Show Notes:
I think it’s almost a universally understood fact of life that the old kids in a family are the guinea pigs and life tends to be very different when you compare the oldest and youngest children in a family. Part of that is that life circumstances change and part of that is that parents get better with time. Generally though, this is because parents tend to use an equity based parenting system and not an equality based system. But what is the difference between equity and equality and how can we use it to more effectively parent? On the show today we talk about this ethical principle and so many others that we can apply in parenting, business, and in life as we strive to make better decisions and have better long-term outcomes.
Brad Agle is the George W. Romney Endowed Professor, and Professor of Ethics and Leadership in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University (BYU). He is founder, chairman, and chief scientist at Merit Leadership and served as a Fellow and chair of the BYU Wheatley Institution Ethics Initiative from 2008 - 2020. Previous to his appointment at BYU in 2009, he spent 17 years as a professor of Strategy, Organizations, and Environment in the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also served for eight years as the inaugural director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership. His teaching brought the University of Pittsburgh the distinction of being the #2 ranked executive MBA program in the world in business ethics by Business Week. Dr. Agle received a Ph.D. in Business Management from the University of Washington and a B.S. in Information Management from BYU. In 2014 he published the book “Research Companion to Behavioral Ethics in Organizations: Constructs and Measures.” In 2016 he published the book "The Business Ethics Field Guide." Brad and his wife Kristi are the parents of Erik, Lindsay, Christian, and Amanda. On the show today we discuss the following:
How to learn more about Professor Brad Agle:
Additional Books, Individuals, or Items Discuss in the show:
Contact the Host: rob@contenderswanted.com
Giveaway: If you'd like to learn what you need to do to be successful in your own life, we're giving away our free e-workbook called “How to Find Your Path to Your Success”. If you’d like a copy, click the link or email me at rob@contenderswanted.com with "Success" in the subject line.
Show Notes:
I think it’s almost a universally understood fact of life that the old kids in a family are the guinea pigs and life tends to be very different when you compare the oldest and youngest children in a family. Part of that is that life circumstances change and part of that is that parents get better with time. Generally though, this is because parents tend to use an equity based parenting system and not an equality based system. But what is the difference between equity and equality and how can we use it to more effectively parent? On the show today we talk about this ethical principle and so many others that we can apply in parenting, business, and in life as we strive to make better decisions and have better long-term outcomes.
Brad Agle is the George W. Romney Endowed Professor, and Professor of Ethics and Leadership in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University (BYU). He is founder, chairman, and chief scientist at Merit Leadership and served as a Fellow and chair of the BYU Wheatley Institution Ethics Initiative from 2008 - 2020. Previous to his appointment at BYU in 2009, he spent 17 years as a professor of Strategy, Organizations, and Environment in the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also served for eight years as the inaugural director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership. His teaching brought the University of Pittsburgh the distinction of being the #2 ranked executive MBA program in the world in business ethics by Business Week. Dr. Agle received a Ph.D. in Business Management from the University of Washington and a B.S. in Information Management from BYU. In 2014 he published the book “Research Companion to Behavioral Ethics in Organizations: Constructs and Measures.” In 2016 he published the book "The Business Ethics Field Guide." Brad and his wife Kristi are the parents of Erik, Lindsay, Christian, and Amanda. On the show today we discuss the following:
How to learn more about Professor Brad Agle:
Additional Books, Individuals, or Items Discuss in the show:
Contact the Host: rob@contenderswanted.com
Giveaway: If you'd like to learn what you need to do to be successful in your own life, we're giving away our free e-workbook called “How to Find Your Path to Your Success”. If you’d like a copy, click the link or email me at rob@contenderswanted.com with "Success" in the subject line.
[00:00:00] Rob Cook: All right. Professor Agle, welcome to the show.
[00:00:03] Prof. Agle: Thank you, Rob. It's great to be with you. It's always fun to be with a former student. Who's doing great things.
[00:00:08] Rob Cook: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. A lot to listeners to the show as professor Agle just alluded to that. He was, my ethics professor when I was going through school at BYU and we've stayed in touch since then, because I really, really enjoyed his class. I got a lot out of it. And so. Naturally, as I was thinking about what could be valuable for all of you on this podcast, I thought of him and wanted to bring him on and have a really interesting conversation around, ethical dilemmas and the impact that they can have on our own success, both personally and professionally in our lives. So I'm really excited for our conversation today. First and foremost. Tell the listeners who are you and what is it that you do?
[00:00:47] Prof. Agle: Sure. So I'm a professor of ethics and leadership in the Marriott school of business at Brigham young. I teach ethics leadership. I also help our students who are thinking about going on to [00:01:00] PhD. So I teach a class in research methods and philosophy of science. In addition, I'm founder chairman, and as of yesterday, chief scientist for the company, Merit Leadership. So basically I try to help people in their careers, in relationship becoming an expert in ethical issues and how to be an ethical leader and do that both with individuals and with organizations.
[00:01:26] Rob Cook: Wonderful. Okay. So I can attest to the fact that he is very, very good at this. We had a lot of really great conversations and our class, back in school. So I'm excited for the conversation today. Professor Agle, I would love to start with kind of a random question here as we're kind of jumping into the meat of everything in my research, I saw that you did an ethical field guide for us special forces. How in the world did that come about? And how did that experience change you and affect the way you do your research and your work in the field of ethics?
