Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 63

The golden cone of silence

In mid-December, my wife and I stopped by a farm stand and garden center in Eastern Massachusetts. We were on our way home and intended to buy some food.
The food section of the market is indoors. There's a large outdoor area that in the summer features plants and in the winter features wreaths and other holiday decorations.
After we purchased our food and headed outdoors to our car, we noticed the evergreen kissing balls that were hanging outdoors near the parking lot. We decided to purchase one of the kissing balls to hang by our front door.
As we were choosing a kissing ball, my wife noticed some loose sprigs of evergreen on the ground along with a loose lone pine cone. She decided it would be OK to scoop up the loose sprigs as well as the pine cone. I didn't think this was OK. The pine cone was, as my wife pointed out, very close to being in the parking lot rather than the outdoor farm stand area. I pointed out that because the pine cone was spray painted gold that it had clearly dropped from a decoration rather than a tree. She remained convinced it was fair game.
I went inside to pay for the kissing ball while my wife took our previous purchases plus her newfound spoils to the car.
When I returned, I noticed a gold pine cone sitting on the ground not far from our car. I opened the car's back hatch, placed the kissing ball safely inside, and then got into the car.
We drove home without incident. But when we pulled up to the house, my wife looked quickly on the floor in front of the passenger seat.
"Where'd my pine cone go?" she asked. It was nowhere to be found.
She was disappointed, but I reminded her that I didn't think it was "her" pine cone in the first place. She disagreed, repeating the argument that it had fallen very near, if not in, the parking lot near where our car was parked.
"Oh well," she responded.
As we walked around the house toward the front door, I pointed out that I hadn't told her that I saw the pine cone lying on the ground as I walked back to the car.
With holidays approaching and company in high supply, our conversation with friends and relatives at some point centered around who was right about the appropriateness of taking the fallen pine cone. There was little consensus on that issue, but clear consensus that I was wrong not to have told my wife I saw the pine cone lying on the ground after she thought she had taken it.
They were right. The right thing would have been for me to have told her that the pine cone was lying on the ground. That would have given her the opportunity to decide whether to take the thing, as I thought she should not, or just leave it there. By concealing that information from her, I never gave her the opportunity to make that decision.
We may disagree with the choices others make and we can challenge those choices. But there's no high ground in withholding information to keep others from making their own choice about right and wrong. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

A new year and a look back at what got your attention

Over the past year, the topics I have written about that readers responded to most are those that involve day-to-day ethical situations. Four topics seemed to generate the most discussion, the ones involving comparison shopping apps, library book sales, a returned circular saw, and astolen cellphone.
Readers continued to take me to task for arguing that using price comparison apps in brick-and-mortar stores to determine if a better price for a product could be found was perfectly acceptable. The "stores have the huge expenses of knowledgeable sales reps to help the customer," wrote one reader. "That this common practice is unethical won't stop it, but just because many people do it doesn't make it right."
I still maintain that the choice should be the customers of whether to wait to receive a product ordered online at a better price or to buy it from the store right away. It may feel good to support local commerce and I often do, but there is no ethical obligation to do so.
I wrote about organizers of a library book sale who let an online bookseller pay to have first crack at the books, then volunteers at the book sale, then those who pay an annual fee, and only then the general public. I commented it sounded like it had "the makings of a lousy book sale for the general public."
One book sale chair wrote to take issue with my statement that the sale to the public sounds like a "lousy deal." He pointed out that his sale has a relationship with an online dealer who splits any proceeds with the organization that runs the book sale. He also believes that volunteers who put in many unpaid hours aren't cheating anyone if they are permitted to buy a book in advance of the general public.
As I wrote, the organizers have the right to run their sales any way they want as long as the rules are transparent to the general public.
Many people agreed that it was perfectly acceptable for me to return a circular saw I had purchased to cut some wood for cash credit after the saw stopped working, but when I was close to being finished cutting what I needed to cut. A 40-year carpenter named David, however, wrote me a handwritten note to indicate that the saw didn't break, but that I had burned out the motor by not knowing how to use the saw correctly. "Pay the man," he wrote.
The column that seemed to generate the most attentionfrom readers, however, was the one about how my wife's cellphone service provider reacted after her cellphone was stolen -- first not permitting her to upgrade her phone since she was a couple of weeks short of eligibility and then offering to do so when a different customer service representative got involved. One reader summed up the sentiments of many when he wrote that both reps had done the right thing: "the first by toeing the line, and the second to breaking it in the name of customer service."
As we enter a new year, I hope that you continue to send me your questions and stories that help me think long and hard about the right thing. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Top 10 “The Right Thing” posts of 2013

