On balance, do you think the meetings industry operates in an ethical manner, or is there room for reform?
CERTIFICATION MADE POSSIBLE
THE MEETINGS INDUSTRY NEEDS SERIOUS REFORM
5%
ETHICS IN THE MEETINGS INDUSTRY ARE FINE
34%
Convene wishes to thank Joan Eistenstodt, chief strategist for Eisenstodt Associates, for her help in developingthese survey questions.
61%
THE MEETINGS INDUSTRY OPERATES ETHICALLY ON BALANCE, BUT THERE IS STILL ROOM FOR REFORM
[or] basically a single-spaced, 60-page, legalese, risk-manage- ment document that doesn’t help at all.” How can your organization formulate a code of ethics that
have some sort of code,” Breiter said. But how specific or generic would that code need to be? “That’s where you’d probably have a hard time getting agreement in the industry,” she said. “The devil’s in the details.” The devil can also be in the lackof details, according to
Bauer. “Ethics codes are notoriously unhelpful, and [often] fall into one of several unhelpful categories,” he said. “A list of rules, or they simply say, ‘Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal,’
“I think some things that may be ‘borderline’ as far as ethics [are con- cerned] are a necessity in certain circumstances. For example, travel and site inspections for potential meetings may not be budgeted in an organiza- tion. A fam or sponsored trip may provide the ability to showcase a venue/destination that might not otherwise have been considered. Speakingfrom personal experience, I have booked several meetings at locations that I discovered ‘by accident’ duringa sponsored event that I would not have considered otherwise.”
66 pcma convene October 2010
is genuinely helpful? One way is by doing what Kirklen’s team was engaged in when Convene called for an interview: com- municating. “The way we define and refine our standard of ethics is by talking about it,” O’Neill said, “and by looking at it from different points of view and in different situations.” The most important place to start is by deciding what val-
ues you want to promote. “If an organization really is serious about developing a culture of ethics…there needs to be a statement that really nails with absolutely clarity what are the most important, most persistent priorities for its members or its employees,” Bauer said. “So that all day, every day, folks can effectively self-evaluate: Is what I’m about to do really, fully, and appropriately aligned with the values that this indus- try or this organization says I’m supposed to have?” Bauer recommends backing up that statement with a sepa-
rate but related code of conduct, containing examples that illustrate just how an organization’s various values, as enumer- ated in the code of ethics, should manifest themselves in the real world. One good rule of thumb, as expressed by several people interviewed for this article, is the “newspaper test”: Would you want whatever it is you’re about to do to be reported on the front page of your local newspaper? Finally, there’s education. “A lot of corporate planners, or corporations in general, have ethics training,” Hilliard said. “Many associations and nonprofits don’t do that.” Even if your organization does have a written policy, but junior mem- bers aren’t educated as to what’s expected of them ethically, how can they be expected to know when they cross the line? “Having a well-written ethics code is of huge value, but
only if there is effective training on what it says, what it means, and how to actively bring it to life,” Bauer said. After all, he added, “Enron had a terrifically well-written ethics code…[which] in and of itself was of no use absent the appropriate training, oversight, and appropriate organizational ethical tone.”
Hunter R. Slaton is a senior editor of Convene. www.pcma.org