Robert MacGregor, former president of the Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility, once told me he has the same discussion with every assistant he has ever hired. On the first day of the job, he tells them: "I'm going to be going 100 miles per hour.You will be going 120 miles per hour to stay ahead of me. In my haste to get a job done by deadline, if I ever appear to be cutting corners or sliding into unethical practices in any regard, I WANT you to stop me. It is YOUR responsibility to keep me on the ethical track. In other words, I want you to be my ethical monitor."

That's my dream! If every manager would have that conversation with every employee he or she supervises, we would be well underway to establishing and maintaining the Ethical Office.

The Ethical Office is a culture that fosters mutual respect, trust, and honest communication among co-workers, customers, and vendors. The concept is becoming another means for achieving competitive advantage, as companies increasingly see the link between healthy profits and ethical cultures.

As a result, organizations today are:

• Writing extensive codes of ethics and conduct.

• Expanding employee handbooks for guidelines.

• Incorporating ethics training (with discussions of reality-based case studies).

• Creating ethics hotlines (often anonymous).

• Hiring ethics directors.

• Establishing ethics departments or appointing a human resource representative "point person" whom employees can approach with ethical dilemmas.

This aggressive approach to championing the Ethical Workplace is paying off in the following high dividends:

• Productivity—Ethical employees outperform all others. They sell more products, receive fewer calls requesting service on products sold, and post superior profit margins. The "personality" of an ethical office is healthy, energized, forward-looking, confident, creative, and resourceful. It's a real "can-do" place to work because people are not confused about what is expected of them; nor are they stressed to distraction.

• Accountability—With a clear understanding of what is expected of them, employees take responsibility and feel accountable for their personal behavior and performance, regardless of their position. They take responsibility to resolve ethical dilemmas. They place high value on personal integrity.

• Communication—Employees want to talk about ethical dilemmas as they arise. The manager who encourages this open communication will enjoy earlier resolution of problems and less confusion (two cost-saving advantages).

• Confidentiality—Information is power, and the unethical office shares power and information with anyone and everyone. Managers should emphasize the importance of treating as confidential information that is shared in private, information that pertains to performance reviews, information that may be based on rumor, et cetera. Everyone wins when confidences and privacy issues are respected.

• Stability—Employees stay in an ethical atmosphere, and that is cost saving in itself. The unethical office results in a revolving door in the human resources department. Further, the costs associated with the departure of disgruntled employees along with the resulting hiring of new employees are always high.

• Predictability—The Ethical Office is not blindsided by surprises such as harassment lawsuits and compromised security. In an ethical culture, employees address ethical dilemmas as they surface and nip them in the bud before they get out of hand.

Employees want to do the right thing—and they also want to trust the people they work with every day. It is the manager's responsibility to create the safe atmosphere of an Ethical Workplace for their employees. The rewards will be overwhelming.