It's complicated

I’m teaching the ethics course at the Carlson School of Management again this fall, and I can always count on those students to come up with interesting perspectives, new challenges, and concerns that I otherwise would not have paused to consider.  Pesky, but in a good way.   Last week, we considered whether and how to talk to employees about job security, especially when their jobs are less than secure.  I went into the discussion with a firmly-held point of view, grounded in the idea that trust is both a primary ethical consideration and a powerful business driver.  Nothing builds trust like reliable candor and transparency.   As we talked it through, the students stressed other considerations, like the very real need to protect some key assets from some employees, and the likelihood that even a modest level of expressed risk would be taken with alarm.  They noted the weaknesses of prediction. The discussion complicated my perspective, by broadening it.   Other conversations have had similar effects.

The students generally stick with the discussion and embrace the complexity, but I can see that it’s uncomfortable for some of them.  That’s no surprise: we business people are trained to revere simplicity, to reduce paragraphs to bullet points and conversations to elevator speeches.   This can be a matter of discipline, as Mark Twain and others have observed that a good, short letter takes longer to write.   We are taught to clarify, which often leads us to simplify.  Clarity is good.

Misplaced simplicity can lead us past clarity and into emptiness.   Some situations are complex, and to simplify their descriptions robs them of accuracy or meaning.   Of course we sometimes need the discipline to focus and simplify.  Other times, we need the willingness to embrace complexity, and the skill to communicate about complicated things clearly, if not always briefly. 

Yes, it’s hard.

This week, one in-class discussion concerned the ethical status of social engagement.   Starbucks touts its investment in environmental remediation.  Do they do so because they care about the environment, or because they want to sell more coffee?  Does a company’s desire to benefit commercially from good works taint those works?   Do results count, or do motives matter more when we are making moral judgments that guide our commercial behavior (even at the Latte level)? 

Here, it helps to tolerate complexity: We can say that our actions are driven by social AND commercial motives, and mean it.  Why can’t we act from both motives, truly and honestly, at the same time?   To insist that we pick one is as absurd as that timeless beverage debate: “Less Filling, Tastes Great.”   Those ads were funny precisely because we want so badly to come up with a single answer, even when considering the merits of a reduced-calorie beer.

For weightier subjects, perhaps we could do well to accept that the questions that matter often have more than one right answer, and that best answers may be inherently complicated.

CAW