7. ETHICAL DILEMMAS FACING CONSULTANTS In any area of helping, the consultant occupies a position of trust; therefore, the ethical aspects of his or her work and relationships occupy a significant place in the discussion of the consulting process. The work of any professional helper requires that constant exercise of discretion and judgment. The client may not be qualified to appraise the quality of service being offered or risks involved and may have to rely for support and protection on the consultant's standard's of conduct. The client is justified in expecting high standards and can derive confidence from knowing that a code of professional consulting behavior exists. Shay (1965) viewed professional ethics as: ...standards of professional conduct and practice which stem from the nature of the profession. They are consistent with the profession's purposes and functions in society and are generally considered to be the best ways of applying the knowledge and skills peculiar to it. According to Shay, ethics represent the attitudes, principles, and approaches that: * Contribute to the success of the professional's special work; * Make for equitable and satisfactory client relationships; and * Relate his profession properly to the part of the society which it serves. In discussing professional codes and ethics, The Association of Consulting Management Engineers (1966) defined the term "profession" as: an occupation requiring extensive preliminary intellectual training, pursued by others and not merely one's self, and accepting as the measure of achievement one's contribution to society rather than individual financial reward. Shay (1965) defined the characteristics of a professional in any profession as: * Knowledge of the profession, its philosophy, principles, and practices. * A continuing discipline of study and responsibility for assisting in the advancement and dissemination of professional knowledge; * A standard of conduct governing the relationships of the practitioners with prospective clients, clients, colleagues, members of allied professions, and the public; * A motive of service, as distinguished from primary preoccupation with making profits, and * Professional pride--the belief on the part of the practitioner in the worthiness of his/her calling, and the influence this conviction has on guiding his/her action. Therefore, the basic postures that allow a person to function effectively in a professional role are the following: * Acquiring the knowledge and learning the disciplines of the profession; * Learning to apply professional knowledge and skills effectively; * Always putting client interests ahead of one's own interests or those of the group to which one belongs; * Maintaining high standards for serving clients; and * Behaving at all times with a professional bearing (p. 8) The consultant makes some value judgments in a social context for which the larger society has already determined the most appropriate value choices. These "dos and don'ts" are enshrined in legal codes of prescriptions and prohibitions. The guidelines for consulting decisions and behavior are sometimes found either in law or institutional procedures. This level of consulting guidelines is what philosophers call normative ethics. A particular behavior is good or right if it is consistent with the accepted norm. As long as the consultant is content to accept the given norm, he or she can make value decisions with relative ease. "he is culture bound and happy in its claims" (Golightly, 1971). According to Fletcher (1968), there are basically only three alternative approaches to follow in making ethical decisions: (1) the legalistic, (2) the lawless or unprincipled, and (3) the situational. He contended that with the legalistic approach, one enters into every decision-making situation with a whole code of preformulated rules and regulations. The lawless approach consists of entering into a decision-making situation with no principles or maxims whatsoever, except perhaps self-interest. The situational approach lies between these two. Since every situation is unique, one must rely on the situation itself then and there to provide clues for the creation of an ethical decisions. With this approach one enters into every consulting situation with the ethical maxims developed previously as a result of experiencing somewhat similar situations. Consistent with these conflicting social influences has been the dual emergence of an individualistic ethic and a social ethic. The Individualistic ethic glorifies the freedom of the individual, competition between one person and another, and self- determination as the value goal of life. The social ethic emphasizes the importance of the individual's responsibility to the group and to the society at large; it is based on the assumption that the interactive social system provides the primary way of meeting human needs. Golembiewski (1965) said that neither of these ethics by itself is adequate: "Both are morally unspecific; and neither...can muster evidence to show it is necessary and sufficient for inducing effective performance under existing conditions" (pp. 45-47). As evidence of the humanistic ethic, the humanistic trend in psychology developed by Maslow (1965) is probably most forceful and relevant to the interpersonal aspects of the consulting process. Maslow emphasized openness of communication, mutuality of decision making, personal growth, and fulfillment. The Association of Consulting Management Engineers (1966) has outlined the purposes of a code of professional ethics as follows: * It helps the practitioner to determine the propriety of his or her conduct in professional relationships; * It indicates the kind of professional posture that the practitioner must develop and maintain if he or she is to succeed; * It gives clients and potential clients a basis for confidence that the professional sincerely desires to serve them well and places service ahead of financial reward; and * It gives clients a basis for confidence that the professional will do his or her work in conformity with professional standards of competence, objectivity, and integrity. The American Society of Training and Development (1977) published its Code of Ethics and the following items are particularly relevant to the best interests of a consultant- client relationship. Consultants shall: 1. Not conduct activities that may cause any colleague or training participant unnecessary embarrassment or disparagement; 2. Not violate confidence or break promises, unless disclosure of confidential information serves professional purposes or is required by law; 3. Limit their activities as facilitators of change to functions for which they have been adequately trained and shall abstain particularly from areas of psychological activity for which they have no professional qualification; 4. Not knowingly distort or misrepresent facts concerning training and development activities to any