[00:01:59] Prof. Agle: Well, first as you [00:02:00] might imagine, that was a phenomenal experience.
[00:02:02] Rob Cook: I can only imagine.
[00:02:04] Prof. Agle: In fact, I'll tell you the story, how it happened, but I will just tell you that when it happened, I said to my coauthors on the business ethics field guide, which is part of how this happened, they said if you could have chosen any group anywhere in the world to work with, in terms of who has difficult ethical issues that you have to face, um, both in a very timely fashion with incredible impact. Is there any other group that you can think that you would rather work with because of how complex it is. And I don't think we could come up with anyone else where like that's the best group we could possibly work with. So it was an, it was an amazing experience. It came about because I'm a professor at the university of Florida who runs the Po Center for Ethics there. Got ahold of the business ethics field guide, about six months after [00:03:00] it was published and it was published about five years ago. He got ahold of it and he started using it in his classes at the university of Florida and fell in love with it and said, you know, this is great. Students love it. He also happens to be a Colonel in the United States army reserves where he's a chaplain and he was attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
[00:03:24] He gave a copy of the Business Ethics Field Guide to all the members of the joint chiefs of staff and in the discussions of what he was doing. He also talked to another Colonel chaplain who was the chaplain for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who then later his next transfer became the command chaplain for the U S special operations forces.
[00:03:48] And they kind of met together and you may have seen that, you know, special operations forces had some ethical issues over the last few years. And so. [00:04:00] Not unlike any other organization, but they were trying to figure out, you know, how do we, how do we improve things? How do we help our special operators?
[00:04:10] And, Brian Ray, Colonel, Brian Ray said to Colonel George Giustra, here's the key. Here's the tool. Here's the business ethics field guide. We need to create something very similar. For the U S special operations forces. And he's great because Brian said, you know, we do a lot of training in the military, particularly with special forces.
[00:04:31] Right. I mean, that's all they do, they just train. And he said, you know, we have battles. Yeah. So we just train battle drills, you know, it's like scenario, boom, your rifle jams. What do you do? And every soldier knows exactly what to do. If you're rifle jammed, you know, five steps, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
[00:04:50] You know, if you jump out of a plane every airman jumps out of a plane or parachutist knows that if you get, if you got a problem, here are the [00:05:00] five steps or three steps you do to untangle yourself. He said, that's what we need for ethics. We need, we need to know what the scenarios are, which is kind of what we do in the business ethics field guide, and then help create actual ethical what he called ethical battle drills.
[00:05:18] And so they came to me and said, you know, would you, would you work with us on this? And so, I had the privilege and I do say it's a privilege of working together with those folks, interviewing seals and Green Berets and Rangers and, night Raiders to get their stories.
[00:05:37] What are the kinds of dilemmas they face. And as you might imagine, they are really, really tough, ethical dilemmas that they deal with on a regular basis and try to try to come up with battle drills for when they're in those ethical dilemmas, what are steps they can take? What are things that they can do to try to make better decisions in a very, very [00:06:00] difficult situation you asked, how did it change me?
[00:06:06] You cannot be together with people who are dedicated and sacrificing tremendously for their country without, having without having that have a deep impact on you? Part of the reason I was excited to do the work was because I actually grew up, as a Navy brat. My father was a Naval officer.
[00:06:31] And so I still remember one of my earliest memories. It actually is in, your Costco, Japan, which is where the big Naval base us Naval bases in Japan. From the time I was six to nine, we lived there and I still remember at Christmas time going to the hospital. And visiting the soldiers and sailors and airmen who had been injured in Vietnam.
[00:06:57] And, you know, I still remember seeing their [00:07:00] wounds and, you know, people had lost limbs and, just felt, wow, it just made an impression on me that the devotion and the sacrifice those folks make, and then in meeting with the special operations forces they make, they make even greater sacrifices.
[00:07:15] In fact, I think one of the sacrifices we don't appreciate it enough is the question, frankly, there's a, there's a term we refer to as moral injury. Which is when we have to make really difficult ethical decisions that, that whether or not they're the right decisions is that oftentimes they're the right decisions, but they still create moral injury within us because we have to go against some of our most basic moral principles.
[00:07:48] So you think about a special operator? What are things they have to do sometimes is they have to kill people. Well, even if people are bad and it's the right thing to do to [00:08:00] kill those people, whether you're trying to release hostages or rescue hostages, or you've got, terrorists who are coming to kill us or whatever, it still affects, you take somebody else's life.
[00:08:13] Or to do the kinds of things or quite frankly, to see the kinds of things that they see. In fact, one of the most poignant dilemmas that I recall listening to was somebody who had to watch something, and I won't even describe what it was cause it was so terrible, but he had to watch this terrible thing happening.
[00:08:38] He, he had the power to stop it. But he couldn't because there was something else that was going to happen shortly thereafter and had he stopped this bad act, that whole mission would have been messed up. And it was an incredibly important mission. So he literally had to watch the scope of his rifle, [00:09:00] terrible things happening that he had the power to stop.
[00:09:04] But because of the bigger mission, he couldn't stop. You think what that does to your soul? And so we, as a people, we, the people we make these decisions about policy, about what we're going to do, but we don't pay the price for those folks. Pay the price. They're the ones that actually see the terrible things have to do those terrible things on our behalf.
