The Next Next Common Sense
A consumer products company implementing this principle devel- oped a “systems impact assessment” process that evaluated potential ini- tiatives based on their effects across the entire value chain—from raw material extraction to end-of-life disposal. This assessment considered en- vironmental impacts, labor conditions, community effects, and potential unintended consequences, enabling more responsible decision-making. Anticipatory Ethics: Rather than reacting to ethical issues after they emerge, coherent organizations anticipate ethical implications of new technologies, business models, and practices. They build ethical consid- eration into design processes rather than treating it as an afterthought. A technology company developing artificial intelligence applications created an “ethics by design” process that integrated ethical assessment throughout the development cycle. Teams considered potential biases, privacy implications, displacement effects, and unintended consequences from the earliest stages of design, enabling them to address ethical con- cerns proactively rather than reactively. Ethical Capability Development: Coherent organizations invest in developing ethical capabilities throughout their workforce, recognizing that in complex environments, ethical navigation often happens in the moment rather than through centralized oversight. A financial services firm implementing this approach redesigned its ethics training to focus on developing judgment capabilities rather than rule compliance. Using case-based learning and ethical simulations, they helped employees develop skills for identifying ethical dimensions of complex situations, considering diverse perspectives, and making princi- pled decisions even when no clear rules applied. Transparency and Accountability: Complex systems often obscure accountability through diffuse causality and indirect effects. Coherent organizations create transparency about their actions and establish clear accountability even when impacts are distributed across complex systems. A multinational corporation implemented this principle by developing transparent reporting on the environmental and social impacts of its oper- ations across its global supply chain. Rather than limiting responsibility
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