“Do the right thing” is to ethics as “best practice” is to business processes. They’re phrases that sound just like they might mean something.
Except that they don’t.
Case in point, based on a recent request for advice: You’re on a team. The team’s job is to figure out a better way for the company to do something or other.
In the early stages of analysis two alternatives came into focus as potential solutions. Neither was obviously wrong, but over time a team consensus has emerged as to which of the two was the better path forward.
When the time comes to report the preliminary solution to the project’s sponsor and steering committee, though, the project manager presents the other alternative. He’s completely within his authority. You and the rest of the team simply disagree with him.
The ethical question: You’re on the team. Your company’s Values Card makes it clear you’re supposed to do the right thing.
What, however, is this “right thing” you’re supposed to do?
The most obvious approach is to blow the whistle. That’ll show him.
And it might. Or it might not, but the telltale here is “that’ll show him.” Blowing the whistle might in fact be the right choice, but you’d have no way of knowing, because what you’d be doing is satisfying your urge to vent, not holding yourself to high ethical standards.
There is, after all, a reason mutiny on the high seas is frowned upon, even when the captain’s orders appear highly dubious to the crew. Blow the whistle and it won’t be just the project manager’s standing that is lowered in the eyes of the project sponsor — the entire team will look bad whether or not you persuade the sponsor to overrule the project manager.
Add to that the impact on ongoing team dynamics. Your ability to work with the project manager will be permanently impaired. So will your ability to work with many of the other members of the team, who, while on your side with respect to the design itself, disagree with your decision to escalate.
As an alternative to whistleblowing you might simply leave the team. Except, you can’t just leave the team. You’ll have to provide a reason, or perhaps three reasons — one for the project manager, one for your reporting manager, and one for your soon-to-be-erstwhile teammates.
For each audience you can either be honest about the reason or you can make up a plausible excuse. Plausible excuses being convenient falsehoods, this branch probably won’t survive ethical scrutiny, while honesty will result in everyone who knows about what’s going on concluding you’re a prima donna who bails whenever something doesn’t go your way.
So far, so bad: Two alternatives, two unsatisfactory outcomes.
Here’s another one: You can confront the project manager. “What the fleep do you think you were doing!?!?” you might calmly ask at the next team meeting, or, if you’re in the mood to be discreet, privately.
If the project manager were the sort to accept that he’d done something wrong, he wouldn’t have violated the team’s consensus in the first place. If you choose the public option the blow up you’ve just engineered will further damage the ability of the team to function. If you do this privately you’ll merely damage your ability to work effectively with the project manager.
Either way, you won’t change the outcome.
Hmmm.
Another possibility: You can accept the project manager’s decision and move on from there without comment. This avoids all the previous downsides. It does, on the other hand, encourage a repeat performance.
The point of this little tale of woe? It started as a what-do-you-think-I-should-do inquiry, and from that perspective my answer is simple: Keep your mouth shut and document the event. That way, if everything does fall apart as a result of the project manager’s poor choice, you have some hope of salvaging your own reputation.
But there’s a difference between doing what’s most prudent and taking the most ethical course of action.
Those who advocate doing the right thing generally imagine the main barrier standing in the way of right-thing-ness is fear of the personal consequences.
That may be so in some situations. But in just as many, to my way of counting, the biggest barrier isn’t timidity.
It’s the difficulty of figuring out just exactly what the right thing to do is.
Excellent piece about figuring out the ‘right thing’. Another possible ‘right thing: in private or team meeting, in as non-threatening way as possible get the project manager’s rationale for putting forward the other option. It sounds like the two options were close, and PM weighted one or more variables differently than the team. Although it is too late to debate the relative weightings, it could be useful info for the future.