[00:09:30] And so I think it, it, it just changed me in terms of thinking probably it probably made me even more appreciative of the importance of what I do quite frankly, that I'm helping people to understand. The ethical dilemmas they face and how to deal with them effectively. And also how to understand when [00:10:00] they did the right thing, even when it was tough, even when it felt really hard that, you know, we have a lot of folks who, as, you know, deal with issues of PTSD.
[00:10:13] And a lot of that is because they just had to do things on our behalf. That are really difficult. So I don't know. I just think I had an even greater appreciation for the heroic men and women in our, in our armed forces.
[00:10:30] Rob Cook: That there's no way you could go through that type of experience in terms of serving those men and women and hearing those stories that they share and it not change you and it not impact.
[00:10:42] And so I feel, I feel to say for any listeners out there who may have served in the armed forces or are currently serving our country. Thank you. It might, it's small pittance. but thank you. And we'll get to you and your families. Thank [00:11:00] you
[00:11:00] Prof. Agle: but nevertheless, small, but I will tell you meaningful.
[00:11:04] Rob Cook: No, I'm saying what I'm saying is small buttons in comparison to what they're giving.
[00:11:08] Prof. Agle: Exactly. But if I, but I want to emphasize that even though it's small, that appreciation still is important. So I encourage all of our listeners. Even though you might think, you know, it's, it's, it's almost symbolic or, you know, I don't know. It feels almost wrong to thank somebody when you didn't really do anything.
[00:11:32] Would you see a service person? Thank them. It is meaningful.
[00:11:37] Rob Cook: Yeah. Well, thank you for giving them some tools to be able to be more successful at what they do and to hopefully get rid of a little bit of this moral injury that I'm sure that they all experience on a day-to-day basis. Heaven knows that they've sacrificed enough already.
[00:11:55] Well, that's an incredible start to this conversation. I can only [00:12:00] imagine,
[00:12:00] Prof. Agle: Honestly, I'm still, I'm still working with them, so it's, it's amazing. I mean, I've been at Cornado and I, you know, I've had the opportunity, some training there and, Month and a half ago I was at Fort Bragg and I had an opportunity to do some training there.
[00:12:14] And, um, yeah, it's, it's an amazing experience with amazing people. I mean, you're, you're looking at folks, you know, who are successful. Well, these folks are incredibly successful.
[00:12:25] Rob Cook: Yeah. That's they are. Well, I think this is kind of a natural transition then perhaps for us to talk about these ethical dilemmas.
[00:12:34] Part of the reason why I wanted to bring you on was because you wrote this book, the Ethics Field Guide, which was a fantastic book. And I tried to get my hands on a copy before I got here, but it was actually pretty difficult. But for listeners out there, if you can get a copy of it, it is a fantastic resource because when we were in school, you walked us through different pieces of the book and he gave us excerpts and different things.
[00:12:56] Wonderful. And in fact, I have a colleague of mine who got, who did get a [00:13:00] copy of it, and he keeps a copy on his desk. Because it's so valuable, he feels like, so we'll leave a resource to that in our show notes. If anyone wants to go and try and get a copy of it,
[00:13:09] Prof. Agle: it should be available on Amazon.
[00:13:12] Rob Cook: Maybe it was just last time I checked it. It was out of stock or something.
[00:13:14] Prof. Agle: Well, actually, Rob, that's interesting because there was a short period of time where it did get out of stock. You must have looked right at that.
[00:13:21] Rob Cook: I must've just looked in that one. Yeah. Well, either way, we'll leave a link in the show notes for listeners so that you can, uh, you can go and find it, but I'd like to do a little bit of a dive into this because part of this ethics field guide effectively, you provide.
[00:13:36] 13 different types of ethical dilemmas and in the frameworks from which you can use to think through them, which I think is a very, very cool tool. So perhaps walk us through what are some of these 13 different ethical dilemmas, and how can we use these to help resolve our own ethical dilemas?
[00:13:55] Prof. Agle: Happy to do that.
[00:13:56] Let me first, just give you a quick background on how it happened. So I've been, [00:14:00] I've been teaching executive MBAs for over 20 years. When I was at the university of Pittsburgh, I taught in our programs in North America, South America and Asia. We had in San Paulo in Prague and in Pittsburgh. And the first thing I would have students do is give me an ethical dilemma, right up an ethical dilemma, a couple of pages that they had faced.
[00:14:21] And so I've read thousands of these ethical dilemmas. And one of the things I noticed over the years is I started seeing patterns. Right. I started seeing up yup. Seen that one before. Yeah. I've seen that one before. And so I, in ethics traditionally, We we bring together, basically ethical theories we've had for thousands of years and some new but, we basically say here's some really good tools for you to use, to think through ethical dilemmas, from Aristotle and Cant and Rawls and all these great philosophers, and those are useful. At the same time my executive MBAs would say, yeah, this is great, but it's still not practical enough. [00:15:00] It still doesn't give me guidance on I'm dealing with this. I'm not sure how this gives me enough guidance. And so, um, I started actually figuring out, oh, what are some of these common ethical dilemmas and started developing specific guidance for that type of dilemma. And shortly after I got to BYU, one of my colleagues, Aaron Miller, said, well, how many fundamental ethical dilemmas are there in business?
