The Conscience Code: Lead with Your Values. Advance Your Career.

by G. Richard Shell

Overview

The Conscience Code is a practical guide to creating workplaces where everyone can thrive.

Surveys show that more than 40% of employees report seeing ethical misconduct at work, and most fail to report it—killing office morale and allowing the wrong people to set the example. Collegiate professor G. Richard Shell has heard work misconduct stories from his MBA students which inspired him to create this helpful guide for navigating these nuances.

Shell created this book to point to a better path: recognize that these conflicts are coming, learn to spot them, then follow a research-based, step-by-step approach for resolving them skillfully. By committing to the Code, you can replace regret with long-term career success as a leader of conscience.

In The Conscience Code, Shell shares tips and facts that:

• Solves a crucial problem faced by professionals everywhere: What should they do when they are asked to compromise their core values to achieve organizational goals?
• Teaches readers to recognize and overcome the five organizational forces that push people toward actions they later regret.
• Lays out a systematic, values-to-action process that people at all levels can follow to maintain their integrity while achieving true success in their lives and careers.

Driven by dramatic, real-world examples from Shell's classroom, today's headlines, and classic cases of corporate wrongdoing, The Conscience Code shows how to create value-based workplaces where everyone can thrive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781400221134
Publisher:	HarperCollins Leadership
Publication date:	06/08/2021
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,061,397
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

G. Richard Shell is Chair of the Wharton School's Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department. His books on negotiation, influence, and success have sold over half a million copies in seventeen languages, and his online course on "Success" has reached tens of thousands of people around the world. An award-winning teacher and scholar, Richard led the most recent redesign of the Wharton School's MBA curriculum and helped create its required Responsibility in Business course. He directs week-long workshops on negotiation and strategic persuasion for senior executives.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Conscience Code vii

Rule #1 Face the Conflict 1

Rule #2 Commit to Your Values 15

Rule #3 Know Your Enemy 38

Rule #4 Summon Your Character 58

Rule #5 Channel Your Personality Strengths 81

Rule #6 Leverage the Power of Two 109

Rule #7 Ask Four Questions 135

Rule #8 Engage the Decision Maker 156

Rule #9 Hold Them Accountable 182

Rule #10 Choose to Lead 205

Acknowledgments 225

Notes 227

Topical Bibliography 247

Index 253

About the Author 260

Editorial Reviews

2021-06-22
A blueprint for ethical behavior in a frequently unethical business world.

Shell, the chair of the Wharton School’s legal studies and business ethics department, firmly asserts that adopting a “conscience code” of ethical behavior in a corporate setting is not only morally right, but also more profitable than the alternative. According to the Ethics Resource Center, Shell writes, 40% of U.S. workers have witnessed unethical behavior on the job over the course of a year, but most of it goes unreported out of fear or unaddressed due to inertia or incompetence. The author interviewed several Wharton students about their encounters with such bad behavior, and he presents a great many examples in these pages. Readers will find many of these situations familiar, whether it’s a manager coercing employees to overlook something illegal or an entire team overstepping boundaries to hit a deadline. He also draws on the work of social psychologists in identifying a select group of pressures that can lead to bad decisions, which he calls the “PAIRS Pressures”; they involve one’s peers, the desire to obey authority, incentives (such as goals and deadlines), role expectations, and systemic pressure. He then explains 10 rules that readers can use as guidelines to combat these pressures, such as “Face the Conflict,” “Commit to Your Values,” and so on. The aptness of Shell’s many examples and consistent tone of wise encouragement will doubtless help many struggling readers find the courage to live by their convictions in the workplace. They’ll be further encouraged by Shell’s insistence that doing the right thing is advantageous not only philosophically, but also practically. Indeed, the advice here is designed to reorient readers away from ambition and coercion—the lures of the so-called “bad wolf”—and toward the ethical path, which, Shell stresses, is the successful one in the long term: “Authentic, lasting success in any profession demands adherence to the highest standards of integrity.”

An inspiring business book about doing the right thing.

Kirkus Reviews