Is a Promise a Guarantee?

Sadly, no.

Today's New York Times has an article by Leslie Wayne about Harvard Business School students who have devised an ethical oath. Approximately 20% of the class has signed on to the oath which asserts that a manager's goal is "to serve the common good."

Isn't that great? I don't want to rain on anybody's parade, and I certainly don't want to discourage people from behaving ethically, but I'll wait and see. It's easy to swear to be ethical in the abstract. The problem with an oath is not in the abstract but in the day-to-day here-and-now.

Otherwise, why would 50% of marriages (remember that "'til death do us part" section?) end in divorce? I have no doubt that most people making that vow mean it at the time that they say the words. But making a marriage last turns out to be a good bit harder on the day-to-day level than it appears to be before you take it on.

Similarly, behaving ethically in business seems a lot easier from the outside than it does day in and day out. The Harvard oath, according to the Times article, promises that oathtakers will "act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their 'own narrow ambitions' at the expense of others." Unfortunately, it's sometimes hard to know which of competing interests should be given priority. And people are really good at convincing themselves that they are taking an action for the best and most moral of all possible reasons...

I don't want to rain on the Harvard parade (even if I am a Yalie!). But ethics is harder than an oath. And an oath is hard to live up to every day of your life.