[00:15:25] And I said, well, I don't know. I haven't done that research. And no one else has either. He was a little bit incredulous, like seriously, We have hundreds of business ethics professors, and nobody's kind of figured out what are the fundamental dilemmas that people face in business? He said, I think we need to do that.
[00:15:40] So actually that's where this came from. We took hundreds of ethical dilemmas that we'd received from executive MBAs and did textual analysis. And as you might imagine, every ethical dilemma has its own details and variety, right
[00:15:55] Rob Cook: It's own nuances
[00:15:56] Prof. Agle: on its own nuances. So the, you know, there are millions, if you [00:16:00] count all the nuances, it's unlimited number, but if you kind of boil it down to the fundamental thing that the person is dealing with, we basically found that there are 13 fundamental dilemmas that people face are faced with in organizational life.
[00:16:17] And so now I get to your question, which is what are they? Okay. Here they are. So the 13 number one standing up to power, right? Someone in power is asking you to do something that you think is unethical, by the way, that's the most common challenge. Number two, you make a promise and then the world changes.
[00:16:36] What does that mean for your promise? How do you deal with it? When all of a sudden you've got two promises, you're trying to meet. Number three, intervention. You see something wrong and you're not sure how to proceed, so it may not be affecting you directly, but you see something wrong. Number four, conflict of interest, right?
[00:16:54] Multiple roles put you or your company across purposes. Number five, [00:17:00] suspicions without an F evidence, right? You believe that something is wrong, something wrong is going on, but you're not sure you don't have enough evidence. If you act too fast, you, you make look like somebody is guilty. Who's not, if you act too slowly and something happens, somebody says, Hey, why didn't you do something?
[00:17:17] So trying to, you know, trying to get that balance just right. Playing dirty, you can achieve. Something good. Something just, but you have to use an essence. Unethical means. Is that ever okay, well go ask you a special operations.
[00:17:38] Rob Cook: Yeah, that's what I was just thinking.
[00:17:40] Prof. Agle: Right. Okay. I have to do that all the time. They have to things that we normally consider to be unethical dropping bombs on people, shooting people, um, under certain circumstances they're absolutely necessary. Yeah. Uh, skirting the rules. Normally we say rules are good and they're there for reason laws and [00:18:00] rules, but every now and again, you know, the people who write rules and laws can't think of every possible situation.
[00:18:06] And so there are those times where the ethical thing is actually to, to break those rules. Uh, dissemblance, that's a word that most people are not familiar with. It essentially means to deceive to make something look different than it actually is. As a general rule, that's a really bad thing to do, but every now and again, it's somewhat necessary.
[00:18:29] For example, if somebody finds out some confidential information that they're not supposed to have, and they come to you for verification, sometimes you have to make it look like that's not the case, even though, you know, it is because it's your job to protect that confidential information. So that's, dissemblance. Then we have loyalty.
[00:18:51] You're not sure how loyal you should be to certain individuals. So loyalty is a good thing, but too much [00:19:00] loyalty can result in abuse. And sometimes, you know, you've got two different parties you need to be loyal to. Or the other thing I talk about is loyalty to principle over loyalty, to people, loyalty to people is important, but loyalty to principal is actually more important than loyalty to people because of your just loyal people.
[00:19:21] If they start down the wrong path, That's a bad thing. If you continue to be loyal, you need to think about what are the principles that I care about. Make sure you're loyal to principles over
[00:19:33] people.
[00:19:34] Rob Cook: That made me think actually of say, for example, the German troops in world war II, who, work the concentration camps, very similar thing.
[00:19:42] They were loyal perhaps too much to a person or into an organization instead of to the, their own ethical principles
[00:19:50] Prof. Agle: Yeah. As I look back on my career, Rob, I think that unknowingly, I was. Really really affected by [00:20:00] that. So, uh, as a young, as a young man, I spent two years as a missionary in Southern Germany in Western Austria.
[00:20:08] Rob Cook: Oh .
[00:20:09] Prof. Agle: So this is 1980. So this is only 35 years after the end of world war II. And my first area was about 70 kilometers from Munich. And so one day a week, missionaries have the opportunity. It's called preparation day, where we, you know, wash our clothes and buy our food and sometimes go sightseeing.
[00:20:34] And I think a few weeks after I arrived in October of 1980, um, I went with a group of missionaries and visited Dachau and Dachau was the main concentration camp in Southern Germany. And while I certainly knew about the concentration or the concentration camps, I knew about the Holocaust from, you know, learning [00:21:00] about it in school to be there and to see it was, I'm not sure what the right phrase is.
[00:21:10] Uh, probably the most sobering experience in my life. And I was just really struck by how, how evil it all felt. Probably I've never felt evil. Like I felt there just literally it was a straw or just a feeling of evil. And I remember as I was going on the train back to my town of lawsuit, Just thinking how in the world could people do that to other people.
[00:21:38] And so I think it's only the last few years I've started to realize. I think that experience actually had a lot to do with the reason that I pursued, ethics as a, as a career.
[00:21:54] Rob Cook: I'm sure. Wow. It's not often that you get the opportunity to, to go to a [00:22:00] place like that and to feel that, so I can only imagine the impact that had on, on you as a young man.
