1830 FBF: Dr. Bruce Weinstein - Ethics, Ethical Intelligence, Wall Street and Evaluating Character

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Welcome, listeners from around the world. This is your host, Jason Hartman with a 10th show today. Yes, a 10th show where we go off topic and discuss something of general life interest. And I think you will be very interested in a topic today. If you're anything like me. This, this topic has gotten you down from time to time because we are going to talk about ethics here on episode seven. Ten is an expert in this. He's an expert in, in the subject of ethics. And why do I say it may have gotten from time to time? Well, you probably, like me, have been discouraged from time to time thinking how could somebody do that? How could someone totally flake out or breach a contract or, you know, not do their part or not keep their promise or lie and cheat and steal. And you know, this is one of the things I would have to say that in the world of business, with all the companies I own and I have quite a few nowadays, and all the properties I own and all the property managers I've had and the hundreds of tenants I've had over the years, although interestingly, as things go, the tenants have not been that bad. But some of the business deals, boy, I tell you, they get really murky and convoluted and complicated and, you know, occasionally you even got to go to court over one. And I'll tell you something, if you've ever been in the court system the truth is completely irrelevant. That is one of the most disappointing and shocking things to me as well, that the truth just doesn't seem to be meaningful at all. It's more about lying and cheating and playing games. And, you know, that's what a lot of these lawyers are basically paid to do. It's a complicated world. It definitely is. And we need to find, as a society, we need to find our North Star, you know, that direction that keeps us on a course of good faith and fair dealings. That's why I wanted to bring you this 10th show where we talk a little bit about the subject of ethics. You know, many years ago, I used to teach a lot of Stephen Covey's material. I used to do seminars largely based on the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, his classic, great book. I was fortunate to meet Stephen Covey on a cruise in Russia, actually, a long time ago. It was a Forbes investor cruise that I was on. Stephen Covey was there, so I got to meet him, and he was just such a gracious, nice guy. And you may know that he passed away a few years ago, maybe about three years ago, but his work lives on, and it's been great, great work, definitely. And one of the things he talks about is the idea of the character ethic and the personality ethic. I think this is one of the things that it's really, number one, important to understand because we see other people playing these two ethics within them, and we've all got them. And it's also important to get control of our own character ethic and personality ethic. And although Stephen Covey is not our guest today, this concept, I think, is important to just mention for a moment. And probably, probably a lot of you listening have read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and you've probably been fans of it because it's just a phenomenal masterwork as a book. And his other books, Principle Centered Leadership, another fantastic book. But here's the summary, as I understand it, of the character ethic versus the personality ethic. So the character ethic, as the name would imply, is doing the right thing. When there is ever a question or an opportunity to do something wrong, to take an advantage, to take a shortcut, we don't take it right. You know, we all do the right thing as a. As the character ethic. And then the opposite of the character ethic is the personality ethic. And the personality ethic is where our personality can play on the situation. And so you've probably all seen it. I've had a. A couple of friends. And I say had as a past tense over the years that are these people that are so charismatic and they're just really, really likable people. And they just have this way of making people feel good in the public eye. A lot of people would say Bill Clinton has this ability. Certainly not Hillary, pardon the comment there, but her husband Bill, I mean, you know, people on both sides of the aisle have many times said, he is just a magnetic personality. He has a fantastic personality ethic. And it's okay to have the personality ethic and to be able to attract people and inspire people with that personality, but the key is we have to rein it in and be in control of our personality ethic. I even sense this. I was talking to Fernando the other night. Fernando is. He's been on the show before. He's one of our investment counselors. And I was saying, you know, sometimes when I'm up there doing a seminar or I'm getting on a real track on a podcast, but especially in front of a live audience, even more so, I will consciously think, you know, I've sort of got this audience wrapped around my finger. You know, you can just tell it kind of feels that way sometimes as a speaker when you're on stage. And I think, I gotta catch myself here and just dial it back a little bit and not be too persuasive and not abuse that privilege that I've been given by that audience. Right? And so the personality ethic is the instant gratification thing. It's the thing that we can use to affect the outcome of various events in life. But the question is, should we use it? Because the character ethic is the sustainable, long term, good, wholesome, ethical part of the two ethics. Today we have flashback Friday and a 10th episode show. All of you regular listeners know that every 10th episode we do a topic of general interest. It always seems to relate to finance and success in life and success with our portfolios. But the topics are more general every 10th episode show. And today we combine a flashback Friday with a 10th episode. And Stephen Covey also talked a lot about the law of the farm or the law of nature versus the law of man, Right? And what he would say there is. He would say, I remember him giving me example in one of his books where he would talk about how in college he could cram for a test and he could pass the test by cramming. But cramming is not the best way to learn. And you can sort of cheat the learning system. Well, not. You can't cheat the learning system really, by cramming. But you can cheat the man made institution of school or college in that example, with the laws of man, you can get around them. But the law