Grappling with the Gray

If no good deed goes unpunished, should we still risk doing the right thing?

Few things in life are black and white.  That’s why we have to learn to Grapple with the Gray.

This episode's ethics challenge:

True story:

Susan was working in the back office of a neighborhood clinic one morning.  A patient arrived and was admitted for consultation.  Susan heard raised voices, after which the patient reappeared and quickly left the clinic in a state of apparent grief or anger.  Had there been some disagreement or misunderstanding?  Susan assumed so but couldn’t know for sure.

Under normal circumstances, Susan probably wouldn’t have thought twice.  But only a week earlier, a disgruntled client had left an office just down the street after a conflict, then returned with a gun and started shooting.

Susan didn’t want to take the chance that her inaction might put others (and herself) at risk.  Perhaps with a simple check-in she might determine if there was any cause for genuine concern.

Because all visits were confidential, looking up the man’s identity would be a violation of privacy.  Susan tried to reach her supervisor for permission to open the database, but her supervisor was unavailable.

Susan took the initiative.  She looked up the man’s name and phone number, then gave him a call.

“Hello,” she said into the phone.  “I’m calling to check in… you seemed upset when you left our office.  Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Oh, no,” the man replied.  “I was a little distressed, but I’m fine now.  Thanks so much for calling.”

Subsequently, Susan found herself reprimanded by her supervisor.

Was she wrong to do what she did?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Sonia Funk is a corporate wellness strategist and speaker, a nutritional therapist, and an award winning singer and songwriter.

S. Scott Mason , aka the Myth Slayer, is a Transformational Coach for Executives, Entrepreneurs & Other Leaders, podcast host, and keynote speaker.

Heather R Younger is a keynoter and consultant on employee engagement and DEI, a TEDx speaker, podcast host, and author of the new book, The Art of Caring Leadership.

How can we raise authentic concerns without being accused of political motivation or politically correctness?

That's our topic when the ethics panel convenes to Grapple with the Gray.

During his presidency, Ronald Reagan was often criticized for inaccuracies and misstatements. Sometime after he left the White House at age 77, it was revealed that he had been showing the first symptoms of Alzheimer's disease while still in office.

Last week, presidential hopeful Nikki Haley called for mental competency tests for candidates over 75, clearly targeting President Joe Biden’s expected re-election bid.

On the one hand, we want to encourage respect for both the wisdom and the challenges of the elderly. On the other hand, since impaired ability is a natural consequence of growing older, we want to protect the elderly and those around them from the potential dangers of diminishing function. This may include increased attention to issuing driver's licenses, operation of motorized wheelchairs, and addressing incapacity to perform their jobs.

How do we balance respect for the elderly against safety concerns while ensuring that they do not become victims of agism?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Karl Ahlrichs works with Healthcare issues and Risk Management in all forms, building high performing teams and applying "uncommon sense" to a high risk world.

Dave Bricker is a Speaker, Presentation Consultant, and sailing aficionado. He works with leaders and professionals to master the art of business storytelling—on the stage, on the page, or on the screen.

Jolanta Pomiotlo is Vice President of Information Technology for EXSIF Worldwide who manages innovative initiatives aimed at reducing operating costs, improving profit, and growing revenue.

When do you cross the line from marketing to manipulating?

When do you become complicit in other people's unethical behavior?

How far do you have to go to correct other people's moral missteps?

These are some of the questions the ethics panel takes up on this archive episode of Grappling with the Gray.

This episode's ethics challenge:

Benny was widely recognized as a whiz kid by his fellow economics students, asking all the right questions in class and coming up with smart answers that impressed even the professor.

Over the summer, he arranged his notes into a short primer on economic theory, which he self-published in hope of making a few bucks by selling them to incoming freshmen at the start of the fall semester.  He left a couple of dozen copies with the owner of a popular off-campus bookstore.

A week later, the store owner called to tell Benny the books had sold out and he needed more copies.

“Wow,” said Benny, “I had no idea they would sell that fast.”

