Ethics and knowledgework: Do younger staff need a lesson on the Golden Rule?

This fall, I gave a talk at Tucson Startup Drinks on the need for legal formalities in small businesses. Those who own a business (i.e., incorporated, with employees and real obligations) knew exactly where I was coming from. Those who are currently employees had a different take - in my view, because they have never faced the painful and costly experience of having an employee or contractual agreement go bad, with all the attendant drama and chaos.

Recently, our good friends at Company A were compelled to terminate four employees who were conspiring - on company time and equipment - to start a competing firm.

Employees 1, 2, 3, and 4 are talented people. I liked them. They're also very young, and arguably got their start at Company A.

That start - and the visibility they began to acquire in a professional realm - was provided by Company A, whose president and owner has invested years of the sort of hard work that only other business owners understand. Taking risks, paying taxes, footing legal services, rent, insurance, and all the myriad not-fun chores that go into running a business.

The necessary termination of Employees 1, 2, 3, and 4 left Company A in the lurch during production of a very large project. (To its credit, Company A's remaining loyal staffers pitched in and made sure the project delivered successfully.)

Employees 1, 2, 3, and 4 immediately started Company B. As a parting shot, one of them posted a tweet slamming his ex-employer's blog with a link to a porn site.

Company B is now gleefully pursuing business, making nice to those who don't know the sordid details.

Interface Guru will never recommend Company B, no matter how good its future work may be, because they broke rule one: Do no harm.

Legal contracts and agreements - such as noncompetes and non-disclosure agreements - must be executed and enforced. But they are only as good as the ethics of those who sign them.

More seasoned employees are less likely to engage in this sort of nonsense because they know better. Enlightened self-interest, at a minimum, keeps more mature workers from burning bridges. Younger staff may feel immune. In time they will learn that, as that great philosopher Justin Timberlake would say, "what goes around comes back around."

This story could have had a happy ending. The future employees of Company B could have respected their employer - and themselves - enough to depart on good terms. They could have built on that relationship into the future.

Instead, they have insulted and damaged the company that gave them their start. And they've proen that they don't understand the sort of relationships that are the heart of sustainable, long-term businesses.

If Employees 1, 2, 3, and 4 were willing to deceive their employer, then start a competing business, how will they treat their clients? We're not about to let any of our clients, who we value for more than just the value of a contract, find out.

My advice to Company B: Apologize. And resolve to act ethically from now on. Else, one day you may well find the shoe on the other foot.

Life is full of hit-and-run types who seem successful. They may make money, but their consciences - if they have them - will never be clear. And at some point, everyone will know about the bodies they buried.

Ethics may not mean anything to some people, but they means the world to me, and to the good people that work for and with me.