Finding the Courage to Take an Ethical Perspective

May 2017 Event – moderated by Wendy Harding (NIODA), with Andrew Jamieson (Benetas), Susan Long (Academic-NIODA) and Danielle Jacobson (Pelagraph Consulting)

There were a couple of factors that kept recurring during this fascinating evening.

The first was introduced by Andrew Jamieson in response to the question “What is an ethical perspective?”. Andrew said, for him, it was simply ‘doing the right thing’, and as the evening wore on, there were numerous examples that supported his view of what an ethical perspective was.

The second factor that was repeated time and time again and demonstrated through individuals’ personal experiences in the group activities, was that courage always seemed to be involved if one was to do the right thing. This was primarily because there was always someone who would be adversely impacted by your ethical behaviour.

We learned having the moral courage to do the right thing has consequences for us in numerous ways including:
• Challenging our values
• Threatening our safety
• Determining how we and others are treated
• Determining how OD practitioners are treated
• Whether one is an internal or external practitioner
• Being a mirror to others (clients and our managers)

Thanks to Wendy and the panel members. It was a very interesting night that provided answers to an issue many OD practitioners are being consistently confronted with.

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