[00:22:05] Prof. Agle: It, did
[00:22:05] Rob Cook: I talk about moral injury? Imagine being one of those, those soldiers after the war.
[00:22:12] Prof. Agle: Exactly. Yeah. As I've, as I've thought back about it. Um, a lot of the people I taught as a missionary, um, anybody who is probably over age 55 or so, um, you know, had been, had been a soldier or had, you know, was part of the Nazi regime. Um, and yeah, we didn't, it was, I don't ever remember talking about it.
[00:22:37] Rob Cook: I'm sure.
[00:22:37] Prof. Agle: I don't ever remember talking about world war two, my two years serving there. Um, I'm quite confident that they wanted to move on.
[00:22:49] Rob Cook: You can't blame them.Yeah
[00:22:50] Prof. Agle: ,Exactly. They didn't exactly want to talk about it, which yeah, totally understandable. So, yeah. And I've had the opportunity to go back with, um, one of my [00:23:00] daughters, um, go back with my wife.
[00:23:03] And go back to doc owl and go back to another, uh, different concentration camp. And, um,
[00:23:13] earlier, before we went on, um, went on live. Um, we were talking about the word, remember and how important it is to remember. And I, I, I think it's really good that we have those, um, concentration camps. So we have the Holocaust museum of Washington DC, because we really do have to remember. Okay, so we're getting there.
[00:23:39] Rob Cook: Sorry, I got sidetracked here. So we ended on loyalty.
[00:23:42] Prof. Agle: You're correct. Good memory. So next one is sacrifice, sacrificing personal values. As individuals. We have strong personal values sometimes when we're in an organizational context. The organization has different values. And we have to [00:24:00] kind of figure out where we're willing to bend our own values to organizational values.
[00:24:05] And when we say no, that's just over the line and personal values are going to have to triumph. And if they are going to triumph, how, if it's possible, can I still stay in that organization or do I have to leave that organization?
[00:24:20] Rob Cook: Interesting.
[00:24:21] Prof. Agle: Next one is unfair advantage. So this is very much business oriented. Obviously when you take a strategy class, you're talking about trying to create sustained competitive advantage,
[00:24:37] Rob Cook: Create a moat.
[00:24:39] Prof. Agle: What did it say that again?
[00:24:40] Rob Cook: So you're trying to create a moat around yourself, protect yourself.
[00:24:44] Prof. Agle: Yeah, and that's great, but sometimes. You get that moat what it wasn't fair. I won't go into the detail, but you can think of, there are lots of ways that somehow you'll get an unfair advantage or your competitor will get an [00:25:00] unfair advantage.
[00:25:02] And how do you deal with it when either you have an unfair advantage or your competitor has an unfair advantage? It's not, and of course I can give examples all of these, but let me, let me just finish up the last two. The 12th one is what we call we call repair. So either you or somebody in your organization has done something wrong.
[00:25:24] How do you, how do you repair it? What you, what steps do you go through to at least if you can't make it completely better to at least ameliorate the harm of, of what you've done. And then the final, the final one is what we call showing mercy. This is where someone in your organization has done something wrong and you have to kind of figure out what's the appropriate punishment.
[00:25:50] Sometimes it may be that they have to be, let go. Other times that's not appropriate. Maybe it was a small thing that they did. [00:26:00] And you, as an organization, hadn't done a good job of really training people or helping them understand that that was, that was not the right thing. Other times it was clear to everyone that something was wrong and it was a big deal.
[00:26:14] And it's really important that everybody in the organization know that that's really a big deal. And so you really have no choice, but to let that person go. So it's trying to figure out, you know, what exactly is the correct punishment or what is it appropriate to provide mercy in those situations?
[00:26:33] Rob Cook: Yeah. I love the. These frameworks, because this was one of my biggest takeaways from the class. When I took it from you was understanding these frameworks and seeing their application, not only in a business sense, because yes, anyone who's had a professional career, you're going to see these all over the place.
[00:26:52] And I mean, you've just quickly shown how each of these can be shown in different professional environments, but one of the things that I loved was how I was [00:27:00] able to then also see its application. In my own personal life, right?
[00:27:04] Like for example, showing mercy, right? You can think of this as, as a parent. When do I show mercy to my child? Because I didn't explain clearly what is a value of our family or, or rule in our home that they shouldn't be breaking? Or when is it a situation where I have to punish them to some extent, even if I don't necessarily want to, but.
[00:27:26] They have to learn this one lesson, even if it's uncomfortable for me as the parent to have to enforce this, they need to learn this lesson. You know, that that's an important distinction. Right. And these ethical dilemmas I think are all over the place. So I would really love to hear your thoughts in terms of how have you seen these ethical dilemmas outside of the professional environment and how. Having these tools in your own back pocket enable to you to be able to navigate your own potentially difficult personal, ethical situations.
[00:27:59] Prof. Agle: Yeah. [00:28:00] That's a great question. And quite frankly, it's not one I thought a lot about before I saw you ask the question. I did actually think about it in one particular context because I was on another podcast called leading saints where, um, I was asked about how the.
