Making life better in disadvantaged communities - our thoughts on everything - from Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc.
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Our reservation based ethics-training project titled will consist of an on-line course and four-one day workshops.
Our training begins with a look at ethics in Indian country, then and now. We at SLC did a survey last year asking tribal members what were the five most serious ethical issues on their reservations. We won't leave you in suspense. Three of the 'big five' were hiring unqualified relatives, misuse of travel funds and falsifying time sheets. This workshop looks at why these ethical violations occur and what can be done to reduce them.
What makes SLC’s ethics workshop different from other ethics workshop? Our workshops are based on traditional Native American values of honesty, courage, perseverance, and generosity, and leading by example. We try to stay away from a philosophical approach which we feel highly is highly ineffective in Indian Country. Instead our on-line course and workshops greatly emphasizes practice over theory. We talk about specific situations that occur within tribal organizations. In addition, our workshop will address the specific issues different groups and/or organizations face, i.e., tribal councils, board of directors/committees, program managers and directors, and tribal workers. We can also customize our workshop so they take into account the traditional values of your tribe.
When you complete our training, you will feel motivated to change your personal work ethics as opposed to changing other persons’ work ethics. We all know we have to change our own behavior (character) before we try to change behavior in others.
I welcome any and all suggestions on what to include in our training, how to present it and who to present it to.
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Erich-
Any thought to sending a letter to all the Tribal Councils in North Dakota and sorrounding region. Since this will be on-line perhaps some colleges would like to put this on their Interactive Video or IVAN system.
Last edited by Willie (2007-09-14 23:46:24)
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Willie, I have drafted up a letter that I sent to individuals from Standing Rock and Fort Berthold. These individual will take this letter and going through their system, will attempt to get me on the Tribal Council's agenda. I will email you a copy of the letter.
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An article in Time magazine caught my attention a few days ago; “The Psychology of Hypocrisy” because the article's content is directly related to our Tribal Leaders With Character project.
In the article, “The Psychology of Hypocrisy” the writer talked about politicians who are homosexual but refused to acknowledge that fact. Instead, they joined the Republican Party and vehemently spoke up against gay rights. The author wondered whether they were out rights hypocrites. Or, was there something more sinister in their psychological makeup? He described it like this:
“They had crossed over from hypocrisy to something more pathetic: self-deception.”
What does this article have to do with TLC project? We all know of tribal workers, regardless of what position they occupy (worker, manager/director, tribal council member) who, time after time, commit unethical acts. How do they do it without feeling guilty? How do they manage to convince themselves that they are not doing anything wrong? Don't they have a conscience, we all wonder?
Have they, as the quote above states, crossed over from hypocrisy to something more pathetic: self-deception.
Personally, it is not too hard for me to believe they have reached or some would say, sunk to a level of self-deception that they truly believe they are not doing anything wrong. Why? Because, they are the first to become indignant and often lead the charge against another tribal member who is accused of unethical behavior. In addition, I watched a documentary on dictators who really believed the thousand of people cheering them in the streets, were cheering them because they actually loved them -- after they had them raped, tortured, and murdered. Therefore, it is easy to believe most them do not see themselves as pathetic, self-deceiving individuals as a result they continue to rip off the tribe every chance they get.
We hope to change this type of behavior through our TLC project. Very early on in our presentation we take time to explain to our participants the key objective of TLC is self-honesty – the opposite of self-deception. We stress this point throughout the presentation. We, and I think everyone else realizes you cannot expect another person to behave ethically unless you yourself are an ethical person. We also believe everyone has some degree of self-honesty within them. It will take the proper approach to bring it out in them. We believe TLC is that approach.
My next post will be on the Power of the Individual. On how one person, with ethical work habits has the power to change fellow workers.
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I added a new section today on Myths Preventing Ethical Change
http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/TLC2/myths.html
I think it could use more examples, particularly myth #4.
Anyone feel like adding a few?
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