He knows business leaders sometimes roll their eyes when someone brings up the importance of ethics to their businesses. And he knows that, if asked about their sexual harassment policy, a lot of executives will point to a one- or two-page outline they keep in a file cabinet.
But those managers, he said, are missing the very point of running an ethical business. It means being aware that ethics touches areas vital to a company's success that the law sometimes cannot reach.
''There are many ethical areas where the law is silent,'' says Goodman, who is also an associate professor of medicine at UM and director of the bio-ethics program. ``But ethics require regular discussions of the things that impact a company's reputation, morale and, yes, profitability.''
At a time when ethics -- or really, the lack of ethics -- is on trial in Corporate America, the University of Miami is sponsoring a series of three seminars, beginning Jan. 30, on business ethics.
Among topics Goodman and his colleagues will probe are approaches executives can use to protect their firms from corruption, sexual harassment and other reputation-shattering surprises, and privacy issues.
The first will take place on Jan. 30 with an opening presentation on business ethics and corporate governance by Gregory Swienton, chief executive of Ryder System. It will be followed a week later by a seminar on sexual harassment in the workplace, and a seminar on privacy issues in the new marketplace on Feb. 13.
MANY ATTENDING
Anita Cava, a business law professor and co-director of UM's ethics program, said 100 people from South Florida's business, government and nonprofit communities are expected to attend the seminars, which cost $150 for one and $400 for all three.
These days there's an almost daily outpouring of news on the failings and ethical foibles of top executives.
Just last Wednesday came the news that Andrew Fastow, former Enron chief financial officer, had pleaded guilty to fraudulently manipulating Enron's publicly reported financial results -- misleading investors in the process. He will serve 10 years in prison.
But on a more positive note that same day, the Business Roundtable, an organization comprised of top executives of 150 major corporations with a combined workforce of 10 million and revenues of $3.7 trillion, announced the launch of a new Institute for Corporate Ethics to be housed at the University of Virginia.
''As the ethics officers at our companies, we know setting and maintaining the highest ethical standards starts at the top,'' Hank McKinnell, chairman of the Business Roundtable and chairman and chief executive of Pfizer, said in a statement.
For small companies, the quality and pervasiveness of honorable and ethical perspectives in how they deal with customers, employees and their finances could decide whether the firm grows from small to medium to large, according to Goodman.
ETHICS FIRST
''Size does not matter,'' Goodman said. 'The days are over when a manager could say, `ethics would be swell if we could afford it.' Today, cheaters lose, and ethics is good business.''
David Batstone, author of Saving The Corporate Soul, said he has found that good ethics can lead to good business.
Over the past two years, he has looked at 100 companies and covered 50 of them in his book. In his research, he found that executives who design corporate policy that takes into account the interests of their employees and clients find new ways to build trust.
He said Timberland, the New Hampshire-based boot maker with $1.2 billion in revenue in 2003, is a good example.
It built an ethical ethos through the care of its companies, as well as giving its employees six-month leaves to volunteer.
''The CEO Jeffrey Swartz told me employees valued being part of a company that values their lives outside the company,'' he said. 'And Timberland did research to show how employees' community activity translated back to leads and contributed to the company's business.''
TOTAL TRANSPARENCY
He cited a small Texas firm's use of total transparency as a management tool to bond new employees with the company from the ground up.
A company called Spinnaker, a gas and oil exploration firm out of Houston, proved that even startups can have a soul, he said.
The two founders, it turns out, left Enron in 1995 because they said they were ''disgusted'' by the lack of integrity in Enron's business, according to Batstone.
To make his company's practices less mysterious to the staff, Chief Executive Jim Alexander had weekly meetings with employees and laid out the company's recent accounting news for everyone to see. He showed everyone the firm's revenue and expenses, and he shared ideas on potential acquisitions and other growth strategies.
''He admitted he was afraid of potential leaks,'' Batstone said. ``But he decided that creating a spirit of partnership was worth risking the spilling of company secrets.''
COMMUNICATION VITAL
Constant communication with employees and keeping policies against cheating and sexual harassment, as well as the right to privacy, very visible and accessible are cornerstones to building an ethical business, Cava said.
The Miami native handled national discrimination cases and commercial and consumer litigation when she practiced law in Washington, D.C., and Miami.
''There's real value for companies to learn how and where to find people who could help train them in the necessary protection from sexual harassment and other charges that could harm their reputations,'' she said.