[00:28:16] Principles apply or how these dilemmas occur in religious settings. When one is a, um, you know, a religious leader, a leader. Yeah. Eccesiastical a leader. So I have served as a Bishop in the church of Jesus Christ of latter days. And actually have done research and have recently written a book on what it's like to be a Bishop actually, based on interviews with lots of bishops over the last few decades.
[00:28:43] And so I saw lots of these dilemmas. In my service, both as a Bishop and in other eccesiastical positions I've been in. And so spent a lot of time actually thinking about that in relationship to, um, these ethical [00:29:00] dilemmas in, in that context. And I'll just give you one example, which is a conflict of interest.
[00:29:07] Rob Cook: Okay.
[00:29:07] Prof. Agle: So conflict of interest is an interesting dilemma. I think quite frankly, it's the hardest one for my students to get to wrap their heads around. Um, or quite frankly, Professionals to wrap their, their heads around. Uh, I can't tell you how many times I shake my head when I hear political leaders or, business leaders say, no, there's no conflict of interest there.
[00:29:33] And I'm just thinking, uh, it doesn't get any clearer than that. It's a clear conflict of interest as you can find. So, you know, people just have a hard time. Wrapping their heads around conflict of interest. And because of that, they oftentimes don't handle those situations. Well, yeah. Conflict of interest actually has different ways that people [00:30:00] define it.
[00:30:00] Some people define a conflict of interest as automatically being wrong.
[00:30:05] Rob Cook: Okay.
[00:30:05] Prof. Agle: I don't define it that way. Uh, I don't think it's helpful to define it that way. Conflict of interest is simply when you were in a situation where you have two roles that have the potential to be at, at odds with one another.
[00:30:19] And that happens to us all the time. You're in one position. And now all of a sudden you're in another position and they have the capacity to be at odds with one another. And so you have to manage that well, in order to manage it well, you have to be able to identify it. And if we say all conflict of interest is wrong, well, then what do we want to do?
[00:30:40] We want to deny that we have a conflict of interest. Whereas, if we recognize that it's simply a neutral position, then what we can say is, you know, Rob look for it in your own life. Look for when you are appointed to a new position, whether it's at work or in the community or a church, [00:31:00] um, when you take that responsibility look and say, Hmm, does this have the potential to have any ramifications related to my other positions?
[00:31:12] And if so, Then you go, oh, okay. I need to manage that. Maybe I need to tell this other organization, oh, I've got this new position. And you know, that may cause some conflict. So the key is looking for those issues where there's a conflict of interest and then managing it well. So if we define it as automatically bad, we won't look for them and we will in fact deny them.
[00:31:39] So. Conflict of interest in ecclesiastical position. Normally you wouldn't think that being a leader of a religious body would create any kind of conflict, but the reality is sometimes it does. So, um, I have a role. Uh, one of the things I do is I speak professionally. I get paid to do [00:32:00] training for companies and other organizations.
[00:32:02] And I once had a member of my congregation come to me and. Asked me about coming in, doing some training for his organization, which is great. And, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, great. You know, kids are going to get better Christmas presents this year, right. A little extra money. Wonderful. Uh, and then he never brought it up again. Under normal circumstances I would have gone back to him, you know, a couple of weeks later and said, Hey, how about that consulting gig? Um, but given that I was in a position and a lot of people will disagree with this and that's fine, I may be wrong on this. That's fine. Um, but given the position I was in where I was his ecclesiastical leader, it just never felt right to me to kind of go back into sales mode with him.
[00:32:52] Um, and so I never did, and I never got that gig, but the key point that I wanted to make is the reason. [00:33:00] People have such a hard time with conflict of interest is because things that are absolutely and completely appropriate under one set of circumstances become completely unacceptable and wrong under a different set of circumstances.
[00:33:15] I think that's the reason it's so difficult for people to kind of grasp it because you say, well, can, is it okay to do X well, yeah, it's almost always fine to do that. Except under this set of circumstances. So there's a, there's a fairly famous case. And actually one of the first times that I dealt significantly with conflict of interest, um, there was a woman who named Darleen Druyun, who was the top procurement officer for the air force. And
[00:33:44] Rob Cook: I remember you telling us about this.
[00:33:45] Do you remember me talking about this?
[00:33:47] Please no, I think this will be great. One for listeners.
[00:33:50] Prof. Agle: Um, and you know, she. She of course was, uh, working with all the big, um, defense contractors, including Boeing [00:34:00] and in the course of negotiating some multi-billion dollar deals. She just happened to mention that her son-in-law to be was just graduating and engineering.
[00:34:13] And, you know, it was really interested in working for this, uh, in this case it was Boeing. And you say, well, is that okay for someone who, you know, you work professionally with and just to say, Hey, you know, my future son-in-law is just graduating and engineering from, you know, a good university and would be interested in working for Boeing under most circumstances, that's perfectly appropriate. Fact, you know, that's what we tell our students. Right? You get, you get
[00:34:43] Rob Cook: Networks.
[00:34:45] Prof. Agle: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So under normal circumstances that is perfectly appropriate. However, I would argue that when you are a person who has the power to spend and not just not your money, but spend somebody [00:35:00] else's money in this case, yours and mine, US taxpayers money in the literally billions of money.
[00:35:08] It is not appropriate to even hint at any personal favor, wanting any personal favor. So as you might imagine, if you're the, if you're in this case, she was negotiating with the chief financial officer of Boeing directly. I mean, if you're the chief financial officer of Boeing and this huge customer mentioned this to you.
