If you work in a Corporation, can you really know the outcome of your work?

[Dan Adrian]

I am very concerned with ethics and I want to know that every action I take makes a positive difference in the world. Most of all, I want to know my actions don't lead to hurting other people.

Given this, I wonder if it is possible to find a job where I can be sure that my work doesn't hurt others. Is it really possible, in a large firm or corporation, to know what the final outcome of your tiny little work is? And what's the impact on the environment? And if the corporation doesn't rely on abusing poor workers in Africa? How could I go about establishing all that?

Thanks a lot for considering my question!

[aelle]

Transparency will depend on how big the structure is, how rigid and hierarchal, on your position (how much insight and oversight will it give you) and how much research you do on your company. Also, it's absolutely the kind of things I discuss with my boss to hear his side of the story and, sometimes, change the way we do things,

[Brutha]

You will never be able to perfectly predict the result of your actions.
Say you are selling fertilizer to help the people to grow food and avoid starvation.
One day a guy buys fertilizer from you and builds a bomb with it that kills people.
Does that mean that you were morally wrong to sell fertilizer? No, it doesn't.

Even if a corporation does immoral things that doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong to work there.
Take Walmart. There are a lot of reasons to criticism it. One environmental activist still decided to join Walmart and then worked inside the organisation to reduce their energy consumption by 20%.
Some other environmental activists said that he sold out. I think that he did a lot more for the environment inside of Walmart than he could have done outside of it.

Going into a big organisation might mean that your hands get dirty. It's however also the place where there a lot of leverage when you succeed in changing some company policy.
The important thing is that you keep your own judgement and don't turn into a drone.
If your own judgments leads you to do things that get you fired than so be it.

[Andrew Gubb]

Best thing you can do is make sure the corp you work in is high vibe. If it isn't, look elsewhere for income.

I think first of all the corp has to be transparent. That's a number 1 thing of a high vibe company. It will also make research into them easier.

If they're hiding something, I'd assume they have something to hide.

[1by1]

I'm not sure about large corporations, and I suspect you can't.

But if you are working for a smaller company I think you are more likely to know what the company is doing and what is involved in, and what the end result of your labour will be.

You will never be able to perfectly predict the result of your actions.

It's true, the best you can try to do is try to make sure the net result of your contributions is more good than bad.

But it can be complicated... take the UK declaring war on Germany in world war 2. War isn't a good thing, lots of people would die as a result. The question is which is better? Fight and try to prevent the holocaust, or be peaceful and let it happen?

[Brutha]

It's true, the best you can try to do is try to make sure the net result of your contributions is more good than bad.

This isn't what the OP wanted. He doesn't want to maximize the good that he causes but know that he causes no harm.
Utilitarianism is a different moral philosophy than a moral philosophy that includes the do no harm clause.

[Mato Kinze]

Originally Posted by Brutha

You will never be able to perfectly predict the result of your actions.
Say you are selling fertilizer to help the people to grow food and avoid starvation.
One day a guy buys fertilizer from you and builds a bomb with it that kills people.
Does that mean that you were morally wrong to sell fertilizer? No, it doesn't.

Even if a corporation does immoral things that doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong to work there.
Take Walmart. There are a lot of reasons to criticism it. One environmental activist still decided to join Walmart and then worked inside the organisation to reduce their energy consumption by 20%.
Some other environmental activists said that he sold out. I think that he did a lot more for the environment inside of Walmart than he could have done outside of it.

Going into a big organisation might mean that your hands get dirty. It's however also the place where there a lot of leverage when you succeed in changing some company policy.
The important thing is that you keep your own judgement and don't turn into a drone.
If your own judgments leads you to do things that get you fired than so be it.

I agree with this. The only thing you can own are your own actions. No large corporation is going to be free of human vice, bias and falibility. In big corporations, these traits are magnified simply by virture of having MORE people who exhibit these traits. Invariably, some of them will be in leadership positions. But that is not your responsibility. The actions you take and how you do what you do are the only things you have a responsibility for.

Being a role model of integrity and personal impeccability will - as Brutha has indicated - go much further in an environment where there are fewer of those role models than in one in which they are the norm.

If you want to save the environment, you don't go to the middle of the forest - you go to the edge where the damage is being done. Or, to be REALLY effective, you become a leader in the companies that are causing the damage to begin with.

[old dead wood]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Take Walmart. There are a lot of reasons to criticism it. Going into a big organisation might mean that your hands get dirty. It's however also the place where there a lot of leverage when you succeed in changing some company policy.
The important thing is that you keep your own judgement and don't turn into a drone.
If your own judgments leads you to do things that get you fired than so be it.

