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Too often, compliance and ethics training is little more than a rather dull necessity to minimize a company’s likelihood of litigation, indictment, fines, and jail time.\u00a0 It’s all about damage control and risk management.\u00a0 Narrow, reactive, negative.\u00a0 Author and educator David Gill says, “Ethics is not just (or primarily) about cataloging and ranting about the evil, unjust, and ugly.\u00a0 Its historic focus is on the good, the just, and the excellent.\u00a0 Ethics is about excellence.<\/em>”<\/p>\nIn his new book, It’s About Excellence: Building Ethically Healthy Organizations, <\/em>business ethics consultant and educator David Gill argues that the damage control approach to ethics is partial at best, misguided at worst.\u00a0 He builds a compelling case that corporate ethics should be a proactive, positive account of “how we operate our company in order to achieve our mission and vision with excellence.<\/em>”\u00a0 Treating all\u00a0 stakeholders with fairness, respect, and good ethics is not just altruism but almost always a clear competitive advantage and a step toward business excellence.<\/p>\n Beyond concepts and good ideas, actual business examples and cases from the trenches provide evidence that ethics is something that can be woven through the whole organization, created and owned by the whole workforce.\u00a0 David W. Gill is Principal of EthixBiz, an organizational ethics consulting firm (www.ethixbiz.com<\/a>).\u00a0 I first met David when he was a panel member discussing ethics.\u00a0 His contributions When David asked me to review his new book, my response was, “David Gill provides a compelling and insightful manifesto linking ethics to healthy, excellent organizations.\u00a0 He doesn’t just preach at us about what to do but also provides why and how to implement an ethics program–a program that weaves throughout an organization and guides people to achieve more than what they may have thought possible, in ways consistent with innate desires for fairness.\u00a0 It’s About Excellence<\/em><\/a> helps us see the power of authenticity and integrity.”<\/p>\n These words still capture why I believe David and his blueprint for linking ethics with business excellence deserve a prominent spot on an agenda for a continuing quest to increase maturity, manage risks, and achieve greater results from projects.<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/dwgill_tiny.thumbnail.jpg\")
stuck in my mind, with comments like “ethics is a team sport” and “most everything we do is driven by love or fear.”\u00a0 We had much in common in our approach to education, albeit in different but related fields.\u00a0 I am pleased to include David in the program at the PMI NorCal Symposium 2008<\/a> at Stanford University on September 3rd.<\/p>\n