Rather than try to follow a set of simple rules (“Don’t lie.” “Don’t cheat.”), leaders and managers seeking to be more ethical should focus on creating the most value for society. This utilitarian view, Bazerman argues, blends philosophical thought with business school pragmatism and can inform a wide variety of managerial decisions in areas including hiring, negotiations, and even time management. Creating value requires that managers confront and overcome the cognitive barriers that prevent them from being as ethical as they would like to be. Just as we rely on System 1 (intuitive) and System 2 (deliberative) thinking, he says, we have parallel systems for ethical decision-making. He proposes strategies for engaging the deliberative one in order to make more-ethical choices. Managers who care about the value they create can influence others throughout the organization by means of the norms and decision-making environment they create.
Buy CopiesSystematic cognitive barriers can blind us to our own unethical behaviors and decisions, hampering our ability to maximize the value we create in the world.
We have both an intuitive system for ethical decision-making and a more deliberative one; relying on the former leads to less-ethical choices. We need to consciously engage the latter.
To make more-ethical decisions, compare options rather than evaluate them singly; disregard how decisions would affect you personally; make trade-offs that create more value for all parties in negotiations; and allocate time wisely.
Autonomous vehicles will soon take over the road. This new technology will save lives by reducing driver error, yet accidents will still happen. The cars’ computers will have to make difficult decisions: When a crash is unavoidable, should the car save its single occupant or five pedestrians? Should the car prioritize saving older people or younger people? What about a pregnant woman—should she count as two people? Automobile manufacturers need to reckon with such difficult questions in advance and program their cars to respond accordingly.
A version of this article appeared in the September–October 2020 issue of Harvard Business Review.Max H. Bazerman is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the author (with Don A. Moore) of Decision Leadership: Empowering Others to Make Better Choices (Yale University Press, 2022) and Better, Not Perfect: A Realist’s Guide to Maximum Sustainable Goodness (Harper Business, 2020).