I would absolutely talk privately to the project manager and learn the rationale beyond the deed. After that, it would depend — first of all, I think some imprecise wording is used — is this a team in the sense of a collaborative team or a work group? Sounds like a work group, not a collaborative team/committee, since the term “project manager” is used and they are assigned a specific task — it’s not even like a congressional committee where members are free to disagree with the committee chair. In which case, the project manager has every right to differ and present his/her conclusion. If the person knows the sponsor (in a small company or unit, this is possible) and still disagrees with the manager after talking to him/her, I would suggest a private meeting/e-mail with the sponsor to discuss how the group members differ from the manager. (Even in a large organization, I happened to know a particular higher up before she was promoted and people knew it. I once contacted her privately about a matter. It worked — ahe simply asked pointed questions using my facts as her guide.) Another option is to talk privately with the other group members. After that, document, document, document.
I was about to enter a reply when I realized that my reply was very close to Allison’s. With that approach the project manager might even convince me that the solution s/he proposed was in fact better, which would mitigate the problem. At least, as Allison noted, it could be useful information for working with this manager in the future.
I like the example enough that I’ve filed it for future reference. 🙂
That said — I think there are some parameters here that you hinted at, but that drive the “rightness” of the final choice of action.
The option of confronting the PM is dependent on both the PM’s maturity and the team relationships. If this is a one-off team that is now finished with its work, I would probably take the “document and move on” approach. If, however, we have to keep working together, this has to be dealt with.
Another parameter is the scope of the effects of the decision. If it’s going to ultimately take the company down, then raising the opposing position is critical. Less severe effects might yield different choices.
In the end, though, your point is definitely valid: doing the right thing is easier when the right thing is obvious. Sometimes, you choose the best that you can and go with it. If there is a level of trust across the team and organization, it’s easier to be honest, and still be a team.
Nice scenario but I agree that Bob discounts the “take it to the PM” option too quickly. If communicated well then either 1) the PM who knows what s/he’s just done is probably a bully (or would have talked it over with the team first) and standing up to bullies gets their respect, or fear, and it will improve the future working relationship, or 2) the PM who made a mistake (yes, PM’s make mistakes) will, if brought forward tactfully, appreciate the feedback.
When I’ve worked with groups considering multiple options, we usually produce a document listing the feasible ones, along with pros and cons for each, with the option that the group prefers described first: “Alternative A (preferred)”, for example.
If the group did this and the pm was expected to take the finalized document to the steering committee, then it would be easy to ask why he switched the alternatives around in his presentation. (Also, the steering committee would at least have been presented with the other idea, even if it had been listed second).
I got asked about a very similar scenario in an interview, so it’s useful to think about your reactions under such circumstances.
I tend to think the best of people, so I’d assume that the pm learned something last minute that made the other alternative look better. But I would still ask what that was. In private or during the work group meeting.
I guess I would question the premise that there was “consensus”, which means unanimity, or at least general agreement, among all the members of the team. I would have assumed that the project manager was a member of the team and has, in your example, reversed the “consensus” position in a surprise move. That would suggest that he/she either pretended to agree as the options were formulated, or that some external force was applied at the last moment and he/she had no opportunity to discuss it with the team. In either case, his/her reputation would need repair if he/she is to be trusted by the team in the future. If he/she was not a member of the team and led them to believe that the team’s consensus option would be carried forward but then surprised them, it still leads to a question of trustworthiness.
Relative to your analysis of the possible reactions of the team member, I think it is quite reasonable.
Thanks for the article, Bob. You did a great job showing that there are both good and bad consequences, no matter which action you take.
In spite of what the project manager did, I am not too worried about the immediate outcome of the task assigned to the group. It sounds like, whichever alternative was used, the group’s task would be successful.
However, I have problems with the project manager. If I were to take any action, it would be to talk to upper management about his behavior.
I disagree that the project manager was “within his authority.” If there are two viable alternatives, the project manager should present both of them, together with a recommendation of which one to choose. He should not have presented only one alternative.
Also, was the presentation a surprise to the team members? If the team members did not know in advance what the project manager would present, then again the project manager was not “within his authority.” He should have warned the team members about his presentation.