of the farm is the law of nature and it is more powerful. And it is similar in some ways to the character ethic versus the personality ethic in this example, I believe. And the law of nature says this, look, you plant the seeds and a certain number of months later that crop grows. And you can't influence that very much. Now granted, I know there's technology and there are companies with questionable ethics like Monsanto that engineer genetically engineer foods and seeds and engineer agricultural systems to make crops grow faster and differently. I get it, okay? But at the end of the day, you can't rush nature too much, okay? Nature is under the control of our creator, right? More than it is under the man made systems and what we can do to influence it. And so that's somewhat similar to this concept of the personality ethic versus the character ethic. And be careful, because it's very easy to be influenced by the personality ethic when we've got people with very powerful Personas like a Bill Clinton, for example. They can exert undue influence over us and they can put us in a situation where we will make mistakes, we will fall for traps, we will make bad decisions, we will get scammed. We will literally get scammed. And there are just too many of these instant gratification shysters out there in the world. We all know this. We've all fallen victim at one time or another. And you know what? We've all, I'm sure, taken a few shortcuts ourselves. Hopefully they're not very bad ones. Always try to follow that great old saying, if you mess up, fess up and make up. And I think that's something that's very important if you mess up and we all suffer a temptation now and then, but mess up and then fess up and make up. So admit that you did it and then fix it. Try and remedy the problem and make it fair and balance the equation back again if you can at all. And so very important thing, this concept of ethics in the world, and it is so sorely, sorely lacking. And I think one of the reasons that it is lacking in today's world is that the world is such a big place. Seven billion, over seven billion people. And we don't live in the small town anymore where literally in the old days our life could depend on our word. If we did something bad, if we crossed the line if we took the advantage. And by the way, a great quote that I'll just share with you. I always love this quote and it goes like A gentleman is someone who has the advantage but doesn't take it. A gentleman is someone who has the advantage but doesn't take it. Great quote. I always love that one. And of course that could be applied to a lady as well. I get it. You know these are, some of these quotes are very old fashioned, okay. And you know, back in the the day where the world was a different place and I don't know who to give credit for that quote, but I just heard it a long time ago, I think originally from Earl Nightingale back when I was about 17 years old I heard that quote and I always loved it. And so. Oh what was I saying here folks? Gosh darn it, I actually forgot. See that's one of the other good things about being in front of a live audience. You guys can keep me on track and remind me what I was saying. Sorry about that. Got off track there with my, my gentleman quote. But yeah, mess up, fess up, make up good formula for successful living and good formula for long term relationships and long term sustainable success. Now maybe I will remember what I was saying in just a moment here. Before we get to our guest, I'm going to go on to another thing for just a quick second. So we are filling up fast for our September event in Phoenix that is just filling up super, super fast. So be sure you go and register@jason hartman.com events or just jason hartman.com click in the event section. By the way, I know our website was down for a few hours here, but we got it back up. There was a little problem with our hosting company and the site is back up. So I apologize for that. We will look forward to seeing you in Phoenix September 10th and 11th. Be sure to register for that event ASAP. I'm sure it's going to sell out at the rate tickets are selling. And then also you will hear something on the next episode where I got off track because I've already recorded the next episode for Wednesday, episode 711 and I realized I didn't finish a thought. So I'm going to finish it now in advance. You're going to hear me talking about learning to horseback ride and the point I meant to make with that is that when you get on the horse, the instruction has always been you need to show the horse who's boss. Right? That's an old saying. Show the horse who is boss. So that you set the tone for that relationship. And I believe on the next episode that's when I was talking about property managers and it kind of related to that horse lesson that I learned as a kid when I learned how to ride horseback. So anyway, just wanted to point that out so my tangents will make some degree of sense. Also, our Venture alliance trip coming up in September as well. Venturealliancemastermind.com We've got a couple guests coming to that. I know we've got several people considering joining the Venture alliance now, new members and several people considering coming as guests. And we've got a few guests that have registered for that. And we're looking forward to seeing you there. VentureAllianceMasterMind.com or right there at Jason Hartman.com you can also get some information right in the event section as well. So I think that's it because I can't quite remember what I was saying, but I think you get the idea. Ethics, very, very important to successful living. And our guest today, who is an expert, unlike me, who's just a commentator, will fill you in on that. So I think you're really going to enjoy this interview on a tenth show. And then on Wednesday, episode number 7 11, we will be back on track, talking all about investing in income property, the most historically proven asset class in the world. Let's go to our guest as we talk about ethics. It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Bruce Weinstein to the show. He is known as the ethics Guy. He's president and CEO of the Ethics Guy, a contributor, although he's got a bit of an update to this resume I'm talking about. But he's a contributor to Bloomberg Business Week's management blog, author of several books, including Ethical Five Principles for Untangling youg Toughest Problems at Work and beyond, author of the new book the Good 10 Crucial Qualities of High Character Employees. Bruce, you've got some other books and a new position, right? Welcome. How are you?

