Business Ethics Start With What You Believe

The ethical recession is not new. Corporate America was founded in the 1600s on the backs of slaves and indentured servants. But it was also founded on cottage industries, small family-run businesses. Corporate America’s challenge that it has never quite been able to solve is how to translate family values to the large-scale corporate workplace.

At The Dwyer Group we’re working to help make America a better place specifically as it relates to business ethics. First you need leaders who believe ethics are important. Then you have to have clear written values. And once you have clear written values how do you integrate that through your organization? That’s something we’ve been practicing at The Dwyer Group since 1981. When my father, Don Dwyer, founded the company he had a clear Code of Ethics. His ethics were emotionally based beliefs. If you could walk into our main office building on the wall you would see the original Code of Values as we call them. They are sayings like, “We believe loyalty adds meaning to our lives.” I see them every day as I walk to my office. My favorite is, “We must re-earn our positions every day in every way.” So as I see my father’s face in the picture on the wall and I read that value I say, “OK today I’ve got to re-earn my position today.” It doesn’t matter what I did yesterday - what am I going to do today to make a difference in the lives of my employees and my customers?

I challenge you to define what you believe. Start with one thing, the most important thing. At The Dwyer Group, our most important value really could be considered our vision statement, “To be a world class company admired for the excellence that customers, franchisees and associates experience with The Dwyer Group.” You can copy that for your business if you want (download our belief statements here). But you have to define what you believe, or it will not stand up to the winds of change that always sweep across America.