Optus has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, and it’s not the first time, either.
A recent 13-hour outage of the triple-0 network led to loss of life. Separately, Optus agreed to pay a $100 million penalty for violating Australian consumer law due to ‘inappropriate sales practices.’
There’s a deeper issue at play, beyond just culture and governance, that won’t simply be resolved by the departure of the top executive. And it’s not just Optus. It would appear that many organisations have either forgotten or simply abandoned their purpose, focusing instead on the bottom line and pleasing shareholders.
Ethics should be more than just a corporate buzzword; it needs to be reflected in the principles and values upheld by everyone in the organisation. While one can learn what ethics is, and even come up with ethical principles and values, the reality is that one’s ethics are a byproduct of something deeper within. Jesus’ teachings, God’s Word as a whole, are the source of my ethics. It is what I anchor myself on. For example, I will work hard for my clients because that’s what Jesus calls me to do, not just because we have a contract. I won’t cheat my clients financially because God teaches me not to steal, not just because it’s a crime. You get the idea. I believe that without such a deep foundation, surface level ethics will only take corporations and individuals so far.
Any business could find itself in Optus’s position, so I caution against thinking, ‘We’re not like them.’ Instead, every business, including Optus, should humbly evaluate itself, take proactive steps to stay on course, and guard against greed. It begins with asking, ‘What is the source of our ethics?’