Oh, great. Thanks so much for having me on, Jason. Yes, I've just accepted a position as contributor to Fortune magazine's Leadership Channel online.

Good stuff, good stuff. Well, ethics, I mean, how did you become interested in this topic?

It probably goes back to a lot of the discussions I'd have with my family over dinner, often centering around some kind of injustice. But I think formally my interest was piqued by Plato's Republic, which I read voluntarily. In high school, we were allowed to pick three books on government to read, and my father had one of those. Remember those Franklin Mint Library collections and beautiful leather binding. And this edition was particularly striking. It was green and had gold lettering. And I'd never really read philosophy before, and I was blown away by how dramatic and entertaining it was because, you know, Plato wrote in dialogues, so the writing is really like a really, really good script about things that matter the most in life. And so that, especially Plato's allegory of the cave, that just really touched something deep in me. And so I decided to major in philosophy in college, Swarthmore, and like a lot of people, went on to a PhD in philosophy and actually was a professor for six years in a medical school, but decided I wanted the world to be my classroom. So I left academics and set up my own company. And now I travel around the world and, you know, it's just. It's such a privilege to be flown into Hawaii or Australia to talk about character and ethics in the workplace and in business and finance, and it's wonderful.

I remember reading Plato's Republic 2, and I was just fascinated by that book. I thought it was excellent. Really, you know, looking back on it, and I can't say I remember it very well today. I would view it as far too communistic. I think I remember something about how everybody was sort of designated a certain job. I mean, this doesn't relate to ethics, but it's just a general comment and based on their talents and things like that. And I don't know that would concern me in today's world if the society was trying to dictate. Yeah, whole other topic. Right?

This is a whole other discussion. But I mean, Plato banned music and poetry from the republic because of its corrupting influence on the young. But it's really Plato's allegory of the cave that I think still speaks to the world today, because he talks about how, imagine a cave in which there are people chained to the wall, and all they know of reality are the shadows projected in front of them from a fire that's behind them. And so that's their understanding of reality. That's what they think the world is. It's only when one of them breaks free and leaves the cave does that person see the world as it really is. And it really, I think, speaks to the limited view that so many of us have, which I believe is made even worse and more limited by the partisan bickering and cable news partisanship that focuses on one narrow view of the world to the exclusion of all possible points of view, all other possible points of view. So, you know, yet we can argue about Plato's politics. But in terms of his epistemology, what counts as knowledge and his ethics, I mean, it's still quite relevant today.

Yeah, makes sense. So, Bruce, do you believe that. Let's just take the business world as an example. I mean, you know, there's an old saying, all's fair in love and war, but let's use business here. Do you believe that the business world is maybe more or less ethical than it was 20, you know, 15, 20, 30 years ago? I mean, what direction are we moving in?