[00:35:35] Are you not going to feel a little bit of pressure to go hire that, that future son-in-law.
[00:35:41] Rob Cook: Of course you would.
[00:35:42] Prof. Agle: Of course you would. I mean, the, the amount of his salary compared to the, the size of the contract, I mean, it's, it's just a total rounding error. And so you're going to do that. And in fact, in this case, what [00:36:00] happened is while that what she did was not illegal.
[00:36:06] The Boeing hired her future son-in-law then he married her daughter. And then on a future contract, Darlene mentioned that her daughter now would be interested in working at Boeing. So Boeing then hired her daughter.
[00:36:25] Rob Cook: Jeez.
[00:36:26] Prof. Agle: And then a few months after her daughter joined. Her daughter then had email to the chief financial officer and CEO, both of them and send an email saying, you know, mom's going to be retiring here next year.
[00:36:41] And she really liked a good job and she really likes Boeing. And as it turned out, Darlene actually went and had a secret meeting with the chief financial officer of Boeing to negotiate her post retirement employment at Boeing. At [00:37:00] that point, they actually did break a law. And so both of them spent, um, a couple of years in federal prison because of it, but it all started off with this just really innocent.
[00:37:13] Oh, you know, my son-in-law's looking for a job and again, under normal circumstances, that's perfectly appropriate. But under those circumstances, it was wrong. So we have to kind of understand it in that same way. We're just talking about, you know, the personal life or in, you know, in this case eccesiastical life, he asked to will life sometimes just have to understand the things that are perfectly.
[00:37:37] Acceptable under one circumstance because you're in this position now make something that, that same thing, not as acceptable or something you have to be more careful about. And quite frankly, you know, I, I love the question you asked me, how has it helped me in my personal life? And that's a question I have not pondered before.
[00:37:57] And so I appreciate the, the opportunity [00:38:00] to think about that. And of course I've, uh, my last child, I have four children, my wife and I have four children and, um, we have eight wonderful grandchildren, perfect grandchildren, by the way.
[00:38:13] Rob Cook: I'm sure.
[00:38:16] Prof. Agle: I didn't, you know, I had, I, I did this book five years ago. All my children were already out of the house.
[00:38:22] They were already grown by the time I was doing this research, but I was just thinking about the fact that I had studied all these ethical theories and was kind of developing these, these ideas in my mind that later, um, got put in the business ethics field guide. And I thought, you know, there really did help me in my parenting just as you pointed out a few minutes ago.
[00:38:43] Um, I think about, you know, equity versus equality. It's a really important thing to, to realize that they're not the same thing. Um, you know, the reality is to treat your children. Equitably is not to treat them equally. [00:39:00] Anyone who has multiple children knows that, um, you don't have to have multiple children, but it becomes very clear when you have multiple children that they all come with, different needs, different ones, um, different abilities.
[00:39:15] So, you know, you might have one child who, you know, doesn't need a lot of emotional nurturing. They're just, you know, somehow came out of the womb they're just emotionally healthy and they have, you know, self-confidence and, um, and so there are certain things they need. Meanwhile, another child really needs a lot of parental help in time and effort to help them build them their self-esteem and emotional strength.
[00:39:43] And so you ended up spending more time there. Um, I'm a big believer that, uh, our behavior, our actions. Affect a great deal of what happens to in our life, to us in our lives. But I'm also a great believer that there's also a lot of serendipity, [00:40:00] um, to what happens to us in our lives. You know, some people have significant health problems, you know, it's not that 13 year old's fault, but he got cancer and you know, is never going to be Olympic, um, triathlete or, you know, even, quite frankly, even, maybe make it uh, to adulthood. So we're dealing with both things. And so in trying to be a good father in trying to bless the lives of our kids, sometimes we don't treat them equally. We have to, you know, one. Uh, you know, I've got children who are all grown and they're in different financial situations. And so, as I'm thinking about how do I help different ones?
[00:40:45] Uh, sometimes it's time for one. Sometimes it's a little bit of money for, for another one, but you know, you, um, Equity is not equality
[00:40:57] I like that alot.
[00:40:58] So anyway, that's just one, [00:41:00] one example of, of, um, how I think thinking about principles of justice and, and rights and all these kinds of things that I've been doing. My whole career has helped me to be a better parent, hopefully,
[00:41:13] Rob Cook: while I'm sure it has. I know that it's helped me in my own life. Like I said, this was one of those things that I just immediately noticed, um, as I was learning about the different ethical dilemmas. Uh, so I encourage anyone who's listening to this to grab the book and really think about it.
[00:41:29] You know, how can I apply these in my own life? Because I've found that it just it's an invaluable. Um, now Professor Agle, I have loved this conversation, but at the same time, I need to be cognizant of your time. And I know we have a hard stop here coming pretty shortly. So I'd like to end our conversation with one question that I ask every single person who comes on the show.
[00:41:52] Um, and that is what does it mean to you to be a Contender?
[00:41:58] Prof. Agle: I love that question. Another [00:42:00] question I've never been asked before, Rob. So I love that. You've you've prompted me to think. I love that. That's great. So I, I kind of have two answers to that question if it's okay
[00:42:09] Rob Cook: No please.
