There is a book that came out a few years ago titled “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum.  Perhaps that book should be required reading for everyone that enters the world of professional services.  I say that because it seems that I constantly encounter highly paid “professional” services personnel who lack even the most basic tenets of ethics and common courtesy.

As our industry faces more and more rate and offshore pressure, the one thing we can do to differentiate our value proposition from our competitors is offering world class consulting talent - individuals that offer technical and business consulting wrapped in exceptional situational and interpersonal fluency.  High quality people will, in turn, allow you to become a trusted advisor to your clients.  Unfortunately, not everyone we hire or currently employ has an understanding of ethics and personal responsibility.

Having run several services organizations, I’ve seen my share of ethical abuses.  Here are just a few:

1.  Consultants padding their time so that they would have more productive utilization and a higher bonus
2.  Project managers opening ghost projects to track unbillable project time and as such not take a hit to project P&L
3.  Consultants loading client software onto their own laptops
4.  An employee using his company cell phone to call international dating chat rooms
5.  A manager giving his conference-call 800 number to friends and family
6.  Expenses submitted with dates clipped off the receipts to hide details
7.  Names of establishments cut off receipts to hide details - mostly to hide things like bar tabs, strip clubs, and
other “entertainment” related activities.
8 Consultants taking client owned IP and sharing it with other clients
9.  Employees making side agreements (these are typically handshake agreements that promise services that are not specified in the work order or contract) with clients
10.  Soliciting jobs from clients during an engagement
11.  Discussing confidential financial matters with clients or outside parties

In recent years, I have delivered presentations on the following subjects:  Ethics of Time Reporting; Putting the “Professional” back in Professional Services; How to Be a Trusted Advisor; and Good Expense Practices.  While delivering each of those topics, I was consistently surprised that the questions raised during those presentations showed an incredible lack of what I thought were commonly understood norms and accepted business and personal conduct practices. 

This past summer, I ran my company’s summer technical conference where our entire consulting organization came together for a week long training and team building event.  During that event, I delivered a session called “The Ethics of Time Reporting”.  I had one individual ask innocently enough “I thought you wanted lots of billable hours and billable utilization so I work really slow to stretch out my hours during the week.  If I worked at my real speed, I would be done already”.  After I picked myself up off the floor, I told him that his behavior was fraudulent and that he needed to work at a pace that demonstrated his knowledge of the engagement process and his level of experience. 

Ethical abuses stem from a bevy of causes:  poor training; unclear expectations; unwritten business and process descriptions; inconsistent management; and in some cases, bad hiring.  When coupled with a lack of social and soft skills, the strength of your organization is compromised.  So, what can you do to insure ethical and professional behavior in your organization?

Take a look in the mirror.  Are you setting a strong example for your organization and your management team?  Make sure that your management team is the right one and that they all carry the ethics banner.  I also suggest formalization of your expectations for behavior.  Conduct an audit of your organization where you and your management team do an assessment of staff to identify the gaps between current behavior and your ideal behavior.  You should do a thorough analysis of your own management team as well.  Once you identify the gaps, put a training program together that addresses the training and education necessary to turn your team into a top tier professional organization.  The training can be as simple as a series of WebEx or NetMeeting presentations that are led by you.  Make sure that the training be incorporated into the new hire process and updated as required as your practice grows.

None of this is rocket science, but I will leave you with a simple thought:  When hiring, take your time, check references, and only hire people who exhibit not only the best technical skills, but are well rounded citizens with a passion for excellence and understand the value of honesty and ethical behavior.  Trust your instincts.