individual, organization, or employer; 5. Openly share information and data that will advance the state of the professional art; 6. Maintain a professional attitude toward the introduction of new knowledge in the field of training and development; 7. Recognize the desire of individuals and organizations to improve themselves and permit no exploitation of this desire by unethical use of the profession or its members; and 8. Recognize that society in general accords status to consultants and in return they have an obligation to serve the needs of society. The Academy of Management, Division on Organization Development (1976), adopted a code of ethics which contain the following relevant items. Consultants shall: 1. Place the needs of the client organization above their own and not let their own needs interfere in the consulting process; 2. Respect the integrity and protect the welfare and interests of client organizations; 3. Fully inform client organizations of aspects of the potential relationship that might affect the client's decision to enter the relationship; and 4. Not misrepresent their own professional qualifications, affiliations, and purposes, or those of the organizations with which they are associated. Lippitt and Lippitt (1986), in reviewing the aforementioned codes, developed their own code of ethics. 1. Responsibility The consultant: * Places high value on objectivity and integrity and maintains the highest standards of service; and * Plans work in a way that minimizes the possibility that findings will be misleading. 2. Competence The Consultant: * Maintains high standards of professional competence as a responsibility to the public and to the profession; * Recognizes the boundaries of his or her competence and does not offer services that fail to meet professional standards; * Assists clients in obtaining professional help for aspects of the projects that fall outside the boundaries of his or her own competence; and * Refrains from undertaking any activity in which his or her personal problems are likely to result in inferior professional service or harm to the client. 3. Moral and Legal Standards The consultant shows sensible regard for the social codes and moral expectations of the community in which he or she works. 4. Misrepresentation The consultant avoids misrepresentations of his or her professional qualifications, affiliations, and purposes and those of the organization with which he or she is associated. 5. Confidentiality The consultant: * Reveals information received in confidence only to the appropriate authorities; * Maintains confidentiality of professional communications about individuals; * Informs the client of the limits of confidentiality; and * Maintains confidentiality in preservation and disposition of records. 6. Client Welfare The consultant: * Defines the nature of his or her loyalties and responsibilities in possible conflicts of interest, such as between the client and the consultant's employer, and keeps all concerned parties informed of these commitments; * Attempts to terminate a consulting relationship when it is reasonably clear that the client is not benefiting from it; and * Continues being responsible for the welfare of the client, in cases involving referral, until the responsibility is assumed by the professional to whom the client is referred or until the relationship with the client has been terminated by mutual agreement. 7. Announcement of Services The consultant adheres to professional standards rather than solely economic rewards in making known his or her availability for professional services. 8. Intraprofessional and Interprofessional Relations The consultant acts with integrity toward colleagues in consultation and in other professions. 9. Remuneration The consultant ensures that the financial arrangements for his or her professional services are in accordance with professional standards that safeguard the best interests of the client and the profession. 10. Responsibility Toward Organization The consultant respects the rights and reputation of the organization with which he or she is associated. 11. Promotional Activities The consultant, when associated with the development or promotion of products offered for commercial sale, ensures that the products are presented in a factual way (pp. 85-87) The adoption of a code of ethics is not enough. Consultants need to study the codes listed above, know the reasons for their provisions, understand their general importance, and then follow them in order to add credibility not only to their work but to the profession itself. The most important aspect of formulating a code is the acceptance of a basic norm of morality that will properly sustain the code and indicate practical applications in situations too specific to be covered by any one code. The effectiveness in the application of any code depends on the competence as well as the integrity of the consultant. Since consulting usually involves the deliberate influencing of human attitudes, values, and behavior, a variety of ethical ambiguities are created. The product of the consultant's work may meet the immediate needs of the client, yet its long-term consequences and effects on other sub-units of the client system may be adversely affected. It is necessary that the consultant be concerned with the greater impact of the processes and outcome to which he or she contributes. One way to deal with the dilemma of influencing others' personal and social destinies is to explain the "voluntary nature of the change relationship" (Lippitt, Watson, & Westley, 1958) to the client and to ensure that the client understands and accepts it. Kelman (1965) discussed this ethical dilemma for the social scientist/consultant, whose work has a manipulative nature. The basic dilemma has two dimensions. To those who hold the enhancement of freedom of choice as a fundamental value, any deliberate influencing of the behavior of others constitutes a violation of their basic humanity. On the other hand, effective behavioral change involves the change agent's use of power and control as well as the potential imposition of the change agent's values on the client system. According to Kelman: The two horns of the dilemma, then, are represented by the view that any manipulation of human behavior inherently violates a fundamental value, but that there exists no formula for so structuring an effective change situation that such manipulation is totally absent. Kelman (1965) cited two dangers that consultants face in influencing the client toward change: One is the failure to recognize that the consultant is engaged in the control of the client's behavior. The other is intoxication with the goodness of what he is doing for and to the client, which in turn leads to a failure to recognize the ambiguity of the control that he exercises. The consultant must recognize these dangers in order to take steps to control them. Kelman (1965) suggested three steps to mitigate the