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By Nan De Mars

Dear Karen:
Your boss should be congratulating you on recognizing the number one challenge of the new millennium -- maintaining the ethical workplace.

We've outgrown the simple black-and-white choices of the past. The gray area of the Information Age is upon us in full force. Whether or not your titles reflect it, you're all information managers and that puts you smack in the middle of the ethical crossfire.

I predict your toughest choices will be right vs. right dilemmas -- for example, navigating between competing agendas and relationships. Future dilemmas will fall into the following general categories:

Loyalty vs. Truth
Do you cover up and lie for your boss, or do you tell the truth? Undoubtedly, you care about your boss's success and welfare. Yet, you also are going to be held to an ever-higher standard of behavior as a professional. What do you do?

Judgment vs. Policy
Which will get you the raise and which will get you fired: exercising your own judgment as an empowered professional or following the company's policies? These will be tough calls -- particularly because it's more likely you will need to decide how to "do the right thing" without benefit of a precedent -- much less a policy manual (out-of-date before it's even printed).

Quality vs. Quantity
You think you're burning rubber now? By next year's Administrative Professionals Week, you'll be performing even more complex work at an even faster pace. And, there will be times you might not have all the information or training you need to do the stellar job you want to do. Do you sacrifice the quality of your work (and have it come back to haunt you)? Or do you sacrifice your output and thus disappoint the people who depend upon you?

Confidentiality vs. Openness
Information will be pumped into and out of our organizations through more and more conduits -- and a lot of it will be critically sensitive. Your dilemmas will be recognizing in a nanosecond what must be protected, while still providing much more information to those who need it in a timely manner.

Work vs. Family
This constant conflict will become even more acute. As we try to meet expectations at work, we'll try to satisfy our family's needs with our "left over" time. Hint: They're not going to buy it.

And if the predictions of futurists are correct, soon we'll all be working at home, connected through some big computer in the sky (our company). Besides missing the personal interaction with fellow employees, will we concentrate on the job at hand or be tempted to stay in our pajamas and watch the soaps?

It's mind boggling how your role as your office's conscience will be expanded in the years ahead. It's also exciting. I believe that learning to make the tough ethical decisions that will face us in the business world of the future will be the biggest challenge of the adminprofessional. I also believe you'll be up to the task.

Tell your boss you need to run -- not walk -- to the nearest ethics seminar. Better yet, take him with you. We'll all need all the help we can get.

This month's article is the reprint of a newspaper column by February luncheon presenter Nan De Mars, who gave us fascinating insights on how to avoid the ethics gray areas. For more information on Nan's workshops and publications, contact her at:
Executary Services, 612-835-1148, DearNan@office-ethics.com, or www.office-ethics.com

©2000 Nan DeMars, CPS, 3 May 2000