When it comes to honesty in business ethics, stories about Enron and ethical breaches at other companies often take the spotlight. But these are the exception, not the rule, says Madelon Miles, co-founder and president of Milestones, Inc., a California-based company that has provided over 100 businesses with executive coaching, strategies for developing leaders, and teambuilding guidance for executives and senior managers.

"When an executive gets taken from the courthouse in handcuffs, it handcuffs, justification to this myth that corporate America is an unethical, snake pit kind of environment. It's anything but that," Miles says. "It's a place where people are tested every day, and where the majority of executives reject ethical breaches."

Dishonesty often takes simpler forms than news reports suggest. Miles points out actions that keep people from getting jobs or that can lead to their immediate dismissal when they are caught:

• Falsification of resumes.

• Deliberately using a company credit card for personal purchases that go unreported.

• "Shrink"—or internal shoplifting in a retail environment.

• Failure to report overpayment on payroll.

Miles says that lying on resumes is now so common that it has become a standard procedure to check degrees, while "five years ago, it would have been the exception, not the rule. People are lying so much because they believe the environment is so competitive that they won't be hired any other way."

She mentions a person who wanted to apply for a job that involved supervising a number of stores—a big responsibility. This applicant "was six months away from getting her undergraduate degree, but she put on her résumé that she already had it. All she would have had to say was, 'I'm going to get it in June of 2005' or whenever it was. But because she lied, they told her that she wasn't eligible to apply."

Such outcomes may seem cruel, but they point up how much scrutiny today's applicants and employees go through. "There are very real consequences in the business world when these things occur—like immediate termination. On most applications that I've seen recently, they are very clear upfront: 'Any falsification will result in non-consideration or dismissal.' "

Given the temptations, what does Miles see as helpful? She replies without hesitation—and with a very specific answer: "Excerpts from Mary Baker Eddy's first address in The Mother Church, which she gave in 1895. She lays out what she calls 'three cardinal points.' They are '(1) A proper sense of sin; (2) repentance; (3) the understanding of good' (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 107).

"What Mary Baker Eddy points out is what I've consistently seen in my own business life, which is that if you try to address an existing condition without starting at the beginning, you won't get very far. So the very first place to start is the self-knowledge stage. There, you ask, 'How can I think that by doing this dishonest act, I'm going to actually make progress, when, in fact, it's going to set me back significantly?' "

Miles notes that many executives—especially younger ones—may not have been raised in homes where parents made strong ethical distinctions between right and wrong. The result is that they don't have a sound basis for assessing their decisionmaking. But, she says, if they are willing to look at life from a spiritual and Biblical perspective, they will begin to understand that their ethical makeup is grounded in something far more significant than the home environment.

"Each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, and to live as that likeness is to gain an intuitive sense of what makes for good decisions," she explains. "In fact this, the Christ-light that Jesus brought to humanity, resides in each of us." Miles describes this light as "an internal rudder that creates a huge red flag when we're about to cross a line that is not right for us.

"When Mrs. Eddy talks about self-knowledge, I think she's talking about the deepest level of self—our spiritual selves. We do know when what we're doing would go against what is spiritually right for us."

As an example, she offers cases where people use office credit cards for personal purchases. "The first time it happens, the person may try to justify it after they've been found out by saying, 'I knew it was wrong, but I really needed to get this.' " The problem isn't the innocent mistake where someone inadvertently uses the wrong card. It's the individual who gets away with it once and then continues to use the office credit card for personal items. Miles says, "The moment it's found out, most of the companies we work with treat it as grounds for immediate dismissal. So that $30.00 charge on your business credit care can really derail a career."

Even if an individual has gone through an experience like that, the second stage, which Mary Baker Eddy refers to as "repentance," allows for a turnaround. "That second stage gives all of us hope," Miles observes. "And then the third stage is the one where you really understand what good is. By the time you go through the first two stages, you realize that good is not anything found outside of you that you are striving for—it is who and what you really are. It's at the core of your being because you are spiritual."

Along the road to ethical behavior, Miles counsels patience and compassion for one's fellow travelers, including oneself. "Real self-knowledge is what is spiritually true, not what is humanly true. The human situation portrays someone—or ourselves—as morally or ethically weak, but we're the likeness or representation of God." That doesn't excuse misbehavior, but actually empowers someone to turn from wrongdoing and lead an honest life.

"If you want to pray for ethical conduct in your organizations, you can recognize that we all have embedded in our spiritual makeup—our 'spiritual DNA,' you might say—what is right and what is wrong. Infinite Mind, God, is telling us that at every turn, and it becomes incumbent upon us to turn to that voice and yield to it."

Given the complexity of the professional world these days, are there any tips Madelon Miles would give someone just launching a business career?

"First, I would say that people need to know how to defend their own thinking. Not only is there a kind of 'sheep mantality' in business, where people can unthinkingly follow what others do even if it isn't quite right, but there are myriad subtle suggestions that come to us daily that are not God-impelled. We need to discern between the mental messages that originate from God, from Mind—those are the spiritual messages—and the ones that originate form what Mrs. Eddy called 'mortal mind,' which suggest moral lapses are no big deal.

"Second, I think people need to be clear about their own ethical boundaries before they get into tempting situations. Given all the gray areas at work, what do you already know that you absolutely will or won't do? It's what you could call 'ethical preparation.'

"Maybe you can think about possible scenarios and ask yourself what you would do. For example, you have an employee discount at your company's retail store, and your girlfriend asks you to buy an item for her because you have the discount and she doesn't. Would you do it? Why or why not? How often? There's a benefit in asking, 'How could I be tempted, and what would I do?' Maybe we don't talk much about this kind of ethical rehearsing, giving forethought to situations that might be ambiguous, but perhaps it could help prevent ethical breaches in the future."

Returning to the image of the Christ as a guide to right behavior, Miles concludes by saying, "A boat can't sail very long without a rudder—that piece of wood or metal that's mounted at the stern for directing and influencing its course. Similarly we don't sail through our careers without a knowledge of God and our relation to Him. This knowledge directs our course, stabilizes us through demanding ethical winds, and brings us safely into a harbor of peace through right-doing." |CSS