Decision Making - 4
Professional Ethics and Decision-Making Scenarios
Questions
You are heading a cyber forensic team in a government department. In an order passed by your immediate supervisory officer, three of your team members have been recommended for foreign training of two weeks, but your name has not been considered, although you had mooted the proposal for this training programme. You suspect that it is deliberate on part of your boss with whom you had differences of opinion on another project. As a first point of action you would
- Write a formal complaint against your boss alleging favouritism and vendetta
- Seek audience from your boss’s superiors and bring this injustice to their knowledge
- Speak to your boss requesting him to reconsider his decision because, being the head of the team, it is appropriate that you go for training in the first round
- Speak to some of your political contacts to pressurise your boss to include your name
You are an Under Secretary in a Ministry. One day the Director (your boss) calls you and assigns you a file which is to be read and fully prepared with a Power-Point presentation for a meeting with the Secretary next day. The issue and meeting are very important, but as per the work assignment it should be handled by your colleague (another Under Secretary) who somehow manages to escape from shouldering such challenging jobs.
What should be your reaction in front of your boss?
- Accept the file and assignment willingly and immerse yourself in the work.
- Politely refuse to take the file.
- Accept the file, but then speak to your boss’s superior officer and let him know that your boss is being unfair.
- Accept the file, but clearly tell your boss that it is last time that you are handling your colleague’s work.
You are an Under Secretary in a Ministry. Your immediate subordinate, a Section Officer, who was posted there a month back, has started to come late to the office. He has held with him important files for inordinately long durations and has starting disobeying your directions. You have come to know from other officials that he was unhappy with the posting in the present division as there is no public dealing in it. You would
- try to counsel him to change his behaviour
- write a strong note recommending his transfer to another division on grounds of being inefficient as your division handles very important work
- report his misdoings to you superior and seek his direction in writing
- give a final warning to mend his ways failing which you would initiate disciplinary proceedings and take action against him as per rules
Mr. A who is a civil contractor is a close relative of yours who has helped you on numerous occasions. He has applied for a public contract for the construction of a flyover. The tenders for the contract are to be examined by a committee in which you are also a member. You are not aware that Mr. A has applied for the contract till the day the name of the applicants was put before the committee. The tender is to be evaluated after a week. In such a situation you would
- try to influence the other member of committee so that contract gets awarded to Mr. A. This way you would repay Mr. A for all his favours
- inform the chairman of the committee about your close relationship with Mr. A and ask him to appoint some other person in your place in the committee. In this way there would be no charges of favouritism against you in case Mr. A eventually gets the contract
- ask Mr. A to withdraw his tender lest somebody accuses you of favouritism
- take no action and not inform the chairman or anybody about your relationship with Mr. A. Let the contract be awarded on merit
You are a new employee at a manufacturing unit of an MNC. You have got this job with great difficulty as nearly 50 candidates had appeared for the job interview.
You find that some of the manufacturing processes in the unit are in gross violation of environmental norms and cause severe ground water depletion. If the company does not adopt such measures, then its manufacturing cost would go up and the unit might have to be shut down. You would
- quit your job in protest against violation of environmental laws
- request the management to change the manufacturing process to environmental law compliant one
- collect evidence and write to the Pollution Control Board despite knowing that this may lead to closure of the unit and you yourself losing your job
- let things continue as they are, as checking pollution is the job of the Pollution Control Board
Your have been appointed the Divisional Railway Manager of Mughalsarai Division of the Indian Railways. You are the administrative head of over 75 officers and 2000 staff of 10 different departments. You observe that there is a silent under-current of hostility between the five departments which are directly engaged in train operations. The officers of one department try to outsmart, find fault in and do not co-operate with officers of other departments. Which of the following measures would you consider most appropriate for amending this situation?
- Call a meeting of all officers and hint that lack of cooperation is adversely affecting the Division’s performance and hope that officers would be wise enough to understand what you are saying
- Confront the officers directly and ask them to fully co-operate with each other failing which you would transfer them out of headquarters
- Appoint a committee of officers to suggest ways to mend the situation
- Encourage personal and social interaction among officers by means of sports, games, cultural activities, one to one meetings and other team building exercises
You go to a movie theatre with your family to watch a movie for which you had been waiting for weeks. The person selling the tickets asks for double the printed price of tickets as only a few tickets are left. You would
- threaten to report the matter to the theatre administration unless he gives ticket to you at the regular price
- go back without watching the movie
- take the tickets at double the price and enjoy the movie. In any case, going back and coming another day would cost you more besides being a waste of time
- not purchase the ticket and report the matter to theatre manager/administration
You are in a hurry to reach your office and jump a traffic light when it is red. The traffic policeman stops you and asks you to pay a fine (challan) of Rs. 500. You would
- intimate the policeman that you are a senior government servant and you were in a hurry to go to the office to attend an urgent meeting and therefore, be excused
- call a friend in the police department and ask him to request the policeman to spare you
- try to argue that the light was yellow when you crossed it and save yourself from the fine, although you know that the light had turned red
- pay the fine
You are a government servant living in a government house. You have made several complaints to the government civic agency (CPWD, which is entrusted with maintenance of the house) for carrying out certain urgent civil repairs. The agency has failed to do so. Meanwhile a private civil contractor who does odd jobs at your office has offered to do the repairs. He would inflate the bills of office work in lieu of that. You would
- Get the repairs done by the private contractor. As at least the work would be done. Even if CPWD does the work, eventually the cost would be borne by the Government only, which would be the case if the private contractor does it.
- Make a formal written complaint to higher officials in CPWD and point out the negligence of CPWD officials and problems being faced by you
- Approach the CPWD officials required to do the work and again make a verbal request, lest a written complaint annoy them
- Continue without taking any action and wait for CPWD to carry out the repairs in due course
The people of a few villages of a district of which you are a District Magistrate are suffering from a strange disease resulting in vomiting, dehydration, other complications and even death. Initial medical reports suggest contamination of underground water with some radioactive substance is responsible for it. Villagers have no alternative source of water and the medical team has recommended setting up of a relief camp where safe drinking water, food and medicine can be provided and their conditions monitored. The villagers are reluctant to move to a relief camp due to fear of house break and even suspicion of the medical reports. They perceive it as a curse of Gods. In such a situation the immediate course of action you would adopt is to
- Send a detailed report to ministry seeking their direction
- Pass an order for shifting the villagers to the relief camps as otherwise more deaths would take place
- Pass orders for setting up of relief camps but leave it to people to live there or not
- Try to galvanise political and social support to convince people to move to relief camps