Presenting aspirational honesty

- Former US President, John F. Kennedy said, "I'm interested in two things. I'm interested in truth, and I'm interested in fairness." PMI's aspirational level of honesty involves pursuing truth beyond what you currently know. Let's discuss techniques to expand the truth you understand about yourself and your project. The PMI aspirational standards for honesty are seek to understand the truth, provide accurate information in a timely manner, and be truthful in your communications and conduct. Some actions that demonstrate honesty ethical behavior include ensuring information presented as accurate, reliable, and timely. Courageously sharing bad news even when it may be poorly received. Avoid taking credit for others' achievements, and avoid burying information or shifting blame to others when outcomes are negative. Let's apply Chad's scenario to the aspirational standards for honesty. Remember, Chad is seeking to justify a project and he has a report that could help. However, that report contains confidential personal information and Chad has doubts about whether the report should even been shared with him. Chad could well decide to not use the report to justify the project as the information is too sensitive to share and he wasn't supposed to see the personal information. While ultimately it might mean the project isn't approved, it could well be the right thing, both honest and truthful, to the protection of confidential information. Chad will have to be prepared for the project to not be approved. Chad should not get frustrated and blame others for this decision. By blaming others, Chad would not be demonstrating aspirational honesty. An appropriate response would be to thank those that helped him put the business case together and suggest they try again when they have more information to justify the project. Alternatively, Chad could share with management that he'd seen confidential personal information that would've strengthened his position to justify the project. He can reflect honesty by sharing that he didn't feel comfortable including the highly sensitive data as he was not able to verify the data and it was labeled confidential. Chad can confirm his belief that the project is necessary and would benefit the company. Sharing that this information existed could trigger one of the project's steering committee members to pursue project justification. Ethically, Chad can make a decision himself. He could also defer the decision to the steering committee. Passing an ethical quandary to someone else isn't always the high road to take however. If Chad's corporate rules dictate that the report shouldn't be used to justify the project, then he should ignore the report. That would be, as John F. Kennedy said, "the fair and truthful alternative." One final note, as a means of reviewing all of PMI's aspirational ethical values, I've included an aspirational ethics checklist in the exercise files.