Buiness Ethics

[DZoolander]

So - was driving out to get some coffee a few minutes ago - and drove past a place where I met with a potential client a few months ago that left an impression upon me.

Thankfully - I didn't get put into this position *really* - but it did give me food for thought at the time (and now). I'm curious about your thoughts.

Let's say you're work for hire - run your own business - etc. A potential client is referred to you with a BIG project he wants you to do (meaning - a pretty good amount of money). However - your assessment of the client is that his business isn't doing well - he's desperate for ideas and thinks he's come up with something brilliant - and that he's really leveraging himself to get it done (meaning possibly putting another mortgage on his home/taking loans out against his business/etc).

You think his idea is garbage - but you can do it.

Do you advise him that you question his idea/think it might be a stinker? Or - is that none of your business/you're just being hired to do a job?

 

[ValleyGal]

The good thing about ethics is that there are no right or wrong answers. Some professions have codes that will guide their ethical decision-making, but many people who do not belong to professional regulating bodies, are left to their own sense of what is right and wrong in a given situation.

Coming from a coaching perspective with social work ethics, I would try to have a discussion about his idea, but not offer advice. Instead, the goal of the discussion would be to ask questions to raise some red flags that he might not have considered before deciding to go ahead with his idea.

The guidelines for me are to put the client's best interest first - iow, he should be making an informed decision rather than just jumping into something without considering it from every angle, and the second guideline is client autonomy. Once they have all the information they need, then they are supported in making their own decision about whether to proceed. This means letting them live with the consequences of those decisions, whether positive or negative.

So having an initial meeting and bringing up areas of concern to see how he would address them would be the ethical thing to do. Then if he still wants to go ahead, then you will have done what we call "due diligence."

 

[Odetta]

I'm in a line of work where we are fiduciaries - where we are go-to-jail-if-we-don't legally obligated to work in our clients' best interest. So this kind of ethics discussion is very serious in my world. In such a situation, I would give the best advice I knew to give, and document, document, document. I would have to weigh things carefully. If I thought that I could give advice - and if I thought that said advice would be appreciated and acted on - that would turn the idea into a good one, then I'd probably take it on. If not - if I couldn't figure out a way to make a bad idea good, of if even if I did if my advice for doing so would be ignored - then I'd defer and say it wasn't a good fit to take on this project. Then again, where I'm coming from, I don't have a lot of gray scale and what I do must be defensible.

With that kind of perspective, even if I didn't technically have fiduciary duty, I'd still hold to it. Before I was introduced to the fiduciary duty, I might have been more lenient, but not now, not ever after.

 

[DZoolander]

Yeah - I hear what you're saying.

My line of work is a little bit different - insofar as there's not any sort of fiduciary duty to ensure the client is making smart moves. I'm a software developer - and in the case I'm referring to - the guy had an idea for a piece of software that IMHO simply did not have a market decent enough to justify the expense of producing it. I doubt there's any sort of legal ramifications I could face in the event that I chose to make a working piece of software that simply didn't attract the client base he thought it would.

I've been a little lenient in the past on smaller projects that I thought were stinkers. Mostly in those cases - it's simply been a matter of a couple of thousand or so. Whatever. It was clear the client could afford it.

In this case - however - it was a much larger scale and as I said - I got the distinct impression he was really going to be leveraging himself to take it on. I walked away from the meeting kinda hoping he wouldn't pursue it - or at the least - wouldn't try to involve me in what I believed to be a fool's undertaking.

 

[ValleyGal]

Here is a question you might want to consider. Are you willing to attach your name and stake your own reputation on his idea?

 

[.chrys.]

I think I'd treat the client just as I would if he/she were one of my brothers/sisters/children/neighbors...I'd want the best for them and tell them my thoughts on the matter, and still offer my services to support them IF they chose to go on with the plan.

 

[LilLamb219]

I think I'd treat the client just as I would if he/she were one of my brothers/sisters/children/neighbors...I'd want the best for them and tell them my thoughts on the matter, and still offer my services to support them IF they chose to go on with the plan.

That's what I would do. Give advice and still offer to do the work if that's his choice. Some people want to at least see their dreams through to the end whether or not they turn out to be a success.

 

[Autumnleaf]

Be honest and respectful and get paid in advance.