Ethics - Perceived Impropriety

Purchasing ethics are the single most important thing that a Supply Chain Professional can use and train others in the theory and practical application for performing the duties assigned by their company. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) has a comprehensive set of guidelines that should be followed by anyone that interacts with salespeople. This then requires that the Supply Chain Executive's responsibility is to ensure that everyone in their company that interacts with salespeople, at any level understands what these standards are and how they are applied.

The first one on the list of ISM's Ethical Standards is "Perceived Impropriety" and it is probably the most important. Donald Rumsfeld stated that, "it is easier to get into something than to get out of it." It is often said that perception equals truth and my thoughts agree that it is a true statement. Think about an event taking place along a timeline, which they do. If you view an event in progress from the sidelines you will see a series of individuals entering and leaving that timeline. Each time someone interacts with the event timeline they save that interaction in their memory. As a result they only have a piece of the picture and they make decisions or judgments or take action based on that period of interaction. No one has a complete picture of an event timeline, including the main individual. If that individual leaves to make a copy they may miss an important part of the event that would change their perception of the balance ot the event or even the entire event.

For example: lets look at a salesperson offering a Purchasing Manager a turkey that needs to be cooked for the Manager's company's holiday celebration. Let us assume that the policy states that food may be accepted around holidays as long as it is distributed to all staff. The Manager knows this and they go to the salesperson's car and transfer the turkey from his car to the manager's car. The following week the manager brings back the cooked and sliced turkey for the company celebration. Now, your perception of this story is that the Manager followed company policy. Let us not assume that during the exchange that another company Manager witnesses the exchange from a distance while passing by. This Manager does not witness the return of the turkey for the celebration. A week later they are offered something of equal or greater value by a salesperson that they deal with on a regular basis. As a result of his witnessing the exchange between the Purchasing Manager and the Salesperson a week earlier, he assumes it is now okay for him to accept this gift.

As you can see the other Manager only witnessed a portion of the event and made a decision based on that short time span. The result is the policy has now been circumvented and will expand because that Manager will probably tell other Managers in the company.

Let us look at another activity. You are in a company management meeting and you are taking notes on a pocket PC so that you can, 1) have a more permanent record of the meeting, 2) you can easily share them with others through e-mail, etc., and 3) you can report them to you staff and copy and paste the relevant part into the minutes. This saves you a lot of time by not having to type up your notes after the meeting is concluded. However, one of the company's VP's see you and assumes that you are answering e-mail instead of paying attention. The minimum issue is that if the VP asks you have to explain what you were doing during the meeting or if your not asked the VP has created a picture of you not being attentive in the meeting.

Perception requires every individual to think about their actions before moving ahead. This may be as simple as alerting someone to what you will be doing, posting procedures so that everyone knows what is expected and no deviation is allowed, or try to ensure that anyone that interacts with the event knows what is happening. As you can see that it may not be possible to have every one's perception match the events. The best way to reduce these errors in perception is to err on the side of caution. This is a more black and white approach to practicing good ethics and it will lessen the mis-perception but will not eliminate it.