[00:42:10] So the first. The first answer comes from my faith.
[00:42:16] Prof. Agle: Uh, I remember many years ago listening to one of our faith leaders talk about the interview that we will have when we re when we get to heaven. And the interview will probably start with a question. How did you treat your wife?
[00:42:40] Second question is probably how did you treat your children? Third? Question's probably. How did you treat your neighbors? And then if we get to business, it'll probably be, were you honest with those that you dealt with in business [00:43:00] and when you were doing business where you were you looking for? Win-wins.
[00:43:06] Were you trying to find situations where you could benefit others while at the same time, um, receiving a personal reward for that for your labor and your ideas, or were you trying to take advantage of others because of your situation? And so when I think of a contender, I think of that, I think of that interview.
[00:43:31] And my answers to that, to that interview. And I want my answers to be right, or I should say the right answers. My second answer to that question. Uh, comes from, and I'm sure you know this very well, but I I'm going to, I'm going to actually read it. It comes from Teddy. Roosevelt's wonderful speech of the sore bone, right?
[00:43:54] The Man in the Arena. So that speech I'm going to write it. I'm going to read it for you [00:44:00] because I think it's perfect in terms of how we think about what does it mean to be a contender and Teddy Roosevelt says it is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who was actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds. Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions who spends himself in a worthy cause who at the best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
[00:44:58] So for me being a [00:45:00] contender is striving valiantly. It's striving valiantly to bless the lives of those closest to us. And quite frankly, to also do our best. To bless the lives of everyone that we can.
[00:45:18] Rob Cook: I completely and wholeheartedly agree with both of those. I love this idea of the interview at the end of life and what will be your answers.
[00:45:28] And hopefully we can respond and be like Teddy said, the Man in the Arena, who's striving valiantly. And even if we don't make it, we did, we at least failed daring greatly. Right. As he likes to say.
[00:45:42] Prof. Agle: And Rob, I will, I will tell you that, uh, I've had much greater success in my career than I ever anticipated. Uh, I make more money than I ever anticipated, but at the same time, um, I also am very aware of where I could have been more successful in my career.[00:46:00]
[00:46:01] Um, but I prioritize it. My family at times over my career. And I won't, I won't go into specifics, but I can give you very specific examples where I made that choice, where I did not perform at as high a level in my professional career. Because I had made a commitment to my wife or children. And if we don't make that commitment, there will always be an opportunity to do better in our professional careers.
[00:46:30] And so at the end of the day, while there are areas where I feel absolutely confident that my professional career would have even been more successful, I'm really, really happy that I made the commitment. To prioritize my wife and children. And, um, I am the beneficiary of those decisions today.
[00:46:53] Rob Cook: I would agree I've had similar instances as well.
[00:46:55] And because of that, that's part of the reason why we created [00:47:00] the show because at the end of the day, those are the things that really bring us the greatest joy and happiness in life. And it's a shame when we see so many people sacrificing them along the way. So thank you for that.
[00:47:14] Prof. Agle: And Rob, um, I'm going to encourage you not to edit out the next, um, the next thing I say, but I want your listeners to know that Rob Cook was an amazing student.
[00:47:27] Um, he's one of my favorite students of all time. I just love coming to class. You know, as a professor, you love students who are really prepared and really anxious to learn and engage. Um, and Rob was that wonderful student. And so I'm just thrilled to see the work that you're doing now.
[00:47:46] Rob Cook: Well, thank you. I, I really appreciate that.
[00:47:49] Thank you, Professor Agle well, um, do you want to take a moment here at the very end and perhaps tell listeners how they can learn more about either you or your researcher get ahold of you? If they have any questions?
[00:47:59] Prof. Agle: [00:48:00] Sure, thanks for that opportunity. Um, so if you Google my name, Brad Agle, you will find my contact information, my phone number, my email address.
[00:48:10] I'm really easy to find and get ahold of. Uh, I would love to talk to anybody who would like to, uh, talk about these ideas. As I mentioned, uh, I'm in addition to my position at BYU, um, I also am the chairman of Merit Leadership and we work with individuals and organizations to help them in thinking through ethical issues and in doing training and those kinds of those kinds of efforts.
[00:48:37] We're also involved. Uh, we already talked about the Business Ethics Field Guide, the U S special Operations Ethics Field Guide. We're actually now working on field guides for, uh, medical professionals and for, uh, teenagers actually, and financial professionals. And, uh, For, uh, for law [00:49:00] enforcement, um, we're, we're taking this approach, which many have found to be very useful and we're, we're now, um, trying to help others using that same approach of particular ethical dilemmas.
[00:49:12] So, um, go on to, uh, Merit Leadership is, uh, the name of the company. Merit Leadership, and, um, we'd love to. Talk with any of your listeners.
[00:49:26] Rob Cook: All right. Well, we'll leave links to all of those things in the show notes for listeners, if they want to get ahold of you and find those resources. Thank you so much, professor for coming
[00:49:35] on the show again.
[00:49:36] Prof. Agle: I guess I forgot the, uh, the Business Ethics Field Guide can be found at Amazon
[00:49:40] Rob Cook: and I'll leave a link to it. I promise. Thank you professor for coming on the show really do appreciate it.
[00:49:46] Prof. Agle: Thanks so much, Rob.