Well, let's just start with a basic idea, which I think we can all agree on, which is that human nature has not changed however long there have been people. There's been greed, there's been love, there's been passion, there's been fairness. We're all sorts of contradictory impulses, but what has absolutely changed is technology. And technology has allowed us to do things, unethical things. Cheating, for example, that we simply weren't able to do before. I mean, you know, back in the old days, to cheat, you had to bring in a piece of paper scrawled with the right answers on there. Now you can bring in an iPhone and have the answers on there. You can quietly whisper to somebody else through your iPhone or somebody else in another. In another room. There are all sorts of novel ways of cheating that unfortunately, a lot of people have taken advantage of. So that impulse that so many of us have is just the thing, the barrier to entry, so to speak, is much lower than it's interesting.

Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. So technology, in other words, what you're saying is technology has enabled cheaters. It's made it easier for them. Oh, interesting.

Okay, can I just follow up on that? Because a lot of us when we were growing up would never think about walking into what were then called record stores and walking out with, you know, a copy of the Beatles have wrote. Now, however, downloading illegally files the Beatles down Abbey Road, for example, it doesn't feel like cheating. It doesn't feel like theft. It doesn't feel like walking to a record store and taking it. But ethically, it's the same thing.

Well, you know, yeah, it's interesting, but I know that two wrongs don't make a right. But certainly people would argue that the music industry, not the artists, but the record companies have been ripping the public off for decades, Right? Maybe they're getting their comeuppance. And I don't steal music, by the way. I don't download. I download it on itunes and pay for it.

Okay, do we then want to say, well, you know, the candy bar companies have been charging way too much for Milky Ways and three months, and they're.

Making people fat and diabetic. Fair enough. I know, I know.

I don't really. It's the same thing.

That would be ethical relativism, wouldn't it?

Well, it would be an inconsistent way of arguing for some practices and against others. And one of the things that logic demands of us is consistency.

Okay, so here's that. Let's go back to the technology thing. So with technology, it enables cheaters more. The barrier to entry is lower. You know, identity theft is certainly one, you know, like the biggest crime in the world, I believe now. But also, technology helps expose cheaters, too. Right. Because communication is. Is so much better. Whereas before, if you were, say, you lived in Los Angeles, I'm going to take a big city as the example. And one of my complaints about bigger cities was always that, you know, people versus the old days where you lived in a smaller community, people really valued their reputation. In fact, it could mean life and death if they wronged people. Word would get around in that smaller community really fast and they would be ostracized. They might be, you know, they might be starved. They might starve to death because of that. Right. But nowadays, you know, it's like they can just move from one group to another and just do their dirty dealings. But, you know, then you've got this thing called the Internet where a lot of these bad, bad apples are exposed. Right? So on balance, you know what this.

Yes, you're absolutely right. And what this illustrates is that technology is morally neutral. It can be put to good use or bad use. And it's really up to us to decide how we want to use it. We can use Facebook to reconnect with old friends we haven't been in contact with in 30, 40 years, or we can use it to cheat on our spouses using the same application, Facebook. So it's not Facebook's fault if some of us cheat on our spouses. It's our fault.

Yeah, it's agnostic. Well, okay, so what is character? What is ethics? Give us some definitions here so we know what we're working on.

Ethics is the study of right and wrong conduct and good and bad character. So what that suggests is there are essentially two approaches to doing ethics in the world, in your life. One approach centers on solving ethical conundrums, puzzles. What should I do? I'm standing in line at Starbucks and I overhear two colleagues from work Revealing confidential information about a client. Should I talk with them about it? Should I keep my mouth shut? Should I report them? What should I do? And if you look at the way that ethics is presented in our culture, if it is presented at all in popular culture, it's inevitably with respect to this approach. So this goes back to Ann Lander's Dear Abby the Ethicist column in the New York Times debates on television. It's always about what to do in this particular situation with these set of facts. But there's a completely different approach to doing ethics, and that looks not at conduct, but character. So that the central question in the second approach to doing ethics in business or beyond is not what should I do? But who should I be? What are the qualities of character that I should develop that will allow me to make wise, smart, decent, honorable choices across my entire career? And it's a much. Character is a much murkier concept. It's a little harder to grasp. I think that's probably why it is not as much a part of our culture as the other approach. And also it's not as necessarily as timely. You know, these puzzles that I talked about speak to what's in the news, what's in the headlines today, but looking at more broad concepts like accountability, courage, humility, that's not necessarily pegged to what's in the news at 2:15pm as we're recording this interview.

