by Serve the Good of the Whole and the Good of Individuals
This encompasses the affirmative dimension of our ethics. Note the relationship among moral rules (variations of “do no harm”), the moral ideals (variations of “prevent or lessen harm”), and this central principle (“serve the good of the whole”). The moral rules require us to cause no harm, and that applies to everyone. The moral ideals encourage us to prevent or lessen harm regardless of who causes it, but in contrast to the moral rules, we realistically cannot be expected to do that with regard to everyone. However, to serve the good of the whole encourages us to act in ways that manifest our values. Because of our systems perspective, we see the whole as being more than the sum of its parts and thus we look to a composite value that is more inclusive than the greatest good for the greatest number.
Act in Ways to Increase the Empowerment of the Least Powerful
Although generally the best way to proceed, there are certain conditions which allow ethical justification for challenging this principle. Sometimes in the short term, it may be more effective to facilitate the power of the most powerful stakeholders in an organization in order to achieve greater equality in power distribution among stakeholders in the long term. However, when asked by managers to do things that will increase their power over subordinates, customarily we must encourage them to support the empowerment of their subordinates. We do this to increase the power available to both managers and subordinates to actualize their potential not to dominate from a one-up position or sabotage from a one-down position.
Always Treat People as Ends, never only as Means
This principle requires that we respect people for who they are and not merely for what they do. Never treat people as means to organizational ends. Rather, acknowledge and celebrate the importance of their personal life. Do not focus on people’s positions, such as “CEO”, “manager”, “engineer”, “accountant”, “clerk”, or “employee”. Rather remain sensitive to the individuals who occupy these positions.
The sense of ethics depends to a large degree on the ability of people to imagine the lives of others and empathize with their circumstances.
To be a competent professional always implies ethical practice because to be competent, one must be continually reflecting on one’s own behavior and reflecting on the consequences of one’s actions.
Accept responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Make every effort to ensure that our services are properly used and for the good of the people who are the target of our organizational intervention. Be ready to terminate our services if they are not properly used or used to the detriment of those we are supposed to help. Make all efforts to see that abuses of power or abuses of persons are named and corrected.
Develop and maintain our individual competence and establish cooperative relations with other professionals in the field and outside the field. Our profession includes all practitioners who conceive of their work as Human Systems Development which can range from the development of individuals to the development of international relations and transnational systems, including organizations and all manner of subsystems between. We must be devoted to expanding our competence within our particular areas of concentration as well as sufficient competence in other areas so that we can cooperate with our colleagues. Accomplishments, individually and collectively, are interdependent.
Establish collegial and cooperative relations with other professionals in the field. These include but are not limited to: asking colleagues to be consultants to give us feedback and suggestions about our own development, and help us locate our blind spots.
1) Quality of life: People being satisfied with their whole life experience.
2) Health, human potential, empowerment, growth and excellence: People being healthy, aware of the fullness of their potential, recognizing their power to bring that potential into being, growing into it, living it, and, generally, doing the best they can with it, individually and collectively.
3) Freedom and responsibility: People being free and responsible in choosing how they will live their lives.
4) Justice: People living lives whose results are fair and right for everyone.
5) Dignity, integrity, worth and fundamental rights of individuals, organizations, communities, societies, and other human systems.
6) All-win attitudes and cooperation: People caring about one another and about working together to achieve results that work for everyone, individually and collectively.
7) Authenticity and openness in relationships.
8) Effectiveness, efficiency and alignment: People achieving the maximum of desired results, at minimum cost, in ways that coordinate their individual energies and purposes with those of the system-as-a-whole, the subsystems of which they are parts, and the larger system of which their system is a part.
9) Holistic, systemic view and stakeholder orientation: Understanding human behavior from the perspective of whole systems that influence and are influenced by that behavior; recognizing the interests that different people have in the system´s results and valuing those interests fairly and justly.
10) Wide participation in system affairs, confrontation of issues leading to effective problem solving, and democratic decision making.
Ethical Guidelines for OD Professionals
Responsibility to Self:
- Act with integrity; be authentic and true to myself.
- Strive continually for self-knowledge and personal growth.
- Recognize my personal needs and desires and, when they conflict with other responsibilities, seek all-win resolutions of those conflicts.
- Assert my own economic and financial interests in ways that are fair and equitable to me as well as to my clients and their stakeholders.
Responsibility for Professional Development and Competence:
- Accept responsibility for the consequences of my acts and make reasonable efforts to ensure that my services are properly used; terminate my services if they are not properly used and do what I can to see that any abuses are corrected.
- Strive to achieve and maintain a professional level of competence for both myself and my profession by developing the full range of my own competence and by establishing collegial and cooperative relations with other O. D. professionals.
- Recognize my own personal needs and desires and deal with them responsibly in the performance of my professional roles.
- Practice within the limits of my competence, culture, and experience in providing services and using techniques.
- Practice in cultures different from my own only with consultation from people native to or knowledgeable about those specific cultures.
Responsibility to the Profession:
- Contribute to continuing professional development for myself, other practitioners, and the profession.
- Promote the sharing of O. D. knowledge and skill.
- Work with other O. D. professionals in ways that exemplary what our profession says we stand for.
- Work actively for ethical practice by individuals and organizations engaged in O. D. activities and, in case of questionable practice, use appropriate channels for dealing with it.
- Act in ways that bring credit to the O. D. profession and with due regard for colleagues in other professions.
Responsibility to Clients and Significant Others:
- Serve the long-term well-being, interests, and development of the Client system and all its stakeholders, even when the work being done has a short-term focus.
- Conduct any professional activity, program or relationship in ways that are honest, responsible, and appropriately open.
- Establish mutual agreement on a contract covering services and remuneration.
- Deal with conflicts constructively and avoid conflicts of interest as much as possible.
- Define and protect the confidentiality of my client-professional relationships.
- Make public statements of all kinds accurately, including promotion and advertising, and give service as advertised.
Social Responsibility:
- Act with sensitivity to the fact that my recommendations and actions may alter the lives and well-being of people within my client systems and the larger systems of which they are subsystems.
- Act with awareness of the cultural filters which affect my view of the world, respect cultures different from my own, and be sensitive to cross-cultural and multi-cultural differences and their implications.
- Promote justice and serve the well-being of all life on Earth.
- Recognize that accepting this Statement as a Guide for my behavior involves holding myself to a standard that may be more exacting than the laws of any countries in which I practice, the guidelines of any professional associations to which I belong, or the expectations of any of my clients.
