Honesty and Integrity 19
a former P & G chairman saying if it ever got to a point where we didn’t
think we could uphold good ethics and stay in a country, we’d leave that
country... It’s wonderful to have things you don’t have to talk about.
When we are discussing a product and there’s something wrong with it,
you know it’s not up for discussion anymore until it’s fixed.^16Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines must be sitting in the
same tent as Pepper. He also feels that maintaining an ongoing set of
ethical standards
... makes everything a lot easier. If someone makes a proposal, we
don’t spend a lot of time on it if it’s contrary to our values. We just say,
‘‘No, we’re not going to do that!’’ You might be able to make a lot of
money, but it doesn’t make any difference. It’s not what we stand for. We
can move quickly and say, ‘‘Okay, what’s the next item?’’^17
There are probably a lot of business and political leaders who wish
they had ‘‘moved on to the next item’’ rather than embarked on a
course of action that was ethically questionable. But it takes a set of
standards to be able to know when to ‘‘move on.’’
It also helps to ‘‘select capable men... trustworthy men who hate
dishonest gain,’’ Jethro’s instructions to Moses in selecting his ‘‘officials
over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.’’ (Exod. 18:21) But just in
case a few ‘‘bad apples’’ have fallen into the barrel, it’s good to set up a
system for detecting and removing them. After the Minuteman nose
cone scandal in which they were found guilty of padding payroll rec-
ords, GE instituted an ethics program, a component of which was a
booklet called ‘‘The Spirit and the Letter of Our Commitment.’’ The
booklet, reproduced in all languages, explained that an ombudsman and
hotline had been placed in every facility to field reports of potentially
unethical activities. Says Welch, ‘‘We tell employees exactly who to call
... Out of the messes you create new levels of excellence. Something
has to come out of every serious event... How do you take it to the
next step?’’^18
A system of ethics and standards can even cut across seemingly im-