Having opened up the issue of whether it should be a normative morality or a pragmatic integrity that communicators should focus on as we go about our work, and having provoked a “kerfuffle” involving at least three prolific bloggers—myself, noted author and editor David Murray, and the mysterious “Cassandra” on MyRagan, I figured that a good place to refocus the topic is on the most commonly accepted professional code for business communicators: The IABC Code of Ethics. 

Before examining the implications of the IABC Code, some thought about the term “ethics” merits examination.  Although some believe that ethics are a manifestation of an externally ordained morality, others, like me, believe that they are a set of principles independently agreed by those within an organization, as a set of operating principles or ground rules embedded into a contract, or as an individual’s own set of professional standards.

Of fundamental importance is that the IABC Code nowhere cites morality or virtue.  In its preface, the Code states “these principles assume…that ethics, the criteria for determining what is right and wrong, can be agreed upon by members of an organization.”  In the world framed by the IABC Code, it is the agreement that forms the basis of what is “ethical”.  Indeed, the very power of the IABC Code is that IABC has secured the agreement of 15,000 communicators around the world to operate within the Code’s parameters and to represent themselves as adherents to their employers, clients and customers. 

Within that context, the beauty of the Code is that it is able to provide adherents with much clarity in the face of ambiguity, while still providing much discretion. 

This is not to say that the Code is free of potential contradictions.  Recently, IABC announced the “licensing” of its Accreditation program with the Shanghai Public Relations Society.  Viewed within the context of a code which states:

3. Professional communicators understand and support the principles of free speech, freedom of assembly, and access to an open marketplace of ideas; and, act accordingly.

4. Professional communicators are sensitive to cultural values and beliefs and engage in fair and balanced communication activities that foster and encourage mutual understanding.

6. Professional communicators obey laws and public policies governing their professional activities and are sensitive to the spirit of all laws and regulations and, should any law or public policy be violated, for whatever reason, act promptly to correct the situation.

IABC’s foray into China can either be seen as being in direct conflict with the organisation’s own code (article 3), an opportunity to bridge cultural gaps (article 4), or signal a willingness to adapt its own principles in order to have an impact in a country that plays by different laws (article 6) and has, dare I say, a different morality, than that which prevails in most countries in which IABC currently thrives.

The code is also sparse in its guidance as to how adherents should go about following its principles.  In its treatment of the question of confronting “unethical” assignments, the Code simply says:

5. Professional communicators refrain from taking part in any undertaking which the communicator considers to be unethical.

The Code doesn’t provide specific direction to whether communicators should openly challenge or refuse such assignments, or quietly resist or sabotage such initiatives.   The final article gives some indication, however:

12. Professional communicators are honest not only with others but also, and most importantly, with themselves as individuals; for a professional communicator seeks the truth and speaks that truth first to the self.

It is this last article that is most clarifying and most challenging. It is most challenging in that it appeals to a greater sense of “truth”—but with the exception of the most committed of fundamentalists, we know that we don’t have access to the totality of truth in any situation.  We know what’s observable, we know what’s consistent and inconsistent between what is being said and what is being done, and we know there is often considerable ambiguity in the gap.  

And in challenging us to seek the truth, there is an implicit challenge to us to accept the possibility that things may not be as they seem.  In that challenge, the Code is actually at its most clear.