First Step Marketing

The moral and ethical situations that we encounter in both our personal and professional lives are important opportunities for us to choose between fear and its opposite, love. Having the courage of your convictions stems from how much you like _yourself. Before continuing, reflect on the following. On a percentage scale of one to one hundred, how much do you like yourself>

Identifying our fears is usually the easiest part; it is confronting them that is difficult. If we peel back the layers of our fears far enough, we will often discover that their main source lies in our belief that we feel we are not worthy or lovable. A form of ‘honour amongst thieves’ leads us to misguidedly believe that ‘ratting’ on the wrong actions of another is a crime. Speaking up for yourself is not about collaboration with the enemy. Tribal associations of ‘not telling tales’ follow us from school through to social and work dilemmas. In allowing the creation of such fears we directly affect our own self-worth. Indeed, the majority of abuses, physical, emotional or mental, remain unknown, or continue, because of prior conditioning to keep quiet about them.

Acceptance of intimidation at work, for example, can be observed everyday. A unanswered memo to a subordinate will be perceived by a ‘bully’ as acquiescence while, in truth, the recipient believes his or her silence indicates their non-acceptance. The arrival of internal e-mail permits blanket bullying of whole departments. Staff wanting to make a stand against something they do not agree with stay silent. Instead, they reserve their complaining for unofficial lines of communication such as the canteen or home; the grapevine shouts louder than official lines, yet remains unheeded.

As our fears have often been with us for a long time, we come to believe that we are not worthy of the respect, success, financial stability and peace of mind that we really would like. We perceive situations in a fearful way, based on indoctrinated beliefs such as the following:

1. Sometimes you have to do things that are not entirely ethical because they are part and parcel of career advancement.
2. Looking the other way is sometimes necessary to achieve success.
3. Everyone does it, so if I don’t do it as well then someone else will beat me to my goal.
4. Business is business and its ethics are different from my personal ethics.
5. It’s not going to hurt anyone and it’s not illegal, so why not do it?
6. If others do not see through my deceptions then more fool them.

Most of the major situations that we have to face which involve ethical dilemmas will be created by, and thus correspond to, our dominant fears. The greater the fear, the more intense the situation will appear, with major ramifications for those involved; our keeping quiet, or not telling the truth, may affect someone’s job, reputation, or feelings. We may be asked to lie in order to prevent a large sum of money being otherwise lost, and which in turn would mean we did not receive the promotion or contract that we had hoped for. It may be that we simply do not take the responsibility to resolve the harm that our mistakes have made.

It is usually our fears which govern the codes that are deemed part and parcel of success in business: we fear that if we respond differently from everyone else, we will not be liked, accepted, or asked to be involved. We fear that if we appear to be a threat to the status quo we will be passed over when it comes to promotion. We fear that we will fail if we follow _a course of action that is compatible with our own sense of business ethics. We fear that confrontation, or encountering the disapproval of another, will threaten our job security, future contract or income.

Whatever our fears, until we confront them with our own sense of honesty, we will not release them and they will continue to plague us. We can be hurt by nothing; the hurt we feel stems from interpreting our dilemmas as proof that our fears are indeed valid. If we fail at something, or incur disapproval, this is outright proof that we are unworthy, incompetent, not good enough and unlovable. When we confront someone and incur their anger, this is proof that we must be wrong and they must be right. In truth, this is not proof that our fears are valid, only that we allow them to exist in our mind.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Facing the Fear of Honesty

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 2:47 am and is filed under Jobs, Promotion, financial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.