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Ethics in Action

In: Business and Management

Submitted By grneyeslee1
Words 1170
Pages 5
Ethics in Action Lisa O’Connor
Legal Environment
BUS670
Anthony Patete
September 24, 2012

Ethics in Action Ethics today plays a big part of everything we do socially, individually and the business we work for. Understanding the common characteristics of poor decision making, how to resist making unethical decision and leading the way ethically are great tools we can use to achieve ethical decision in all aspects of our lives. Common Characteristics of Poor Decision Making “Man’s most enduring stupidity is forgetting what he is trying to do” (Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, & Langvardt, 2010 p. 115). Failing to remember goals is the first characteristic that needs to be addressed when discussing poor decision making. In many scenarios the end goal is the driving force to making good decisions. The problem is in most cases the end goal is lost in the journey to the destination. The company I work for recently decided to bring SAP ERP software onboard to all our sectors. The goal was to become more competitive in the aerospace industry and to harmonize the sites to common practices. The problem we encountered was each site was very different with business practices and by trying to harmonize all the business sectors to do the same procedures we wound up spending more money and creating inefficiencies across the sites. Instead of making us more competitive it cost us more to do the same jobs. We lost sight of the end goal of becoming more competitive and focused more on harmonization that cost us more in the long run. Overconfidence is the second pitfall in making poor decisions. In an article written by R. Nauert he states that “power can fuel overconfidence, which negatively impacts decision-making” (2012). In this research it asked individuals to write down and account a time where they either held or lacked

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