The question posed in this article is “what should the team member do?” My answer is that the team member definitely should talk to someone in upper management about this. But my focus would not be on the immediate assignment. Instead, I would focus on how the project manager made some mistakes – disregarding the unanimous opinion of the other team members, possibly not informing the team members of his actions, and not presenting all of the information to the steering committee so it could make a fully informed decision.
In this case, both alternatives were viable, so the project manager, team members, and the company as a whole were lucky. The task would be successful in spite of the project manager’s behavior. But with other tasks, the outcome might have been worse. If the project manager disregarded the opinions of the team members and presented a bad alternative to the steering committee, the outcome could have been worse for everyone.
I have personally been in this situation before. Upper management did not take any action to modify the project manager’s behavior, and some future projects were not successful. The situation finally got better when the project manager left the company – and became another company’s problem.
Hi Bob
Just wanted to thank you for:
1. Clearly posing this very difficult, but very important question.
2. Providing the context for your readers to brain storm on it. I’m very impressed with the range of solid responses posted.
It seems to me like it is a question of consequences for the employee vs. consequences for the company vs. personality of the PM vs. the competency of the PM vs. the institutional resources available to that employee vs. the company’s culture (as you define “culture”.
Maybe the best approach is to talk it over with several others to informally recreate the discussion here on this page, then decide what to do or not do.
But a fine, useful article.
To me, it comes down to “how wrong or bad” is the floated solution, and whether or not it was “sprung” in a public setting.
I was once faced with both “wrong” and “public”, and stood my ground until told to “sit down and shut up”. Needless to say, my days were numbered at that point.
Although the consequences were not pretty to live through, that has actually become one of the best days of my life.
There is an aspect of the situation which you didn’t discuss, but I think is the big elephant in the room. The group spent effort in the belief that their collective effort contributed value to the organization. The PM essentially, told the group that their deliberations had no value. He (apparently) substituted his own evaluation as if theirs did not matter and then claimed extra credibility with the steering committee by implying that the group agreed with him. This is very demoralizing to a work group …to be told that the value of their deliberations were tossed aside and the PM’s opinion was substituted in its place. Nobody wants to work like that. What is the point of doing the work of deliberation when it is going to be thrown out at the end anyway? The truth is, every member of that group has now checked out… either physically headed for the exit, or mentally headed for what is euphamistically called “burn out.” The ONLY possible salvage the PM can do here is to claim that he had a last minute epiphany based on the deliberations of the work group and realized that the group had totally misunderstood some fundamental concept that made him realize that the last minute change is what the group would have wanted if they had experienced this epiphany. If that isn’t the answer, then this work group has been destroyed and the PM just hasn’t realized it yet.
This is tangential to the example you give, but I love this story about “doing the right thing” so I will take advantage of any opportunity to share it 🙂
In the 90’s the company I worked for jumped on the mission statement bandwagon. They required every employee to memorize it. The first sentence was concise and clearly stated the company’s purpose and its strategy for success (it was actually a pretty good mission statement). The next set of bullet points were a bunch of fluff regarding each “stakeholder” (“For our customers yada yada yada… For our employees blah blah blah…”).
It ended with a sentence something like: We will always act with “integrity beyond reproach”. The phrase stuck with me and we’d use joking around with each other. It seemed ridiculous in the greed-oriented corporate culture.
A few year later, I was talking to my manager about software we were using on an evaluation period. It was working well and I wanted us to purchase it. He pointed out that the software wasn’t going to stop working past the eval period. It was the actual software, so we could keep using it without paying for it (this was during one of many budget crunch times). I then said, “But that is hardly acting with “‘integrity beyond reproach'”. He paused, then said, “You’re right. I’ll get a PO for the software.”
So amazingly, I had an experience of a mission statement actually working, and actually getting the company to do the right thing, no less. How about that 🙂