manipulation involved in a change agent's efforts: * Increasing one's own and others' awareness of the manipulative aspects of a change agent's work and the ethical ambiguities inherent therein, by clarifying one's own values to oneself and the client and by allowing the client to respond; * Deliberately building protection against or resistance to manipulating the process, by minimizing one's own values and by maximizing the client's values as the dominant criteria for change; and * Setting the enhancement of freedom of choice as a central goal for one's practice, by using professional skills and relationships to increase the client's ability to choose and the range of choices. Benne (1959) described an internal conflict arising from the different interests of the consultant's "scientist self" and "consultant self." As Benne believed, the conflict may take the form "of anxiety that one is losing his scientific hard- headedness in enjoying the psychic rewards of helping one's clients" (p. 64). Benne suggested that the consultant may reduce personal dilemmas, anxieties, and uneasiness by giving careful thought to the philosophies and moralities--a preconditions for adequately recognizing and handling ethical issues. Collier (1962) wrote that the way in which one looks at a business depends on where one happens to be. It makes a big difference whether one is on the outside looking in or on the inside looking out. A member of an organization can never quite see the organization in the same way as a nonmember. Certain responsibilities, loyalties, hopes, and fears inevitably color and enrich a member's perceptions of the organization and lead to a different frame of reference from that of the outsider looking in. In 1969, the American Management Association conducted a twenty month study of the internal-consultant process used by approximately sixty commercial firms (Dekom, 1969). The results were as follows: 1. Consulting-Staff Characteristics. Staff members were generally well-educated, analytical, perceptive, diplomatic, broadly experienced, and temperamentally suited to a staff role. In addition, they were held to high personal and professional standards of conduct. However, these staffs also were depleted through promotions of good people to operating positions. 2 Staff Training and Development. Objective training was received outside the company, but each company furnished its consultants with a handbook on professional behavior. 3. Compensation. The amount of money earned was not dependent on the success of the individual consulting project. 4. Source of the Assignment. Most assignments originated with requests from a client-subsidiary or a subordinate-level manager. 5. Launching the Assignment. An assignment usually was launched by a letter providing an overview of the scope of the work. Subsequently, the project objective was outlined by the client; then the consultant spelled out the probable involvement of client personnel and did an estimate of on-the-job and elapsed times, fees, and out-of-pocket expenses. 6. Reports. Both oral and written reports of plans of action were made to the client. When a report was written, the client reviewed a draft before finalization and voiced any significant objections to the consultant, who then accommodated these objections in the final report. In most cases the consultant reported only to the client. Relations with the client were treated as confidential; findings and recommendations were not reported to higher management without the client's permission. 7. Implementation. The consultant assisted in implementation. The effectiveness of the consultation was measured in terms of action taken by the client and repeat requests for help. 8. Fees. Cases in which consultants charged clients directly were more effective than those in which the cost was charged to a firm's overhead. 9. Use of Public Consultants. Internal consultants advised on the use of outside help when there was a peak demand for trained personnel, when unusual expertise was needed, or when the appearance as well as the fact of complete objectivity were necessary (pp. 92-93). From this research it can be concluded that, except for the reduced objectivity with which the internal consultant is handicapped, there was little difference between the ethical guidelines for internal consultants and those for external consultants. Finally, Benne (1959) proposed the following seven values to guide consulting interventions: 1. Experimentation. The processes of giving help should be experimental, aimed at developing more adequate ways of thinking about values and of handling a partly unknown future. 2. Two-Way Interaction and Influence. A consultant will be influential with a client to the degree that the client perceives himself or herself as able to influence the consultant. 3. Objective Confrontation of Tasks and Situations. Appropriate interventions are based on objectivity rather than on maintaining or augmenting the prestige or status needs and systems of the client or the consultant. In other words, a consultant must ignore such categories as "expert," "experienced," "very young," and "in charge." 4. Emphasis on Client Learning. Helping should include objectives and techniques for supporting a process whereby the client learns, learns how to learn, and/or relearns. This implies that one of the criteria of effective consultation is the increased capacity of the client to cope with problem situations in the future without the collaboration of the consultant. 5. Use of All Available Resources. Appropriate procedures of helping include efforts to search for and make full use of available, relevant information and experience. This value is in opposition to the notion that the consultant is the major resource; instead, one of the consultant's responsibilities is to serve as a link to other resources. 6. Voluntary Assumption of Responsibility. An appropriate attitude toward helping is to regard all clients units as parts of interdependent systems in which there is a voluntary assumption of responsibility to give and take and to solve problems through mutual processes of growth and development. This attitude is the opposite of the view that the major objectives of the helping process are individual adjustment and personal interdependence. 7. Self-Evaluation, Self-Correction, and Self-Renewal. Appropriate helping processes must incorporate procedures whereby both the consultant and the client can accomplish self-evaluation, self-correction, and self-renewal. This value includes the notions of openness to revision of values and goals as well as techniques and means (pp. 96-97). If consultants can make these values operational in their professional lives, most of the ethical norms discussed thus far will be respected and will be evident in consultations. The big challenge is not to create bigger and better lists of ethical norms, but rather to put these values to work in a practical sense.