Here are the top 10 “The Right Thing” posts of 2013, starting with the most viewed post of the year. Each is linked to the original article, but a short reminder of the post’s topic appears here.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  

(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Honestly inspecting a few good men

For 48 years, a reader from the Midwest writes that he has been suffering over a choice he made during his military service as a U.S. Marine.
In 1965, after his first tour in Vietnam, he was posted to a base in the United States. His commanding officer (CO) was a World War II veteran and a lieutenant colonel hoping to be promoted to full colonel before his impending retirement.
My reader was assigned to train instructors in general military subjects. These instructors were tasked with training junior Marines how to service and repair airplanes and helicopters.
After they received notice of the annual inspection by the Inspector General (IG), the CO instructed my reader to prepare the command for the IG's visit. The inspection would include separate but concurrent inspections -- obstacle course, uniforms and equipment, and a general military subjects written exam. My reader was to divide the command into three groups. Because he had already conducted similar inspections as part of his regular duties, he knew who was capable of what.
It crossed his mind to rig the inspection by assigning "the jocks to the obstacle course, nerds to the written exam and pretty boys to uniform and equipment." He could also make sure that anyone not falling into one of those categories would take leave that day.

"I rejected this on the basis of an ethical choice, in short, that this would not result in an accurate picture of the command thus defeating (what I assumed to be) the inspection's purpose," he writes. "Therefore, I chose to divide the command on a random basis." 

After the IG's inspection they met in the CO's office for a review. They'd scored 92 percent overall which my reader thought was pretty good. But the IG's team blasted them because their 92 percent was considerably below that of other similar units. In a later conversation with a member of the IG's team my reader mentioned that they could have scored higher had he rigged the category-selections. Without blinking, he replied, "Of course, we know that."

My reader writes that he has no problem taking responsibility for his own ethical choices. But he has long suffered because the responsibility for his ethical choice "fell upon the shoulders of my CO." My reader was later transferred while his CO was still a lieutenant colonel.
"I never found out whether he was promoted before retirement or whether the poor inspection may have affected his chances of promotion," my reader writes. "As you might infer, it bothers me to this day."
My reader chose to do the right thing. While his CO may have taken responsibility for his command not doing quite as well as others, the inspection truly reflected the readiness of the Marines in all areas rather than having been rigged to come off better than reality. If there was a competing loyalty to the CO and to having the inspection accurately reflect how capable his Marines were, my reader made the right choice. He carried out his orders without deception.
If the member of the IG's team knew that others were "rigging" the results, the right thing would have been for him to call them on it rather than chastise one of the commands that chose to show integrity by providing an honest assessment of his Marine's capabilities. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School .
 Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Does my new job mean I've sold out?

