Corporate ethics committees need a professional ethicist.

Solving corporate questions in the real world to find a "best course of action."

Most companies don't reach for a contracted, top-level ethics consultant to be at meetings of the corporate ethics committee. They fail to do it for one simple reason.

They don't know where they can find an ethics consultant, for the committee, available on a piecework¹ basis.

But that does not have to be you!

You call us. We find the right contract ethics consultant for your committee, for your unique company, for your needs.

Committee participation by an outside ethics consultant gives you new insights and practical options.

Ethics compliance and corporate governance have been mandated by government for more than an decade. Many companies have formed ethics committees and find they are useful in making decisions that help the company. Those committees can use a professional ethicist.

Ethicists are not ivory tower theorists. Ethicists (as distinguished from ethics philosophers) can provide:

helpful committee input to solve a specific ethics problem that has arisen in the course of business operations, at any level of the company's operations, and take action thereon; or
individually provide a best ethics solution to a committee, and advise on a "best course of action".

Read the five values of an outside ethicist consultant. We can sum up the five values a company always gets, even if an ethics committee is not involved, by saying: "If a business only has its company personnel involved, the company loses the extra knowledge, skills, time-power, and independent viewpoint that contracted experts bring to the table."

There is an additional, special, value to a committee. That value is important in critical decisions by a committee. why if a business uses a committee to resolve a company problem with moral implications, that the committee should include an "outside" person (i.e., a person who has no identifiable interest in a specific outcome.

Why? (Take a deep breath, here's the theoretical statement used in an academic setting.)

(Now let's say that in non-academic words.) If a committee members has an identified interest in a specific outcome, committee members subconsciously start with the idea that the outcome should be driven by the person with the most company power. The committee will tend to arrive at the decision determined by the most powerful member of the group, not necessarily by what is best for the company as a whole.

Having an "outside" ethicist on the committee breaks that power mind-set. The outside ethicist tends to make everyone realize that the process will be a joint effort to have a joint action statement that is the best possible for the business. Plus, a professional ethicist knows how to move the group to a consensus best for the business. Further the ethicist knows how to state consensus with a specific rationalization that can be given to all the stakeholders in the decision, whether they are inside or outside the company.

Business Pragmatism² problem-solving, lead by an outside ethicist, is especially useful when executives are in a crisis-mode, but it's ordinary use is in the normal course of business, at any level of the company's operations. In short, Business Pragmatism¹ is a method for deciding on the best ethical corporate course of action when competing solutions exist, and the corporate management must act.

¹ Work performed by outside contractors getting paid by the piece. Piece workers agree to perform certain services on an individual basis.

² Business Pragmatism is a process of business decision authored by Leonard Bucklin. Continue for the "Business Pragmatism" theory, as stated in the original 2001 paper by Leonard Bucklin, coining the term.