What is Ethical Fading?

Ethical fading is the social phenomenon in which people or organizations gradually lose sight of – or subconsciously self-deceive themselves out of seeing – their inherent moral framework, and take actions increasingly inconsistent with their values.

Over the course of your career, how many times have you found yourself uncomfortable with the way your employers have handled something? Perhaps it was toxic behavior in the workplace, lying to customers/clients, consistent late payments to small business vendors, or any number of other things. Unless you’re brand new to the work world, you’ve almost certainly seen this yourself. And even on a personal level, you might have found yourself doing things that aren’t consistent with your values about how to treat others.

In 2004, psychologist Anne Tenbrunsel and colleagues described this phenomenon as Ethical Fading. They suggested that it happens when people focus heavily on some other aspect of a decision, like profitability, market share, or, on a more personal level, professional success. People tend to see what they are looking for, and if they are not looking for an ethical issue, it may be a blind spot that they miss altogether. Alternatively they may play it down as a minor concern to look at later, but then find as progress is made that it seems too minor – or it’s too late – to go back and do anything about it now. This could be as wide-scale as a drug company increasing the cost of a daily medication for millions of consumers by 5,000% to raise profits, or as small-scale as sharing gossip about someone in the workplace to try to build a connection with someone.

Following on from Tenbrunsel’s earlier work, in 2019 McKenzie Rees, Anne Tenbrunsel and Max Bazerman published further research, suggesting that ethical fading is more likely to take place under certain circumstances: high-stakes incentives; potential losses; level of power held by decision-makers; competition; uncertainty; (in)justice; anonymity; and the use of agents or third-party decision-makers. Of note to us all, they also found that ethical fading is more likely to take place in team-based negotiations: even if there is personal discomfort, people are more likely to convince themselves that others understand the situation more than them, and/or there is agreement to move ahead.

Rees, Tenbrunsel and Bazerman also suggested three phases of the decision-making process where ethical fading occurs, and where we can pay closer attention to ensure that your decisions (or your team’s decisions) are in integrity with your values: 1) The Prediction Phase – before a decision is made; 2) The Action Phase – during the decision-making process; and 3) The Recollection Phase – after the decision has been made. Each phase gives us a chance to step back and consider how closely our actions align with our values. By taking some time to reflect and discuss during each phase, you can ‘sharpen your axe’ and make small kaizen-like strategy changes along the way and be more confident that the actions you take match your values.

How can reflecting on ethical fading be helpful to you and your team this week?

This Week’s Tip:

• Take a look back at decisions you have made – or been a part of making – in the last week at work. Is there anything that sits uncomfortably with you? Have you heard from anyone else at work that it sits uncomfortably with them? Or from anyone else who you have described it to? If so, consider if the decisions are out of alignment with your personal or organizational values. If they are out of alignment, who do you need to speak to about that, or what other actions might you want to take?

• Similarly, with decisions you have coming up – either personally or as part of a team – take time before and during the decision-making process to check the alignment of your actions with your values. If someone else suggests an action that is out of alignment with your organizational values, be a vocal reminder of what those values are. If you do, others will too. Also ask for others’ reflections on your own suggested course of action – you have blind spots that others might be able to see!

• If you have an organizational values statement, consider how widely that is known. Have you read it recently? Has your team? Is it printed and posted in meeting rooms? If people work remotely, do you ever take time to look at it together in videoconference meetings? Wherever you have power to do so, start sharing and referring to this statement more in meetings – even while everyone has their own set of values that might differ from this, it will encourage everyone to think more about their values, and consider how their actions align with them as a result.
• If you don’t have an organization values statement, start drafting what you think it might look like, and start conversations with others to have wider input. And if you need support in creating this document, contact Building Bridges Leadership – we’d love to help!

Try these out this week and let us know how it goes – we’d love to hear what you learn about yourself and others as you do.

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