A reader from the Northeast recently started working for an investment bank that specializes in helping companies to establish employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). ESOPs are often used as a way for companies to give employees an ownership stake in the company for which they work.
My reader was not trained as an investment banker, but rather as a social worker.
"I am always stumped when former colleagues ask me what I am doing these days," he writes. When he tells them he works for an investment bank, they often tell him that they think he's "sold out."
But my reader believes that there is a direct correlation between his training and work as a social worker and the current work in which he is engaged.
"Because ESOPs are all about employing workers as capitalists and giving them a slice of the pie too," he writes, he is "fairly confident that I am still pursuing a kind of social work ... just in a different field."
He wants to know what I think. "Is employee ownership the most ethical business strategy?" he asks. "Can I legitimately call myself a 'financial social worker'?"
While engaging employees in a company and providing them with the opportunity to share in the fortunes of a successful enterprise can be a great way to create an empowered and motivated workforce, is it the "most" ethical business strategy? It would be challenging to grant it that honor. Others might argue that creating a workforce where owners teach employees to understand the finances of a company and share that information freely with them creates an even more engaged workforce. Are each ethical? Sure. Does either always ensure ethical behavior among bosses and employees? No.
What my reader really seems after is a way to justify his early calling as a social worker with the work he does now. That seems clear from his question about legitimately calling himself a "financial social worker." He, like anyone else, can call himself whatever he likes, but it's hard to imagine the title bears much weight if no one knows what it means.
If my reader is looking for affirmation of what he does now, then the right thing is for him to ask himself if his current work aligns with his personal values. Does he find himself motivated to do good work? Does he believe that the mission of his company is one he can support? Do his bosses refrain from asking employees to do things that are ethically questionable? Are his colleagues honest and dedicated to working in the best interests of the company's customers?
These strike me as more important questions to be asking if my reader wants to get a sense of whether his position at the investment bank aligns with his own values. Focusing on whether he can be called something that incorporates a profession he was once called to partly to allay concerns of former colleagues that he might have "sold out" does not seem as important as devoting himself to doing good honest work that is in the best interests of his customers, his colleagues, his company and himself. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Doing right when no one is looking

Several weeks ago, I wrote about professional baseball player Shane Victorino leaving his wallet on a chartered plane when he was traveling with the Boston Red Sox. Someone in Paris found the wallet and returned it. Victorino was asked if he was surprised his wallet had been returned. "There's honest, trustworthy people in this world," he responded.
I asked readers to send me their stories of a particularly proud moment when they chose to do the right thing, even when it wasn't required.
In many cases, readers recounted how others were surprised or curious about why they would bother to make things right.
M.W. from Boston remembers the time in the seventh grade she found 35 cents on the school's floor, the exact amount that a school lunch cost in those days. She turned it in to the vice principal. "What I remember most," she wrote, was how with his tone and attitude he thought this was a "very funny thing for a student to do. He clearly thought I should've just kept the money."
K.L. from Lewis Center, Ohio, had a similar response from her college professor when she pointed out to him that he had given her credit for an answer on an exam that she realized she had gotten wrong. "You have just lost your B for a C, why?" he asked her. She told him that if he had marked something wrong that was correct she would have sought credit. His only comment, she recalls, was that she was "crazy."
 Another reader was one of many who recalled finding themselves in situations where someone else needed a helping hand.
S.B., who was living in Michigan at the time, was on her way with her husband to vacation. After filling their car with gas, S.B. went in to pay the bill while her husband cleaned their car windows. Inside a clerk was berating a customer who was short of cash to pay his bill. When the clerk turned to her to take her credit card, she instructed him to put the cost of the other customer's gas on her card as well. She returned to her car and drove off.
And finally, there were many readers who made a choice that initially was painful but ultimately turned out well.
T.S. was at a London Monarch baseball game in Ontario with his 8-year-old son. A foul ball was hit into the crowd. It bounced and landed right in T.S.'s hands. His son was thrilled when T.S. handed him the ball, but they heard a little girl crying and realized that the ball had bounced off of her foot. His son asked his father to give the ball to the girl.
"I gave him a hug and told him that was a really nice thing to do," writes T.S.
Another fan told an usher what had happened. The usher retrieved another ball from the dugout and presented it to T.S.' son. "This helped enforce the theory of do the right thing and good things will happen."
As evidenced from the many stories sent in by readers, sometimes good things happen in return for doing the right thing and sometimes they don't. But the vast majority of readers concurred that regardless of the response they receive they would choose to do the right thing all over again if faced with a similar choice. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is my business idea half baked?