If you go into Walmart at a corporate level, you may be fine. As for going in at the low level that I work at while I am there, you may have to verbally abuse your co-workers on a daily basis just to "survive" and not get run over. Don't think you are going to change anything about the way the management and workers treat each other. Do you enjoy arguing loudly in both white trash and ethnic styles ? Do you have any gang affiliations with which to impress your co-workers ? Neck tattoos on the women are required. You may have to buy food at McDonalds or the many donut displays, affecting your health and weight. You will be selling fattening food to fatter and fatter people. Don't waste your efforts here.

[Brutha]

If you go into Walmart at a corporate level, you may be fine. As for going in at the low level that I work at while I am there, you may have to verbally abuse your co-workers on a daily basis just to "survive" and not get run over.

If you work at the low level than your work has probably hasn't much effect either way because you will be simple replaced by another low level worker when you leave.

If you want to actually help a lot of people then you have to move into a position where you have a bit of power.
That quest matters more than the little damage that you could possible do by being an exchangeable minimum wage laborer at a big company.

Ask yourself which job you could take that would help you to grow personally and to develop worthwhile skills.

Being a role model of integrity and personal impeccability will - as Brutha has indicated - go much further in an environment where there are fewer of those role models than in one in which they are the norm.

It not really about the individuals in your environment. It's about going to those institutions that have the power.
If you have a powerful organisation that full of people with high morals than there nothing wrong with working there.

A lot of feel good nonprofits however aren't powerful.

[Dan Adrian]

Very, very interesting opinions! The thing is, by the time I would be promoted to a position of power within a company, I will probably succeed in building my true career as a life coach and healer, and I will quit. So I'm not really dreaming of becoming a big-time reformer within a company. In my own company, yes

Originally Posted by Brutha

You will never be able to perfectly predict the result of your actions.
Say you are selling fertilizer to help the people to grow food and avoid starvation.
One day a guy buys fertilizer from you and builds a bomb with it that kills people.
Does that mean that you were morally wrong to sell fertilizer? No, it doesn't.

What if I worked for a pharmaceutical company, and the drugs didn't actually cure people (although I believed they did)? Would I be responsible?

I hope not, but I'm not sure I understand the entire issue. Ethics What's bugging me is that I don't even know on what criteria to make judgments like this.

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

Best thing you can do is make sure the corp you work in is high vibe. If it isn't, look elsewhere for income.

You know, in these times, I think developing a highly-honed intuition is the best way to make such decisions. Someone like that could instantly tell if a company is right for them to work in or not. Research is, of course, another way, if you have the time.

[Brutha]

What if I worked for a pharmaceutical company, and the drugs didn't actually cure people (although I believed they did)? Would I be responsible?

Part of being a mature adult includes taking responsibility when things go wrong even if you didn't intent them to go wrong.

There's however no way to avoid making mistakes unless you decide to do nothing that has much effect.
Being at a position of power often means that you have to choose the lesser of two evils.

In Christian morality the goal is to avoid to commit sins. Nietzsche called it slave morality. The powerless slave can feel moral for avoiding to commit sins. Steve Pavlina calls it the lightworker syndrome.
The alternative is to seek power and use the power to affect the world. You make decisions that you design to that maximize the net positive effect of your actions.

I will probably succeed in building my true career as a life coach and healer, and I will quit.

If that's what you want than take a job that helps you to build skills that you can later use as life coach.

[Dan Adrian]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Part of being a mature adult includes taking responsibility when things go wrong even if you didn't intent them to go wrong.

There's however no way to avoid making mistakes unless you decide to do nothing that has much effect.

You're right. Well, that's what I do, I take responsibility to the extreme. I am not prepared to ignore the consequences of my work anymore.

One alternative would be to do nothing that has much effect, the other one would be to avoid working for massive corporations that have much effect, but create a very effective business on my own.

I'm of course looking for a job that would enable me to use what I know, which would be awesome, and I'm talking to many people in the coaching field to try to see what king of jobs could fit the profile.

[Dan Adrian]

P.S. I think that a mature person, before choosing the lesser of two evils, wants to learn HOW to make decisions, how to judge a situation and what criteria to use when making a decision. You first have to know if two evils are really the only choices, and which one is the lesser evil.

That's what I'm trying to find out, because so far, being psychic (as someone suggested) seems the only viable way. And while I don't doubt intuition can be used that way, I am also looking for more down-to-earth ways to evaluate the impact a corporation has on the larger community / the country / the people it touches.

[Brutha]

You first have to know if two evils are really the only choices, and which one is the lesser evil.

If you don't see the evil it's usually because you don't understand the choices deep enough.

Let's take the question:
Should I give money for starving children in Somalia.