Yeah, very, very good point. Okay, talk to us about the difference between maybe like, honesty and ethics, if there is one. I would assume that ethics, that's a much broader category, right? A much broader definition than just being honest in a. In a transactional way. Right.

When we talk about ethics, we're talking about concepts like telling the truth, keeping private things private, being fair, giving to others their due, being grateful. So sometimes you'll hear the terms ethics, trustworthiness, and honesty as though they were three different things. But actually, honesty is a subset of ethics, and trustworthiness is not a separate value. If. If I hired you, Jason, to work with me on a project, let's say, my next book, the reason I would hire you is because I trust you. And the reason I trust you is because you have demonstrated over time that I can depend on you, that you're honest, that you keep your promises. You know, when you say you're going to do something, you actually do it. So trustworthiness is kind of an umbrella term for lots of different character traits, we might say.

I like the way Stephen Covey distinguished between character, trust and competence. Trust in other words, you may go to the most trustworthy person in the world to, you know, give you brain surgery, but if they don't have competence, then you have a big problem on your hands.

Well, amiyah, the best example of that idea in recent times is there was a fellow in New York who was very good at making lots and lots of money for his clients.

So from, I think I know you're.

Talking about, who could this be? So from a skills or knowledge perspective, he was really, really good at beating the market. The problem was is that he was a crook. Now I'm talking about Bernie Madoff. We could actually be talking about lots of different people, but the idea is.

That Wall street is full of them.

Well, yeah, and there are also lots of good people, actually. Andrew Sorkin, Ross. Is it Ross Sorkin? Or. In any case, where were we before I got off on this?

Well, we were kind of. We were talking about Bernie Madoff and then we got into the Wall Street.

Oh, yeah, yes, no, no, thank you.

Because I call Wall street the modern version of organized crime. So, you know, whatever.

You know, when I was a graduate student and I was talking with a professor about grants and the source of one grant seemed a little dicey to me. And ethically, and you know what he said? Maybe he was quoting the Bible. He said all money is dirty if you trace it back far enough. So they're crooks in Wall Street. And they're also, I know lots and lots of people who are decent, hard working people with standup values. And so I'm afraid that sometimes we besmirch an entire occupation or profession. That might be unfair.

But yes, you live there, so you have friends that work on Wall street. And I'm sure there are many good people. But the overall thing is I'm sure there were a few good people in the Mafia too. It's just the whole system is just, in my opinion, it's corrupt. But again, another tangent, and I'm happy.

To talk about this stuff, but you touched on something. You were talking about Covey's distinction between competence and trustworthiness.

Confidence, trust and competence.

Trust, Confidence, trust and competence. Tr.

Yes.

Well, if you look at job descriptions, what is it that employers say that they're looking for?

Well, they're looking for results. Reliability. I don't know. Skills. What do you mean? I don't know what you're getting at.

They're looking for people who can do something well or who know something or both. They're looking for knowledge and skills, but they almost never Talk about character in the job description. And character almost never comes up in a job interview. But like a CEO told 60 Minutes last year, the problem with business is that businesses hire for competence, but fire for character. So why aren't we looking for character? Why are we not evaluating the character of job candidates then and there?

So I think I have an answer. I mean, it's a lot harder to test for character, isn't it?

That's been one of the objections. For the last two years, I've been interviewing business and thought leaders around the world to ask them that very question. And what you just said was one of the common responses. It's difficult to test for it. Some have argued it's difficult to know what character is. And then a lot of people told me, you know what, we're just uncomfortable with even bringing it up, with bringing up honesty, humility, or loyalty. It's, it's seems to be of a more personal nature, and in a way, it is more personal. But that's exactly why it has to be brought up, because it doesn't really matter, does it, how skilled and knowledgeable a person is if they're fundamentally dishonest.

Oh, absolutely right. I mean, nothing is more true than that. But how do you, how do you evaluate that? I mean, during a, during a job interview, for example, do you have any tips for our listeners how to evaluate someone's character or their ethics?