A reader in Southern California thinks she may be running afoul of her state's laws.
She's a cake decorator who has made cakes for friends' parties. She reports that her cakes receive many accolades of "Ooooos! and Ahhhhs!" as well as requests for her business card and encouragement to start a business selling her cakes.
"I've actually done two orders for pay," she writes. "I would love to do this on a regular basis to earn extra money, as well as to test the waters to see if I could develop a customer base to start an actual business."
But she's concerned that she might be running afoul of state laws if she starts a business baking in her home rather than renting space in a commercial kitchen. She figures she'd be making one or two birthday cakes a month and even renting a small facility for three hours to complete each cake would cost far more than any profits she could bring in.
"I would be doomed to fail if I were to go all out and start a bakery with no faithful customer base," she writes.
Yet, she knows from talking to others and reading articles on other businesses that have started in this field that most of the people started out "right where you're not supposed to: in their kitchen." Should she follow suit, even if she thinks she might be violating state law?
Regardless of what others have said they have done to get their businesses started or what articles she may have read about storied bakery startups, my reader should not do anything if she knows it will run afoul of state regulations.
My reader should thoroughly research what's required to start a for-profit bakery in her area of the country and to comply with those regulations. Assuming that it's OK to operate in a particular way simply because others have claimed to have done so is foolhardy. Any penalties incurred for doing something that is in violation of state or local regulations could far outweigh the cost of renting a commercial kitchen for a couple of hours if that's what's required.
But from a business perspective, my reader should closely analyze all costs and thoroughly explore whether what her friends are telling her is required to run the business is indeed true.
As it turns out, while California regulations might once have restricted operating food businesses out of home kitchens that changed in 2012 with the passage of the California Homemade Food Act -- AB 1616, which deals with "cottage food operations." For-profit bakers can operate out of their home kitchens as long as they register their business and comply with the specifics of the bill -- none of which are onerous for a baker like my reader. The new state law became effective on January 1, 2013.
The right thing for all new business owners is to research the laws and regulations affecting the type of business they want to start and to comply with those laws and regulations. If they can't afford to do so, then they should not deliberately try to circumvent the rules so they can more cheaply start their businesses. My reader is permitted to operate out of her home kitchen, as long as she complies with the new state law. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net 
(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Who pays when the trip doesn't happen?

A reader in Northern California was looking forward to her birthday. Her daughter had invited her and a lifelong friend to celebrate the event in a vacation home the daughter owned in Costa Rica.
Since the reader's daughter rents out the Costa Rica house to others, she blocked out the specific time that her mother and her friend would be visiting. The reader and her friend purchased their airline tickets well in advance. Her daughter made arrangements so the two of them could go on several excursions and take a trip to the capital city of San Jose.
The planning continued and the anticipation grew.
But then, the reader's friend received disturbing news from her granddaughter. A friend of the granddaughter had apparently gone to Costa Rica, gotten sick, and subsequently died.
The reader still didn't see any reason that that should alter their travel plans. But, she writes that her friend "panicked and canceled her participation."
When the reader's daughter learned that her mother's friend was no longer planning to travel to Costa Rica, the daughter canceled the time she had blocked out for them in her vacation house. The reader says her daughter did this because the lifelong friend's "presence was more or less a birthday gift for me."
Now, the reader is faced with what she sees as a problem. Since her daughter canceled the trip and she has nowhere to stay, there's not much sense in keeping her flight to Costa Rica or the excursion bookings her daughter had made.
She writes that her friend "has been very hostile" since she decided to cancel the trip. The reader's assessment is that her friend's hostility "is the only way she can deal with her guilt."
"Should my friend be responsible for our cancellation fees?" the reader asks.
The reader's friend's behavior might have as much to do with sharing her granddaughter's grief over the loss of a friend as it does with guilt over bailing out on the Costa Rica birthday trip. Still, the friend should be responsible for any cancellation fees she incurred for her portion of the trip.
It doesn't seem right to hold the friend responsible for the reader's cancellation fees any more than it does to hold the reader's daughter responsible since she after all is the one who decided not to keep the Costa Rica house available for the appointed time.
The reader may portray her friend's response to news of her granddaughter's friend's death as "panicked," but if that event caused her to rethink her desire to make the trip then it's her prerogative to do so, regardless of how inconvenient it makes things.
The right thing is for each of them to pay for their own expenses incurred as a result of the decision not to go to Costa Rica, just as they would have paid their own expenses had they gone. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Cellphones and movie theaters shouldn't mix