On the first glance it's an easy case. Once you however understand that the people who distribute the food have to pay protection costs to Somalian warlords to be able to distribute the food the case becomes more questionable.
Your money starts to support the people who are responsible for the conflict.

Still a lot of people feel very good when they give money to feed starving children in volatile regions of the world. Going into a nonprofit and helping starving children would be something that's seen as the traditional light worker thing to do.

If you are too attached to do no harm than you don't want to accept the truth that your well intentioned actions can have such effects.

One alternative would be to do nothing that has much effect, the other one would be to avoid working for massive corporations that have much effect, but create a very effective business on my own.

If you work as an independent coach than you have the same problem that you have inside a massive corporation.
Your work effects the work that your clients do.

When you teach some executive an NLP tool to fire an anchor for good emotions he might use it to avoid feeling bad while making decisions to hurt the environment.

NLP in it's nature is very much about messing with systems without knowing the full effect of your actions.

[Dan Adrian]

Originally Posted by Brutha

If you don't see the evil it's usually because you don't understand the choices deep enough.

Let's take the question:
Should I give money for starving children in Somalia.

On the first glance it's an easy case. Once you however understand that the people who distribute the food have to pay protection costs to Somalian warlords to be able to distribute the food the case becomes more questionable.
Your money starts to support the people who are responsible for the conflict.

That's a very interesting argument. I really appreciate the realism and the idea about deep understanding. But I don't see how the dilemma in your example can be solved. I would be willing to chose between two evils if I had to, just hope it doesn't come down to guesswork.

Originally Posted by Brutha

When you teach some executive an NLP tool to fire an anchor for good emotions he might use it to avoid feeling bad while making decisions to hurt the environment.

NLP in it's nature is very much about messing with systems without knowing the full effect of your actions.

NLP in its nature is very preoccupied with what we call "ecology", in other words, how a specific change affects the person and their life as a whole. It's true that it doesn't take into account the fact that a person, becoming stronger, could cause even more harm to others, if this is what their activity is about.

However, I believe that the reason people need to harm others is that they don't feel strong or secure enough. So if I offer people choice, if I help them become stronger, I think it would be more likely for them to choose the more humane alternative in any situation. The more people realize that their well being comes from inside, they will be less likely to try to get it by taking from others or manipulating external situations to their benefit with no regard for other people.

[Brutha]

But I don't see how the dilemma in your example can be solved.

The world is full of dilemmas that can't be solved. That happens to be what I wanted to show with the example.
If you know that the dilemma exist you can think about what's the better choice.

You however need a certain amount of acceptance of the fact that you indeed do a bit harm to accept the fact that the dilemma exists.

So if I offer people choice, if I help them become stronger, I think it would be more likely for them to choose the more humane alternative in any situation.

If you look at the economic and political leadership of the US, those people go to seminars where they learn stuff like NLP.
Maybe on average people choose the more humane alternative but that doesn't mean that they choose it every time.

[Dan Adrian]

You make good points and I totally agree that some situations require you to choose between 2 evils. I understand that.

But I was hoping to discuss how to develop a better understanding of this kind of situations. Looking specifically at corporations, how does the employee evaluate the potential benefit of his work on the world.

I think we should at least try to understand the consequences of our actions. I know it is impossible to determine 100% of the consequences of your actions, but that is exactly why I asked this question here. Given the difficulty of understanding those circumstances, what solutions do you propose? (everyone). What books do you recommend? What criteria do you see as being more relevant than others in evaluating the outcomes of your actions within a corporation?

[reptile010]

It's really not possible to know the outcome of your tiny works. Simple as that

[Brutha]

I know it is impossible to determine 100% of the consequences of your actions, but that is exactly why I asked this question here.

The question that you asked in the OP isn't "how do I go about estimating the consequences of my actions".
I think it's crucial to understand that it's a different question.
Understanding the difference between the questions is a good first step to understanding the questions a bit better.
Understanding the questions is crucial when you want to have answers to those questions.

It's both important to know what you know and to know what you don't know.

The Black Swan from Nassim Taleb is a good book to illustrate the problem of knowing things.

[Dan Adrian]

I realize my first question was quite different.

I will look more into the Black Swan phenomenon, which I'm slightly familiar with.

I also offer another perspective: IF we believe that our intentions do have an impact on reality, then it's not your actions that matter, but the intention behind each of your actions. The same action can have totally different effects depending on the intention behind it.

[Dan Adrian]

I realize where my preoccupation with "do no harm".

Steve wrote a while ago about POLARIZING - deciding between being a lightworker or a darkworker. According to him, if you decide one way or another, you will be much stronger than if you are undecided, always making compromises. From this, I understand that one should aim to do only good or to act only in his own interest. And if one chooses the lightworker path, he should not compromise when it comes to the "do no harm rule", unless he wants to weaken himself.

