Subscribe to my Feed
Archive for July, 2010
Get the whole story
Friday, July 30th, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s look at a potentially disastrous mistake made recently by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. One of its employees, Shirley Sherrod, recently got caught in the cross-fire of accusations of racism between the NAACP and the Tea Party. In an effort to [...]
Before you travel, check your ticket … and uncheck the boxes
Monday, July 26th, 2010It’s summer and the economy is bad, which means that people are hunting online for bargain airfares to their favorite vacation destinations. There are a number of sites that offer discounted airfares. However, if you’re not careful to read the fine print, you may pay more than you intended.
It seems that some of [...]
Is it ethical to overlook a colleague’s incompetence?
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010Let’s take a break from Mel Gibson and the BP oil spill to talk about an issue that may well raise its ugly head in your life sometime soon. Last week, The Washington Post reported in its “The Checkup” blog that a survey conducted by Massuchusetts General Hospital had revealed troubling results. According [...]
The oil may have stopped flowing, but BP’s work is far from done
Monday, July 19th, 2010We’ve finally gotten some reasonably good news out of the Gulf of Mexico. It seems that the new cap that BP put on the leaking rg is (mostly) stopping the flow of oil and gas into the water. Now, as long as the seabed doesn’t start crumbling and leaking like an overbaked pie [...]
The psychology, ethics and law of apologies
Friday, July 16th, 2010Yesterday, I had the pleasure of joining reknowned psychiatrist Aaron Lazare and NY Times ethicist Randy Cohen on the Diane Rehm show on NPR. Our topic was apologies, and we spent about an hour kibbitzing the best and worst recent apologies. As a long-time fan of Ms. Rehm I had a ball, and [...]
Will Mel Gibson ever be able to apologize?
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010And we thought it was ugly last time … when Mel Gibson was picked up for drunk driving a while back and let loose with a barrage of ugly sexist and anti-Semitic slurs, it created a firestorm. After all, Gibson isn’t just any actor or director - he’s built his career around his allegedly [...]
Be nice to your staff
Friday, July 9th, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s talk about a mistake that managers make all too often. A friend of mine (let’s call her Sam) was complaining recently about her new boss. Seems that the boss who hired her has left for greener pastures, and her new boss [...]
How would you like to get an iPology?
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010Okay, now I’ve seen it all. It seems that a company called High Heels Productions has launched a new IPad app called iPology.app, an app that lets users generate semi-customized apologies based on what they did wrong and to whom they did it. The iPology offers both sincere and sarcastic “iPologies,” and allows [...]
Consider becoming a B Corporation
Friday, July 2nd, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s talk about a new kind of corporation that may offer a safer vehicle for doing well while doing good. Let’s presume that you’re the head of a publicly traded company. You’re also something of a social activist, and you want to [...]