Stanford Strategic Decision and Risk Management

Ethical Decision-Making (XSDR223)

Every day in life and work we're confronted with small ethical decisions–and most of us accept that sometimes we'll do the right thing and other times we'll have 'harmless' lapses.

We have all asked ourselves, "What's the harm?" when we make small ethical compromises for "good" reasons: We lie to a customer because our boss asked us to. We exaggerate our accomplishments on our resume to get an interview or inflate our sales numbers to impress a potential client. We get comfortable with transgressions. Temptation blindsides us. And we make snap decisions we later regret.

Minor ethical lapses may seem harmless, but they instill in us a hard-to-break habit of distorted thinking. We make up the rules as we go. We lose control of our decisions, fall victim to the temptations and pressures of our situations, taint our characters, and sour business and personal relationships.

In this course, participants will master the art of skillful ethical decision-making by:

Packed with real-life examples and hands on exercises, this course develops practical tools to respond skillfully to life's inevitable ethical challenges. This includes skillful decision-making in both work and life, as well as how to overcome lying, deception, insincere promises, inappropriate secrets and other temptations. Not only can you make right decisions, you can acquire new habits that will allow you to draw clear ethical lines to consistently guide right action.

We all yearn to realize the best in ourselves. What confidence can we have that we are succeeding if we feel uncertain about whether we are handling ethical decision-making the right way? By developing new thinking habits, we learn how to respond intelligently to ethical challenges and live lives of meaning and integrity.

Topics Include:

Course Syllabus