In light of that, is it so illogical to aim for the ideal of doing no harm ?

[bamber]

you can never avoid people getting hurt, there will always be people who sacrifies along the way. its sad but i had to be this way, with our limited ability at this generation, its how things wok. however, try to look at the bigger picture on what the corporation is doing, try to evaluate its actions is suitable with each given situation, if it is than you gonna have to let certain people go, they are on their own luck, nature does select its best, (most of the time, it doesnt mean the company is purposefully hurting someone, its just that resources or time, or certain factors can not benefit everyone )
hope it helps

[nzmegs]

I used to work for a property developer. I once went to a regional meeting where the owner told us about the importance of sustainable building and creating homes which were both built from sustainable products and would reduce the carbon consumtion of the new owners. Great i thought - this company really seems to care...

Just a few minutes later the owner started telling us about how their new project to dig coal out of the ground in an amazing part of the country (in therms of its scenery) was going so well.

I couldn't understand how the company would sell sustainable homes on one hand and sell coal (a carbon based fuel which is incredibly polluting) on the other.

I was a receptionist, but i couldn't hold my tongue. i out up my hand and asked him to explain how he felt about that dichotomy. he explained that their coal mine was expertly run and that they were taking all possible steps to reduce the impact on the environment.

it was all lip service. he didn't really care about the environment and therefore the company didn't. it was downhill all the way from that point. I left soon after...

even though I was the last person in the room of hundreds of epople who you may think would question the compnay and the owner himself - I felt it was my duty. many people agreed with me but couldn't speak out. I was just a receptionsit, but at least i cared!

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Dan Adrian

Given this, I wonder if it is possible to find a job where I can be sure that my work doesn't hurt others. Is it really possible, in a large firm or corporation, to know what the final outcome of your tiny little work is? And what's the impact on the environment? And if the corporation doesn't rely on abusing poor workers in Africa? How could I go about establishing all that?

You could begin by understanding the core business of the company (the main thing that they sell) and see if that is in accordance with your ethics (which is another subjective issue).

The more-obvious suspects may include, for example, companies involved in things such as:

Cigarettes
Alcohol
Military weapons
Gaming (casinos , lotteries etc)
Heavily pollutive industries (eg coal mining)


Many large corporates may publicly state their employment policy - eg they may state that they will not discriminate against employees on the basis of sexual orientation; age; gender; religion; race etc. You may want to check whether your prospective employer has such a statement and exactly what does it cover.

Also, many companies have a corporate social responsibility program me (again, you should be able to see tis on their website). Essentially the company picks one or two or three themes (eg helping poor children; or protecting the environment) and commits to it. As a practical matter, you'll see that the company may make donations to such a cause; sponsor related events and encourage its employees to participate in related activities.

(For example, I was previously in an organization whose CSR theme was AIDS awareness. All new employees had to attend a workshop on AIDS awareness; furthermore employees who wish to get more training can do so; thereafter they get time off every year to do things like give talks at schools, public places etc to educate the public about AIDS).

[Richful]

Corporations are groups of people - if you think of them otherwise you'll over simplify any judgments you make about them. However a Corporations goal is to maximize the profits of it's investors - there are exceptions, (Not-for-profit) but this is pretty much the standard model.

What are you most concerned about? The impact of any job is more than just what you do. How are the workers treated? What are the companies policies? Are these strictly adhered to or is it simply lip service? Is the actual service/product beneficial to someone other than investors?

There are so many ways even "bad" organizations can do good. Look at McDonald's, they spend huge amounts on charity - it's tax deductible though - so is this a "good" or "bad" company?

I've worked for 2 Government owned and independently operated corporations. One was a media organization which is Chartered to provide "balanced media coverage" to the nation. This is, imo, a good aim. However it's the execution of this aim that matters. The coverage is often accused of being unbalanced and favouring a left-wing perspective - is this good/bad? The corporation is cash poor so it's workers are pushed to do more and more work for less and less pay. The policies are employee friendly, supportive of equal opportunity, good work-life balance and anti-bullying - all of which is lip service, bullying and nepotism are rife, most workers are doing 3 times what they were hired for - is this good/bad?
From an employees perspective it sucked. From a managers perspective it was "efficient" (not really it's very wasteful). The viewer/taxpayer may have been pleased or not: Less tax payed for more content. A "balanced" coverage - depends on your opinion of what is broadcast.

Making a "Good/Bad" or "High vibe/low vibe" judgment is a massive over-simplification of the issues involved. The impact any corporation has - like anything we do in life - is more than simply what we do but how we do it and how we feel about it.
The hard part is that no matter how "transparent" a corporation may say it is you never really know how the place operates until you're in the thick of it.