Well, in fact, the book that I've just written presents a series of questions that savvy interviewers can ask of job candidates. And turning that around, how savvy job candidates can use character to their advantage. Honestly, of course, to talk about how their honesty, their courage, their accountability has consistently delivered results for the people they've worked for. So it's true that it may be more of an art than a science in terms of evaluating character, but it can absolutely be evaluated. And it's really through the stories that job candidates tell where the evaluation lies. That's how you find out what kind of a person this is, is. It's true that they're going to be from time to time, pathological liars. And, you know, we've all known people like that. A lot of us have dated people like that. Some of us have married people like.

That, and some of us are people like that, you know.

Right, right. Worked for work, hired people like that. And you think, and you look back and you think, why didn't I see the signs? But you know what? I'll bet if you look back on your personal, professional life, at the crooks you've known or the. The cads you've dated or whatever. There were signs early on that you were aware of that you chose to ignore. Am I right?

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Everybody does it, you know, love makes fools of everybody, as they say. Right.

Or even in business, you think, wait, I just had this feeling about that person. Why didn't I follow through on that.

Should listen to it. But we don't trust our hunches. You know, that's. That's kind of amorphous.

And sometimes our hunches are based on. In prejudice or bias. That's also. That can get in the way of a fair evaluation. So a hunch or an intuition isn't necessarily conclusive in determining whether the person we're thinking about is honest or not, but it's evidence of something. It's worth paying attention to. And in my own life, I'm trying to pay much more attention to that little voice that says, don't do it, don't do it. Because you know what? How often have you been wrong when you paid attention to that voice?

Yeah, right. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Okay, so can you share any of those questions for interviewers and interviewees? You know, I mean, there are two sides to this, right, People, depending on what side of the table you're on, you want to show that you have character, that you have an ethical ideology. And, you know, on the other side of the table, you want to know if that person. And it's not just a job interview, it's everything's an interview. Right? You know, we're hiring a vendor to fix up our house. We're hiring someone to do an odd job. Everything. Right. You know, what are some of those questions? I know it's an art, not a science, I'm sure, like you mentioned, but share some of that with us if you would.

Sure. So let's say that we want to find out if this is a courageous person who's applying to work with us or for us. And we want to know, is this the sort of person who would stand up to a corrupt vendor or a corrupt colleague if they saw something going on in the company that shouldn't be going on, would they just let it slip or would they confront it? So you might ask a question, like, describe a time when you had to disagree with someone in authority and stand your ground. What was the situation? How did the other person react? What did you do? If you listen, this is probably the hardest part of interviewing for character, is just shutting up and listening to the other Person not interrupting and just listening to how they respond to a question like that.

So what is the way to respond, to show that you have character? Remember, that's the other side of the table.

That's right. So if I were being asked that, I would talk about a time when in my. And by the way, and since people will not be accustomed to answering these kinds of questions, it might take a moment to think about. I mean, like, just thinking about how I would respond to that, I'd have to think, wait a minute. Okay. In fact, 20 years ago, actually several times in my life, I saw people cheating on exams. And I stood up and in fact, I was in medical school when I thought I was going to be a physician, and I saw someone cheating on an anatomy exam. And so I went to the professor and I said, I'm not proud of this, but I saw somebody cheating. And what do you think? The professor said, I don't know. Thank you. Thank you for calling this to my attention. He said, you know what? You need to talk to the class president, not me. So I went to the class president and I explained what I saw, and I said it. You know, it gives me no pleasure to bring this up, but I feel like I have to. And he got angry at me, and he said, if you're wrong, Bruce, you could be destroying this woman's career. Suddenly, I'm the bad guy. I felt like Michael Douglas at the end of Falling Down. You know, I'm the bad guy. How am I the bad guy? Well, not quite like Michael Douglas, because that movie really was. But I didn't understand why I was the one who was suddenly the antagonist in this story. So, in other words, if I were answering this question to an employer, I would tell a story like that. And I would also say, you know what? In spite of all my efforts to report a corrupt colleague, nothing happened. But I would do it all over again. And I think if you were my employer or putative employer and you asked me that, I think you would get a sense that I'm telling you the truth and that I'm committed. I really believe in taking a stand for this sort of thing.

Corporate mission statements and the typical speak coming from company leaders and so forth is, oh, we value our people. We value ethics. We value being a good corporate citizen. So many times the words like politicians do not line up with the actions at all. Do large corporations have. Do they value ethics?

