A DILEMMA YOU DON T NEED

A DILEMMA YOU DON'T NEED

It's Friday afternoon and you have almost completed preparations for a client pitch you have to make first thing on Monday morning. Your boss, the senior account manager, stops at your office door on his way out.

˜Could you manage a new slide to add to the presentation? he says as he hands you a sheaf of papers. ˜I have the new cost projections.

You glance at them and notice that they are significantly different from the figures that had been discussed by the team earlier in the week.

˜These don't look like the ones we discussed

˜No, he says, laughing. ˜I massaged them a bit. The client will never know. Although clearly pleased with himself, he seems to notice the frown that's growing on your face. ˜It's just the way things are done, he says. ˜I'll look forward to seeing those slides on Monday. And he's gone.

You take a closer look and note that there seems to be more than a bit of a discrepancy and it occurs to you that this isn't the first time you've noticed your boss ˜massaging things. What should you do?

And if you think this is a difficult dilemma to find yourself in, what would you do if the situation were even larger? How would you deal with stumbling upon clear evidence that the organization you work for was engaged in activities that were potentially harmful to the health or welfare of the public? The situation is larger than you are, but the decision about your behaviour is deep within your own conscience.

These are questions of personal ethics that public relations professionals, along with everyone else in the working world today, can find themselves confronting from time to time. Your professional code of ethics won't help you out here.