The shopkeeper grinned.  “I have a secret system,” he said.  “I post a preorder sign-up sheet in the school library.  I write about 15 fake names on the sheet, which makes the book look like a hot item and gets more people to order it so they won’t miss out on something good.”

Was the shopkeeper unethical?  If so, what should Benny do?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Kimberly Davis is a coach, trainer, TEDx speaker, author of Brave Leadership and founder of the Brave Leadership University.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlyd...

Kira Day is a passion-based coach specializing in innovation, leadership and professional transformation.  She is CEO of The Passion Centre and Creator of The Passion-Based™ Incubator.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiraday/

Peter Winick is the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage and host of the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwinick/

True story:

A couple went out to dinner together. They ordered a variety of appetizers and shared them. A couple of hours after returning home, the wife became extremely ill, vomiting so violently that the husband felt compelled to call 911.

An ambulance arrived (together with a fire truck), and took them to the emergency room, where they spent six hours as the doctors attempted to treat the wife for what they believed to be food poisoning. In a state of agitation, the husband sent an email to the restaurant informing them that their food had made his wife seriously ill, and he identified the one appetizer his wife had eaten that he hadn’t.

He also informed them that the cost of the ambulance was over $600 and implied that they should offer to pay the expense.

48 hours later, he had received no reply. So he sent the same message to the restaurant’s Instagram account. He never received a reply to the second communication, either.

Subsequently, tests came back confirming that the wife had not been sick from food poisoning but from a virulent stomach flu.

Considering that the doctors initially diagnosed the wife with food poisoning, was the husband wrong to send the initial email? Was the restaurant wrong to ignore the message? Considering that the restaurant did not reply, should the husband follow up with a note apologizing for his false accusation?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Stewart Wiggins is Chief Advisor at Induna Advisors, working to significantly increase company revenue by developing positive client reports and establishing solid business relationships.

Ipek Williamson is an Insight Coach, Meditation Teacher, Speaker, Author, and Change Master who helps people initiate and navigate change in their personal and professional lives.

A recent article on Substack by Gurwinder outlines in horrifying detail how TikTok is intentionally designed in a way that promotes addiction, encourages irresponsible and antisocial behavior, erodes fundamental human values, accelerates mental impairment, and contributes to mass psychological illness.

The China-based platform is now the most downloaded app on the web. At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party has banned its own children from access to it. Even the “spinach” version, which is primarily educational content, is only available to kids for 40 minutes a day, between 6 am and 10 pm.

Evidence suggests that the Chinese government sees TikTok as a tool that will lead the United States to committing societal, intellectual, and cultural suicide, and there’s good reason to believe they might be right.

If so, what is the ethical response individually and collectively? Can and should the government impose electronic warning labels, as it did on cigarettes? Should it ban the platform outright, or does the government restricting our freedoms provide the CCP with a different kind of victory?

As individuals, should we boycott the platform, or can we rely on our self-discipline to choose beneficial content to manipulate the algorithm in our favor? Should creators attempt to produce beneficial content, or is contributing to the platform in any manner contributing to the problem?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Diane Helbig is Chief Improvement Catalyzer at Helbig Enterprises, providing guidance and training to business owners and leaders around the world.

Dr. Robyn Odegaard is a Concierge High Performance Psychologist who works with people who have to keep it together because the stakes are too high for them to fall apart, and host of the Quick Hits Podcast. See less

Peter Winick works with individuals and organizations to build and grow revenue streams through their thought leadership platforms and is host of the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast.

To how much collateral damage can we subject others in order to save ourselves?

That's this week's topic on Grappling with the Gray.

In the movie Passengers, a computer malfunction wakes up Chris Pratt out of hibernation too early, 90 years before his spaceship is going to reach its destination. He now faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life alone, with no one for company except the robot bartender.

Within a year, he has grown so depressed that he comes close to committing suicide. After pulling back from the brink, he is walking among the hibernating passengers when he spots Jennifer Lawrence, asleep in her pod. He looks her up online and discovers that she is a talented writer. He reads her books, listens to her interviews, and falls in love with her.

