Honoring ethics
Helena Oh
The Rotarian
T
he Four-Way Test is the public face of Rotary’s commitment to business ethics. Here are just a few examples of how Rotarians are publicizing those four simple questions and helping to build high ethical standards in their hometowns.
And the winner is …
Like many clubs, the Rotary Club of Golden, Colo., USA, sponsors an annual ethics awards competition for local businesses – but with a special twist. The club honors companies that follow not only The Four-Way Test but also “cowboy ethics,” which calls for living each day with courage, being tough but fair, and talking less but saying more, among other things. A 2004 book, Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West, inspired the theme.
The club cosponsored the second Golden Ethics in Business Awards with the Greater Golden Chamber of Commerce and the West Chamber Serving Jefferson County. Ed Greene, weather forecaster for Denver’s CBS television affiliate, was master of ceremonies, and Dan Ritchie, chancellor emeritus at the University of Denver, delivered the keynote address. A Colorado School of Mines professor, along with some of her ethics students, evaluated the for-profit and nonprofit entries on criteria such as environmental record, employee relations, community involvement, and customer service.
Overnight ethics
Camp Enterprise, created by the Rotary Club of Kansas City, Mo., USA, in 1977, has spread to over 125 clubs from California to Texas, and across the border to Ontario, Canada. The annual weekend retreat introduces selected high school students to entrepreneurship and ethics. Participants typically compete in groups to create the best business plan and head outdoors for team-building games.
“Last year, we even had a Camp Enterprise alumni event,” said Linda Caruso, a member of the Rotary Club of Houston, in an interview with local public radio station KUHF after her club’s 21st annual Camp Enterprise in April. She says one person who came back is now in biomedical sales. “He talked with the kids about how the camp really gave him the confidence to start a business of his own.”
Site visits
Rotarian Michael Boyer and his club, the Rotary Club of Pismo Beach (Five Cities), Calif., USA, created a Web site, www.thefourwaytest.com, that’s collecting the works of Four-Way Test essay contest winners from around the world. The site, sponsored by the club, also links to Web pages with ethics content and blogs, including a piece by John Robinson, a member of the Rotary Club of Greensboro, N.C., and editor of the local News-Record. He writes: “I suspect that applying The Four-Way Test would be problematic for many businesses besides newspapers. Actually, our duty as a newspaper is to nail the truth and fairness clauses. Goodwill and better friendship have to sort themselves out, I’m afraid.