The Rise of the Ethics Committee

The PLACE Framework is a holistic approach to the next level of leadership development and considers the following:

A Plan, the Lesson itself, Action, Counterpoints and the Explanation WHY its purpose is valuable.

Psychology taught us to gain a greater efficacy of a desired behavior pattern we must instill a deep sense of WHY it is important, this framework does just that.

During my professional career, there were a multitude of times when great ideas and concepts for change presented themselves. The failure of most were the ability to connect to immediate smaller actions to do in the present. People needed to be empowered to enable the change to occur. Too often, that creates the bottleneck where ideas die. Teams do not get the agency to make the ideas work. The PLACE Framework was designed with that in mind.

Effective change occurs when all can see what needs to be done to get to the target. While many top leaders feel they must be in charge, because they were granted such power by those before them, unfortunately some forget that the people within the teams can affect those actions well when they understand the reasoning and vision of where to go. Along the way there must be accountability.

Enablement of ideas empowers and is the energy within an organization. Look at any organization where people feel they have no control of their role or agency in the business; they stagnate. Culture deteriorates, customers disengage because they feel like the business no longer cares for them the way they once had. Not unlike personal relationships.

While this article’s focus is aimed at AI, autonomous systems and algorithmic risks, The New Ethics Committee (NEC) is the way to ensure that there is accountability and transparency to standards and regulations that avoid harm with the behaviors and actions of their people; be they engineers, sales people, top executives, or the newest or least experienced person. The ethics committee ensures people are not only living the values of the organization, it is the place where agency is created to make projects work. It is where psychological safety is present because questions of approach, hard or soft law, and conflicts of interest can be discussed as intellectual and humbled concerns.

The NEC can be created by inside or outside expertise. It will address not only the technology aspects of an organization, but also the culture and behavior of it. As ethics address the ethos or character of the organization, so too is how that translates to avoiding harm towards others. This concept comes full circle and is interconnected to how the people of the organization embody the values, mission and purpose of what they do in the living and breathing nature of their roles in a community.

For more information, or to start a conversation on how Holistic Ethics would serve you or your organization, email me or connect in the top left of this page. I am curious to see understand your perspective and serve you.