They do value ethics, and for one thing, they have to value ethics because of the SAR Baines Oxley act. That requires large companies to have compliance departments. My wife works as a compliance officer in a major bank here in New York. So there's a legal requirement. But also, I think companies are beginning to see that it's in their own interest to take ethics seriously because hiring people, for example, who are corrupt is just going to hurt their own business. I mean, it's in their own financial interest to hire honest people, to promote honest people and to fire dishonest people. But what I advise job candidates who want to ace their job interview is make sure you know what the company's mission statement and vision statement, value statement, what their code of ethics has to say. Look at specific examples on their website for how these values are applied, and then quote those values in your interview, in your follow up, thank you note, and talk about how you too are committed to those values. No, but I guarantee if the people who are listening to this podcast, if you put that into practice, the people applying for the same job will not be doing that. They won't be because they're going to be focused on proving that they're knowledgeable and skill just like everybody else. But it's the people who put character front and center who are going to get the jobs that they want.

Talk to us about your book, Ethical Intelligence. The subtitle is about the toughest problems at work and beyond. What are some really tough ethical problems? You know, one, I mean, listening to years ago, Dr. Laura, for example, on the radio, people would call in and they'd always say, you know, this was kind of a somewhat common call I would hear, oh, well, my friend is having an affair and I like their spouse too. Should I, should I tell them? Like, that's a, you know, that's a quandary, right? I mean, what, what's the right thing to do in these types of, you know, and I'm just giving you an example to kind of open the conversation. You don't even need to necessarily take that as one to address. But, you know, what are some of the tough ethical problems that we face? They're not really clear a lot of times. Are they?

Again, talking back to technology, as we did at the beginning of this discussion, technology has unfortunately allowed us to believe in the myth of multitasking, the idea that we can accomplish successfully more than one task at a time. So remember how cool it seemed to be the very first time you saw different tabs on your computer that you could have Word going on and Excel going on and the Internet going on all at the same time, and you could switch Rapidly from one pane to another. Remember how cool that seemed to be?

Yeah. When it wasn't crashing.

That's a whole other issue.

I'm just putting a jab at Microsoft therapy, but go ahead.

Another podcast issue. The competency of certain computer makers. But. But getting back to this idea of multitasking. It turns out that multitasking is a myth, that the brain is made to monotask. So when we think we're getting lots of things done sequentially, we're actually doing each job less well than we would have if we had focused on that one thing alone. Because what happens, let's say you're going from Microsoft Word, you're writing a document, then you're going to check your Excel spreadsheet, then you take a look at your Facebook page, then you check your email, then you're back to the Word document. It takes a little while to reorient yourself to what you're writing about in the Word document, and you've just lost time. You think you've saved time by multitasking, but you're losing time. You're not doing things as well as you could. So this. We were talking about how technology has aided and abetted certain ethical problems, like cheating, but it's also made it more difficult for us to focus. And so now we're using technology to protect us from the insidious effects of technology. And here I'm talking about blocking software like antisocial or Freedom, that prevents us from logging onto Facebook for a certain number of hours.

Okay, so how about some other ethical dilemmas? You know, I mean, you got to have something more juicy than multitasking, right?

Well, yeah, but, I mean, it may not be juicy, but it's so pervasive. And, I mean, when you look at your own life, Jason, don't you think, wait a minute. This thing is driving me nuts. Why can't I focus on one thing for more than a few minutes? And, you know, a friend of mine just went to have major surgery done. And let's see. I have to be careful about the facts that are revealed. Let's just say that the surgeon was not paying attention, and a piece of jewelry fell into a place it shouldn't have fallen into.

Oh, boy. That's bad.

Yeah. And now maybe that would have happened 20 years ago, but because we're so distracted, now I have to wonder about the degree to which technology that we're allowing technology to control our lives and create problems that didn't exist.

Well, our brains weren't built for this. Technology, obviously, but maybe if we wait a thousand years, we'll evolve and adapt.

I don't have a thousand years. I don't know about you, I know I don't have that much time left, but doesn't it drive you crazy that it's so hard to focus on one thing for a reasonable period of time?

It's just the human condition. It's the era in which we live.

