From Chapter 11 entitled Working with Integrity in the subsection Conscious Integrity the concept of whistle-blowing is introduced. This is discussed often in my business classes and is a tough topic when having to decide whether or not to follow through with “blowing the whistle”. Whistle-blowing is basically alerting important people about something unethical or irresponsible happening in an organization or any other form of business. Normally this would be the authorities, FDA etc. There are many pros and cons that must be weighed before a whistle is actually blown. Will you lose your job? Is this truly unethical or something you just do not like? Are you trying to get back at someone for treating you unfairly at work? Will this tarnish your reputation whenever you try to get another job? Do you have evidence to back up your accusations? These are just a few questions you should ask yourself before “blowing the whistle”. I am lucky enough to have worked at places that, as far as I know, are honest and ethical. I did however; have the whistle blown falsely on me in order for someone to hurt my reputation….
There was a woman who wanted my job as manager and when she did not get it she got on the board (my bosses) and told everyone I was fudging my time card and stealing. Now this place was like my second home I had been swimming there since I was born and every member was like part of my family, plus I am not one to EVER do something like that. No one did anything about her accusations while I worked there and eventually my mom ended up becoming President of the board after I left and she had the lawyer on the board conduct an investigation. When this woman was confronted about the investigation she immediately quit, suspicious no?
So before you blow the whistle make sure your evidence is valid, can back you up, and that you are doing it for the right reasons.
Great post on whistle-blowing. If you have ever seen that movie with Charlize Theron in which she works as one of a few females in a prodimately male work environment, you can watch the tumultuous harrassment that she endured and how she ultimately became a whistle blower. (Sorry, I forgot the name of the movie.) Personally, I think legitimate whistle blowers are brave souls who are putting everything they have on the line in order to do the right thing. I have worked for a few companies, with one in particular, that had salacious rumors going around about their unethical practices. The last company I worked for had a multi-person lawsuit filed against the company for violating employment labor laws.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was quite interesting that all of the individuals mentioned in the book that blew the whistle happened to be female. I think that maybe there is something inside of women that many times prevents us from knowingly keeping something to ourselves that we know is wrong. Obviously this isn't the rule; men are many times like this as well. It did make me smile a little to know that they were all women.
ReplyDeleteWhistle blowing is a tough situation for all involved. In my business class we studied a case regarding a lumber supplier who was faced with whether or not to complete a sale for lumber that he knew was going to be used for scaffolding. The problem was the lumber being ordered didn't meet the legal specifications to be used as scaffolding, but the contractor placing the order was trying to cut corners in order to win the bid for the job. The owner of the company put pressure on the sales man to complete the order because he didn't want to loose that contractor's account. He also assured the salesman there wouldn't be any legal liability because the invoice would be marked "not to be used for scaffolding". A majority of the class said the salesman should quit and walk away from the situation without whistle-blowing. It turned out that in this case the sale went though and several people died in an scaffolding accident on the job site. So, in addition to what you said in your post about not whistle-blowing inappropriately, we should also make sure to have the guts to do so when we know it is the right thing to do.
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