Finding The Ethical Edge

On Thursday, February 25, 2010,  30 participants from a variety of Rochester-area companies and organizations participated in the day-long Finding the Ethical Edge, held at St. John Fisher College. Taught by several experienced presenters - Peter DeMarco (left), founder and president of Institute4Priority Thinking, Jim Nortz, Esq. (center), director of compliance for Bausch & Lomb, and Colleen McCoy (right), princpal of The Canterbury Group - the course covered ethics and priorities, compliance, conflicts of interest and related topics - all to provide participants with the philosophical and practical tools to help them create a climate of high ethical standards and practices that contributes to the bottom line.

We'll next conduct Finding The Ethical Edge on Friday, October 29th in conjunction with the Saunders College of Business at R.I.T. at the RIT Inn and Conference Center. It's not too soon to register via our secure electronic registration form.

Using a combination of traditional face-to-face teaching, case studies, web-based tutorials and resources, and instant polling devices that measure class consensus, Finding the Ethical Edge offers participants both a theoretical basis for ethics AND practical ways ethical decision-making benefits a company.

Day-to-day business activities where ethical decisions factor into a company’s success include human resources, sales and marketing, finance and accounting, operations and customer service. Conflict of interest, diversity, confidentiality, and the reporting of ethics violations are on the course’s agenda.

In addition to the classroom experience, participants receive a “tool box” that will help them create an ethics policy, assess risk, assess compliance, and measure the ethical climate within their company.

Who Should Attend and Why

Business owners, managers and supervisors who want to learn how to increase their performance and create an ethical work environment through a foundation of sound priorities would benefit from the course. 

In fact, in focus groups conducted by the Institute4Priority Thinking, a primary need identified by the business leaders was, by far, to help them build an ethical culture in their companies and organizations. This course addresses that need and more. “Making a profit, being compliant with the law and regulations and conducting ourselves as good corporate citizens area is what ethics is all about in business,” says I4PT founder Peter DeMarco. “Ethics is about good choices and good relationships, which is the basis for good business.”

Course organizers point to studies that suggest that an ethically run company improves employee satisfaction, customer loyalty and company profitability.

• Great Place to Work Institute data that shows that companies with strong ethical cultures outperform the marketplace by a significant margin.
  

• John Kotter and James Heskett of the Harvard Business School find that companies with strong ethical corporate cultures outperform those that did not in the areas of increased revenue, expanded work force, growth in stock price and improved net income.
  

Teaching Faculty

The course will be taught by Peter DeMarco and other local experts with experience in business ethics, compliance and related fields.

DeMarco, founder and leader of the Institute4Priority Thinking (www.prioritythinking.com), supports clients as an executive coach, organizational consultant, business ethics facilitator and strategy advisor. His clients include local and nationalcorporations and universities.