He becomes obsessed with the idea of waking her up so he’ll have someone for company to save his sanity. He tells himself that it’s wrong, but he can’t keep the idea from coming back to him again and again.

Would he be wrong to wake her up, causing her to lose her future in order to save him from madness and possibly death? If he did, would he be obligated to tell her the truth, or would it be better to allow her to think they were both victims of a system failure?

In general, is it ever acceptable to impose hardship on some to prevent disproportionate hardship on others, like stealing from the grocery store to feed starving children? If so, how do we calculate when we’re crossing the line?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Jennifer H. Elder, CSP, CPA is a CPA and Certified Speaking Professional who helps leaders future-proof their businesses by making smart decisions and staying ethical.

S. Scott Mason Mason, aka the Myth Slayer, is a speaker, podcast host, and coach working with executives and entrepreneurs to Magnetize & Monetize Professional Freedom by Dislodging Toxic Myths to Ignite the Charisma Within

Lisa K. McDonald is the founder of Career Polish, an Executive Career Coach and Master Mindset Coach who helps successful professionals reach their next phase of career-happy and life-healthy.

Can we trust the whistleblowers?

A video released last week by Project Veritas appears to show a Pfizer executive admitting that the company has at least considered producing mutations of the Covid virus in order to perpetuate its lucrative vaccine manufacturing business.

If true, the video provides damning evidence of highly unethical and predatory practices.

A columnist in Forbes claims to have found “no legitimate source” online to verify that the purported subject of the video, Jordan Trishton Walker, is indeed a Pfizer Director of Research and Development - Strategic Operations and mRNA Scientific Planning. The video clip also seems to be severely edited, raising questions of whether the comments are provided in full context.

At one point in the conversation, the subject of the video says, “Don’t tell anyone about this.” Is this equivalent to telling a reporter something “off the record”? Is recording someone without their knowledge ethical, aside from being illegal in many states?

Does Project Veritas have an ethical obligation to make the unedited video available to the public? Should they provide substantiation that the subject of the video is who they claim he is?

Finally, if the video is authentic, what action should the government of the justice system take, particularly if these were merely musings by Pfizer executives without any actual implementation?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Kimberly Davis is an author, TEDx speaker, and founder of the Brave Leadership University, leading development programs world-wide, around authentic leadership, purpose, presence, and influence.

Mariah Edgington, BSN, RN Edgington is a Keynote Speaker and, together with her husband, Byron, Co-Author of Journey Well, You Are MORE Than Enough: (RE)Discover Your Passion, Purpose, & Love of Yourself & Life.

Mark O’Brien is founder and principal of O’Brien Communications Group, helping companies add innovation to their mindsets and their operations to create discernible competitive advantage.

Does taking responsibility require micromanaging?

Is it ever possible to expect too much oversight?

Can due diligence erode the foundations of trust?

These are some of the issues the ethics panel takes up in this week's ethics challenge:

Recently, Alec Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were charged with involuntary manslaughter in the accidental death of Halyna Hutchins by a prop gun that turned out to be loaded with live ammunition.

We’re not going to discuss the legalities of the case, but how can we evaluate the ethics of diffused responsibility? Alec Baldwin was handed a gun and told it was a prop. As an actor, did he have a moral responsibility to check the gun, or was it proper to rely on the expertise of the armorer?

On the other hand, he was also producer of the film. Does that make him ultimately responsible for underlings who fail in their responsibilities?

How might these issues extend to other areas? Do I have to check my car’s brakes after I buy it, or can I rely on the responsibility of the manufacturer? Is the CEO of a corporation with 20,000 employees responsible if a junior executive misuses company resources to embezzle funds from clients or customers?

To some degree, the smooth running of society demands that we trust those around us to do what they’re supposed to do. Is it healthy, or even realistic, for us to try to assume responsibility for others doing their jobs? If not, where does accountability lie?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Christopher Bauer is a Speaker, Author, and Consultant on Ethics, Compliance, and Accountability.