But we did. But it didn't exist. This problem didn't. Isn't it when you watch a movie from 20 years ago, you think, isn't that nice? People could talk with one another while they're standing in line waiting for coffee and not be immersed in their own little worlds. I know it sounds like, oh, kids.

Look, you know, certainly I'm not going to disagree with you, but I mean, every generation has its things, right? We all have our various burdens and technology is great as it is. There are certainly some costs.

You're right.

No question about it.

So that I think, you know, it may not be as sexy or headline grabbing as.

Okay, then take, take my affair question then, you know, the prototypical Dr. Laura call. What do you do? Can you help us wrestle with that ethical question?

Well, you know, I can, but like I was talking about a little while ago, that the principle based approach, the conundrum based approach to doing ethics, I think has its severe shortcomings. And that's why I think it really does make sense to look more closely at character than at conduct and at character traits rather than principles of ethics. So solving puzzles may be a fun pastime, but it really ends up just being another puzzle to solve. I don't think it gives us the kind of. It's really more for a sprint than a marathon. And if you look at life as a marathon, what's going to get me not just through the day, but through the year and through the rest of my career. That's when I think it really does make sense. More sense to talk about character.

Yep. There are certainly places for that. Bruce, give out your website if you would.

Wait. But you know what though? In fairness to the question that you asked, I will say that if you had to look at any character trait about, you know, which character trait is really the most important a la Dr. Laura, it would have to be honesty. It really, that's the thing that we need.

Okay, so I believe it. I'm gonna attribute this, hopefully not wrongly, to Dr. Laura, but I, you know, I think there's some, some place for this, you know, and it went Something like every. And by the way, I'm not like some big, huge Dr. Laura fan. She was just on the radio all the time before the era of podcasting. Okay. And, you know, listening to KFI in Los Angeles, I would hear her. You know, she said something to the effect of. I believe it was her. Everything that's said should be true, yet not everything that is true needs to be said. Right?

Yes. You know, the place to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is a court of law. But if your friend says, did you like the fruitcake I made you for Christmas? You really have to say, ugh. Oh, my God, I'm using it as a doorstop.

Yeah, right. You don't have to say that. Or, you know, do I look fat in this dress? You know where that's going to lead.

You can say, there's more. More of you to love, honey.

There you go.

That'll work, won't it?

No, it's still honest.

How about the honesty of when you call yourself Dr. Laura? What does that imply, by the way? You're a doctor. Of what?

Yeah, right, right, right. Well, Dr. Phil, I think I've heard is guilty of that. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Selling weight loss products. You know, there is. This is what I wrote my dissertation on, actually. On what it means to be an expert in something. So by calling yourself Dr. Laura, people think, oh, she must have a Ph.D. in psychology. Is that true?

I don't know.

I don't think so. I think it's exercise physiology.

Was her Ph.D. yeah, not exactly.

Professor Irwin Corey, are you a. Are you a person old enough to remember that guy?

No.

I don't know, but some of your listeners will be, I bet. And professor was in quotation marks at least, because. And also, Bruce Springsteen calls his keyboardist Roy Batan professor. You know why he calls him Professor? Because he's the only one of the band who went to college.

Oh, wow.

Well, you know, that's a definition I can live with if Bruce Springsteen says it. I will go with that.

There you go. Very interesting, Bruce. Give out your website, if you would.

It's theethicsguy.com good stuff.

And closing comments. Wrap this all up for us, if you would.

Gosh. Character is the missing link to excellence. And smart job candidates will be placing character front and center in everything they do and say at the job interview and beyond. And smart employers will be looking much more closely at character than they do already.

Excellent advice. Dr. Bruce Weinstein, thank you so much for joining us.

May I just say that Anybody who writes to me and tells me what they think the most important quality of an employee is, I'll send them an audio book. How about that?

Good stuff. Good stuff. Thank you so much, Bruce.

Thank you.

I've never really thought of Jason as subversive, but I just found out that's what Wall street considers him to be. Really?

Now, how is that possible at all?

Simple. Wall street believes that real estate investors are dangerous to their schemes because the dirty truth about income property is that it actually works in real life.

I know.

I mean, how many people do you know, not including insiders who created wealth with stocks, bonds and mutual funds? Those options are for people who only.

Want to pretend they're getting ahead.

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