissions” behind different client purchasing options? The ethical professional will point out such differences to clients. Does the professional have a particularly “friendly” relationship with certain vendors, but not with their competitors? The ethical professional will point out such differences. Does the professional have an on-going relationship with the client’s competitors? The ethical professional will point our such relationships.
Conflicts of interest arise most often from the explicit or implicit act of hiding certain information from the client. The ethical step is not to avoid all possible conflicts of interest - that’s practically impossible. But it is possible, and ethically necessary, to point out any and all hidden information that might raise questions about conflicts of interest.
4. Protect confidentiality.
Obviously, the professional must respect confidential, private, or secure information received from the client. There are natural limits on this. The professional is free to disclose information that could have been obtained through public channels. Being told by a company president about information that appeared in the press does not restrict the ability of the professional to pass on that information.
The challenge in this is to apply the highest standard in connection with protecting confidential, private, or secure information. The professional must certainly apply the rigor and discipline which the client employs to protect its confidential, private, or secure information. That’s a minimum requirement, but the ethical professional must go beyond that. There should never be any question that the professional is doing all s/he can to protect confidential, private, or secure information received from a client.
The public interest.
There are a number of embellishments which are often included in a code of ethics. Perhaps the most popular is an ethical requirement to protect the public interest. There is one and only one condition under which the professional must always put the public interest first. When the professional is given an exclusive right to practice, then the public has the right to require the professional put the public interest above the interest of clients, and above the professional’s interests.
It’s a relatively simple quid pro quo. Protecting the public interest goes hand in hand with an exclusive right to practice. That’s what should happen with physicians, lawyers, and engineers. And when the profession is self-regulating, then protecting the public interest is vital. Indeed, many of the established and protected professions should do more to protect the public interest through such steps as the inclusion of additional members of the public in key decisions.
We all have obligations as citizens and residents to protect the public interest. That does not mean, however, that as ethical professionals we must always put the public interest first. If the public grants the professional an exclusive right to practice, then yes, the public interest must come first, but not otherwise.
Advance the profession.
Some codes of ethics include an injunction to work on advancement of the profession. A weak form of such an injunction would call upon the professional to act in such a way as to sustain and advance the profession and all its members. In this weak form, there is nothing wrong with such an injunction, but it adds little real value. If the individual sees value in being a professional, s/he will naturally seek to increase that value. If not, the professional will, at best, give lip service to such an injunction.
Some codes of ethics go too far. They require that the professional never speak ill of a fellow professional or of the profession. That’s nonsensical. There are recognized professionals who richly deserve to be criticized. On one level, failure to criticize such professionals could be seen as an ethical failure, harming clients or the public, or both. And there are times when all professions would benefit from criticism. Who better to speak out than a concerned professional?
Commitment to currency.
Professionals who follow the injunction to fairly represent themselves will have a powerful incentive for continuous self-development. Failure to stay current will confine the professional to ever narrower areas of work. Given the pace of change in today’s world, the professional who doesn’t work to keep up will rapidly be seen as irrelevant to more and more assignments. There is little need for an injunction going beyond a commitment to fairly represent themselves.
Professional codes of ethics are all about establishing the basis for trust of the professional. It starts with a personal commitment to something like my four basic professional ethical imperatives. This can be powerfully reinforced by a professional society that is ready, willing, and able to enforce its code of ethics. No simple set of rules will guarantee trustworthiness. If nothing else, there will always remain grey areas where valid disagreements are possible. But it’s an important start.