An Ethical Dilemma: Cracking the Moral Code for Speakers and Trainers

Facilitator: Tina Altieri

Reviewed by Sarah Schubert

Tina kicked off what promised to be a night of learning, discussion, debate and interest. Having just watched Sharon, Bob and Kenneth share their ice-breakers, Tina asked the group whether we would now want to use them? A few people put their hands up because they were great ice breakers, but the question of the night about whether it would be ethical to use them, made us all think again. And so the night began....

We were already in our table teams, and the person sat on the chair with an orange sticky note underneath was considered the most intelligent person on the table and therefore the Leader! Our first activity as a table was to decide the 'Top 5 Ethical Dilemmas' we faced and highlight our priority. These were collected from each table and the dilemmas that had been mentioned the most were the topics of the evening.

The first topic we discussed as a large group was, "Who Are You?". Do you give yourself the title, "Asia's Best Speaker" or "Singapore's Top...." If so, how do you justify these claims? After 10 minutes of discussion, the tables regrouped to share their thoughts. The first table mentioned the 'creep' you find on people's CVs where people mention they have worked across Asia, when in fact they have only worked in Singapore. Another table talked about situations where people introduce you as "Asia's Best...." when you don't even call yourself that. It can be embarrassing and if it's an introduction to a keynote speech you are about to make, it can negatively influence the audience. If someone of notoriety calls you "the best" then that is OK as long as you attribute it to that person. One table did make the important point about recognising the need for speakers to 'blow their own trumpets' as it can be a lonely and long road. Ultimately though, you need to be able to back up what you call yourself and it also depends on where you are in your journey – once you're an equivalent to Ron Kaufman for example, you can call yourself what you want because you would have ultimately earned it.

The rest of the topics were split among the tables for discussion followed by some group debate One interesting discussion was Referral Fees - how and when they should be offered/paid. This provoked quite differing views around the room. Some people felt they would only pass on work if a referral fee was paid and others disagreed with the idea of a referral fee, and felt work should be referred because of a person's ability to fill a client's need rather than their ability to pay a fee. Ultimately, it's about being clear up front whether you are willing or expecting a referral fee and it is a business decision, not our association's decision whether these should apply.

Racial profiling was discussed, whether it was OK for a client to be specific about the type of speaker they needed i.e. Asian or Singaporean or saying not Caucasian. Again this provided some healthy debate with people feeling that race or ethnicity should not be viewed as a competence, just as being male or female is not a competency and that is was wrong for clients to do this. Others felt it was a commercial reality that clients would want a particular type of speaker for their event and that it was OK, as long as this was clear from the beginning to avoid people applying for jobs they were obviously not going to get, based on their race or ethnicity

Providing testimonials on LinkedIn was an interesting topic in which the ethical dilemma is on the part of the person asking for the recommendation and making sure they are asking the right people i.e. people they have worked with, not just their friends. We need to make sure we're not putting our fellow speakers 'on the spot' by asking for a recommendation just based on the fact that we're all in APSS.

Another issue discussed was Pricing Integrity. It was felt that the difference in price was more due to difference in value and the need to differentiate from competition. It becomes an ethical issue if you know what someone else is charging and then undercut them, but it also means the client is unethical for sharing those details. Ultimately, it's a business decision - do you want to differentiate on price or value of offering?

Copyright Infringement was the last topic of the evening, and very interesting as some of the team shared their personal experience of this. There was one example where someone's course had been copied and presented in a different country without their knowledge. They followed due legal process to resolve it but it can be costly and lengthy. There are other situations that may not be quite so obvious or easy to deal with and sometimes you just have to let these go, as you cannot manage everything. Ultimately as speakers, we need to protect our work and be vigilant but also realise that with the Internet and the easy access to information nowadays, you won't always know who is accessing and using your material. We also need to maintain our own integrity and if through our research we come across other people's work, we must give it due credit and follow any process required to allow us to reproduce it.

Conclusion

This was a first-ever Ethical discussion for APSS and it was a roaring success! We learnt some valuable lessons about different ethical dilemmas and received a lot of food for thought. Kudos goes to Tina Altieri for expertly facilitating the evening – many comments were received about her professionalism and expert facilitation skills. A truly inspiring and thought-provoking event!