Deb Coviello, aka the Drop in CEO, is an author, speaker, podcast host, and silver medalist curler who coaches C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow to navigate challenges with confidence.

Catherine Fitzgerald is a speaker, writer, certified coach, and founder of BrassTacksWithHeart - Executive Coaching. She works with C-level leaders and their teams as they navigate the choppy waters of aligning people, performance, and profits.

Are the ethics between human beings different from the ethics between Man and Machine?

That's what we'll be investigating in this week's episode of Grappling with the Gray.

Here is our ethics challenge:

In 1955, Walter M. Miller won the first ever Hugo Award for his science fiction novelette, The Darfsteller, the story of a former actor who had refused to let his persona be digitalized when robot actors replaced real ones.

The unveiling of ChatGPT is the latest example of life imitating art. The new technology mimics human writing so perfectly that it may be impossible to tell the difference between the two.

Consider the consequences: The entire writing profession may become extinct. High school teachers and college professors won’t be able to tell whether students did their own work. Source materials will be appropriated without regard for citation or copyright infringement.

Then there’s the influence on lobbying. Comments submitted in the regulatory process might be computer generated. Anyone with the software could do from their kitchen table what the Russian Internet Research Agency did in its attempt to influence our 2016 elections, with far less overhead and far more precision.

In the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, creators of Google, Facebook, and Apple recount how horrified they are at the creations they unleashed on society, but we don’t seem to be learning from their experience.

What are some other ethical consequences of this technology? And once we release into the world technology that promotes, encourages, and even necessitates unethical behavior, what options do we have for preserving an ethical society?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Paul Edwards used to drive large military vehicles through the deserts of the Middle East, armed with an assault rifle. Today, his occupation of ghostwriting requires him to ask questions first, and shoot later.”

K Kimi Hirotsu Ziemski Hirotsu Ziemski is Founder of KSP Partnership, providing project management and project leadership courses and workshops to improve team dynamics and communications.

Sarah Kalmeta aka Sara the Pivoter, is founder of Pivot Point, a career transition coach, author, and podcast host.

If there's a time for every season, how do we determine which season we're currently in?

Join this week's panelists on LinkedIn Live as they grapple with this ethical challenge:

The entire country has followed the story of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, his dramatic collapse during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals, his suspension between life and death, and his remarkable path toward recovery. Our collective obsession with these events raises a number of points for reflection.

As Mr. Hamlin was being resuscitated on the field, FOX Sports pundit Skip Bayless tweeted:

“No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game - but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome... which suddenly seems so irrelevant.”

Mr. Bayless was attacked from all sides for his “inhumanity,” but his observation opens the door for further discussion. Rockies pitcher Juan Nicasio was carried off the field after being hit in the head by a line drive in 2011. The Rockies went on to lose to the Washington Nationals. In 2008, St. Louis Cardinal Juan Encarnacion was hit by a foul ball that ended his career and may have cost him his vision. But the game went on.

How do we decide when life goes on and when respect requires us to suspend normal activity? Furthermore, why did this incident capture national attention, overshadowing objectively more profound tragedies that fill the headlines? Should we be reexamining our priorities, or is there something exceptional about this story?

Finally, a WSJ editorial contrasted past incidents of coaches fired for leading team prayers with the midfield prayers offered up for Damar Hamlin’s recovery. If public prayer is wrong sometimes, shouldn’t it be wrong all the time? What are we to make of these apparent inconsistencies, and what should our approach be to individual tragedy that mars public events?

Meet this week’s panelists:

Mark Brown, CSP Brown is a world champion speaker, an executive coach, and an artificial intelligence software advisor.

Lieutenant Colonel JC Glick is a retired Army Ranger. He is a leadership, strategy, and culture advisor, as well as an author and TEDx speaker.

Nick Sternberg is Interim CEO of Hope and Change. He is a writer, creativity consultant, and LinkedIn provocateur.