Last night I attended an entrepreneur meetup in downtown Boston. It was a delightful little event with some free wine, interesting people and good conversation. There was, however, one part of the discussion that got me thinking: our discussion of business ethics.

The problem with business ethics is that ethics has been debated for thousands of years with many different models or views precipitating over the course of time, and unfortunately, American business is just not the best forum for solving such a connundrum.  Capital Markets typically do a very good job of asset allocation and assigning monetary value to various goods or services, but do a bad job of deciding what philosphical model correctly engenders “right”. Yet, we continue to teach business ethics (typically a bastardized form of the deontological model (never treat people as a means to an end) with an emphasis on some watered down form of Kant’s Categorical Imperative) and we are continually surprised when people operate under different ethical paradigms such as utilitiarianism/consequentialism (greatest good for the greatest number) or pragmatism (do that which works).

For instance, last night, a businessman noted that early in his career he lied in order to get business from vendors, equipment, etc. Under the assumption that there was no other way, he stated that he had every intent to pay people back, but needed to lie in order to make a business for himself. He’s now quite successful and clearly doesn’t need to lie to potential customers or vendors. Under traditional “business ethics” his original lie is viewed as clearly wrong and a violation of basic principals, but this clearly ignores every other model out there. Utilitarians might argue that his creation of a successful business (and an ecosystem around this business) has generated more benefit to society than the minute amount of harm done from the original lie. Nietzsche (image above) would honor this man’s “will to power” and suggest he did the best possible thing in attempting to get ahead.

Clearly, ethics don’t allow us to decide whether or not what he did was right or wrong (presuming laws aren’t being broken). Instead, I argue that “authenticity” should used to judge the merit of an action (instead of ethically right or wrong).  Does an individual’s actions ring true to the person’s intents and character?  All of our actions should be authentic and portray to the world the person that we want to be. Now it’s hard for me to explain exactly what authenticity is, but much like pornography for the Supreme Court, I know it when I see it.  And in a way, authenticity goes well beyond ethics in that not only does it tell you what NOT to do, but it also tells you what TO do. Go out and start engaging with your customers authentically and your customers will respect you more and give you more business.

Want more advice on how to engage in authentic business? I suggest you start reading Seth Godin’s blog.

[image courtesy of wikipedia]