Late last August, I was visiting my son in Richmond. He and I took in a late-night showing of the latest X-Men movie, "The Wolverine." Throughout the film the glow of cellphone screens lit up the theater.
It's a common experience, but one that isn't limited to lighter fare mostly attended by young adults. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I experienced a similar cellphone glow during a showing of "12 Years a Slave," a more serious movie attended by a much older crowd.
It's rude to use a cellphone during the showing of a movie. It's disturbing to the other attendees. But rarely do ushers enforce the policy laid out clearly by the trailers that precede a movie.
Are other viewers responsible for saying something to those who use their cellphone for texting or tweeting or checking their email during the showing of a movie? It used to be that a well-placed glare at someone who was talking too loudly might do the trick, but with a head buried in a cellphone screen, such glares can go unnoticed.
There is, of course, the concern that confronting a cellphone user might itself be more of a disruption to the rest of the viewers than the glow of the cellphone itself.
So what's the right thing to do?
There's a practice among some friends having dinner out to put all their cellphones in the middle of the table at the beginning of the meal. Whoever grabs his or her cellphone first picks up the bill for everyone's meal. While it would be a nice practice, it's unlikely that theater cellphone users would pick up the tab for everyone else's theater ticket if they choose to be rude and use their phones during the feature.
I believe it's the movie theater's responsibility to try to enforce its policy of no cellphone use during movies. It would also be good to think that telling an usher or manager that there is excessive use of cellphones during a showing would result in some action. But since these cellphone glows can be intermittent, it's unlikely that a manager would return in time to confront the perpetrator.
While viewers might be reluctant to say anything to the users, I believe it is the right thing to do, as long as they don't perceive that doing so would result in any harmful confrontation. The disruption caused by asking someone to stop using their phone during a film is momentary compared to the cellphone glow that comes regularly without warning.
If theater management is unwilling to enforce its own policy against cellphone use during the feature, then I believe the right thing is to give viewers a choice to see a movie in a theater where cellphone signals are blocked. If they won't enforce a policy to guarantee the enjoyment of a movie, then they should invest in the technology in their theaters that will do this for them.
That would leave the choice among the viewers of whether to separate themselves from cellphone use for two hours or not. Short of this, movie theaters might increasingly find themselves with fewer patrons willing to shell out money to be among rude patrons. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should you tip lousy waiters?

What do you leave for a tip if you receive lousy service at a restaurant?
It's a question many of us have faced at one time or another. If the tip is supposed to recognize good service, then is it OK to leave no tip when the service is abysmal?
A reader from Massachusetts writes that he and his wife took their granddaughter to an Italian restaurant last month.
"It took 40 minutes to get her chicken nuggets," he writes. "I had to ask twice for water, for Parmesan cheese and for napkins."
When it became clear that good service was not forthcoming, the reader had "a little conversation" with the manager. The manager told him that the restaurant would eat the cost of his family's meal.
But the reader was still steaming about the lousy service even after the manager foot the bill. Nevertheless, he writes that he still gave the waitress a $7 tip, which he indicates would probably have been a 10 percent tip on the total cost of the meal.
"I usually tip 20 percent," he says. "What should I have done?"
Everyone has a bad day. Restaurant servers can certainly find themselves falling victim to a slow kitchen or surly patrons at other tables or they may simply be off their game for the night. Some understanding is always a good thing.
Talking to the server first about the service early on is one route to take. When that doesn't work, then talking to a manager, as my reader did, is a good next step.
Still, if a gratuity is supposed to represent good service, why should a restaurant server expect to get a good tip if he or she delivered consistently bad service throughout the meal?
If the goal of my reader was to leave a message to the server that the service was terrible, then leaving nothing would have been risky. The server might not know if it was deliberate or if my reader simply forgot to leave a tip. Leaving 10 percent, however, might just suggest to the server that he's on the stingy side.
A better solution that's been offered by some waiters and waitresses is to leave a tip that is small enough that it says to the server in no uncertain terms that the service was abysmal. Would $1 send that message? A penny? That depends on how much the meal would have cost.
But if that practice is to be employed on the rare occasion when poor service is received, then it seems only fair to enact a similar policy when truly exceptional service is received. In such instances, rather than his typical 20 percent, my reader might want to go a buck or two or percentage or so higher to send a clear message about that kind of service.
The right thing is to do as my reader did and try to talk to the server first and then the boss. If he wanted to send a message to the server about the truly awful service he believes he received, the right thing would have been to send that message more clearly. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School .
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .
 (c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.