EO 021 – Riaan Louw

EO 021 – Riaan Louw
Self-Employed

Why did you attend this course?
To determine if, and how ethics training can be used as a pro-active and preventative management tool to create awareness of, and to empower, educate and motivate individuals, groups and organisations to identify, evaluate, respond to and prevent unethical conduct before it occurs, rather than to use it as another instrument to persecute, prosecute and punish those guilty of such conduct after it has occurred.

How did the course benefit you personally?
The programme confirmed that, instead of only relying on costly policing, legal and punitive systems to punish unethical conduct after the fact, proper ethics awareness training can be used as a preventative measure to ensure that individuals, groups and organisations are made aware of what is regarded as right and wrong in their specific environments and what is expected of them in this regard. It also made me realise that an overzealous effort to present ethics as a legal (regulatory) instrument to enforce required conduct, not only may diminish it relevancy but also may contribute to the rejection thereof by those than can afford financial and reputation related setbacks.

How is it benefiting your company?
It provided a framework to integrate integrity management in the strategic planning process of the organisation and, as such, an opportunity to stimulate the corporate conscience of the organisation .