Overview

This exercise affords participants an opportunity to assess their sales culture via an ethics audit. The audit follows a brief discussion of the extent to which those at the top of a sales organization or department influence the sales culture.

Purpose

To generate discussion regarding elements of the organizational culture that may need strengthening.

Group Size

Any number of individuals can participate.

Room Arrangement

No special arrangements are required.

Materials

Handout 28.1, “Sales Culture Audit”

Procedure

1.Point out that the recent spate of corporate scandals has roots that extend deep into the soil of immorality and illegality. Supply a few examples, such as the admission by WorldCom that it was guilty of accounting fraud—one of the largest frauds in the history of American business. They inflated profits by $3.8 billion during a 13-month period ending in March 2002. Their former CEO, Bernard Ebbers, also “borrowed” hundreds of millions of dollars from the firm.

2.Lead a brief discussion concerning the extent to which the tone of a particular culture is established by those at the top of the organization—those with sufficient clout to influence the buying and selling patterns of thousands of others.

3.Distribute Handout 28.1 and have participants work on it individually. Have small groups discuss their most extreme replies.

4.Bring closure by calling on a spokesperson from each group to share briefly the participants’ replies.

Variation

Ask for a volunteer to distribute the survey organization-wide (with some word-smithing to make it applicable to any employee), after obtaining the necessary approvals, and to analyze the results. (Professional courtesy dictates the analysis be shared with senior management before it is distributed throughout the organization.)

Have participants develop their own assessment tools. They will use sentence completion continuum extremes based an analysis of existing procedures, practices, and philosophies. For example, “The quality of our produce is shoddy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 best-in-class.”

Have them discuss where ethical lines are being crossed, thus creating potentially serious consequences for the individual (and his or her job), the team, the department, and even the organization. Have participants compare their assessments and—if several participants work in the same department—create a synthesized tool that can be taken back to the workplace and used to create and enforce ethical policies.

Discussion

What drives people to remain silent despite their knowledge of wrongdoing?

What is or should be your organization’s procedure for whistleblowers to follow?

What ethical tone is being set in your own organization by those in authority?

Quotation

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life, sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Points of Interest

Speaking of the need to rid the whole culture of unethical practices and not just isolate a small number of people or practices, management consultant Frank J. Navran uses the metaphor of a “flea dip.” He likens the elimination of a particular ethical problem to a flea dip—which will remove fleas from your pet . . . until it returns to its everyday environment. There, in all likelihood, the animal will pick up fleas once again.

Navran maintains the establishment of an ethical environment depends on two things:

Putting the right people in the right place.

Rewarding the people who are behind the change efforts.

HANDOUT 28.1