Gerald D. Biby
509 Shugart Street
Beatrice, NE 68310
Darrell Nelson
RE: Corrective Action Letter
The best administrators I have had have been the ones who stop to
ask, "Is this the right thing to do?" They were willing to be questioned
and sought to avoid the arrogance of certainty. ...ethics has everything
to do with management. Rarely do the character flaws of a lone actor fully
explain corporate misconduct. More typically, unethical practice involves
tacit, if not explicit, cooperation of others and reflects the values,
attitudes, beliefs, language, and behavioral patterns that define an organization's
operating culture. Ethics, then, is as much an organizational as a personal
issue. Administrators who fail to provide proper leadership and to institute
systems that facilitate ethical conduct share responsibility with those
who conceive, execute, and knowingly benefit from misdeeds. Lynn Sharp
Paine, "Managing for Organizational Integrity," Harvard Business Review,
March-April 1994,p. 106.
If one accepts the premise that ethical or unethical behavior most often reflects an organization's operating culture, then that culture has to be examined continually through the lens of integrity. It was this kind of forward-looking approach that left Johnson & Johnson Corporation well prepared to act quickly and with integrity in the 1982 Tylenol tampering case, a crisis that could have put the company out of business. As recent history has shown, from the Exxon Valdez to insider trading on Wall Street to Iran-Contra, organizations that fail to monitor and adjust their operating cultures for integrity pay a high price for their mistaken assumption that good ethics "happen" without constant organizational effort.
"What for us as a University and as a professional constitutes integrity?"
Computer scientist and management theorist Jay Forrester of MIT once remarked that the hallmark of a great organization is how quickly bad news travels upward (Quoted in Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday/Currency, 1990), p. 226). If an organization is to deal with problems effectively, they have to be brought out into the open before they become too serious to manage. For this to happen, employees must know that managers will respond to the bad news itself, rather than shoot the messenger. They also have to know that, although it may not result in management action, all thoughtful dissent will receive a fair and honest hearing. This kind of open environment is particularly crucial if an organization is to surface potential ethical dilemmas, which there is a great incentive to cover up.
"People do not like being challenged and consider a request to see the proof behind an assertion to be aggressive behavior."
Pressure is created to do whatever it takes to achieve that outcome, including cutting ethical corners and covering up mistakes, including compromising their integrity when things go badly.
"management by intimidation"
While this may be the case, to a certain extent perception is what matters here, as employees take their cues about what behavior is rewarded in the organization from their reading of how top managers got where they are. Given this, managers should understand that they cannot "start over" with integrity once they become managers; to a great extent, they have already sent the most powerful message.
"Integrity" is "adherence to moral and ethical principles; honesty." The key to integrity is consistency--not only setting high personal standards for oneself (honesty, responsibility, respect for others, fairness) but also living up to those standards each day. One who has integrity is bound by and follows moral and ethical standards even when making life's hard choices, choices which may be clouded by stress, pressure to succeed, or temptation.
We are each responsible for our own decisions, even if the decision-making process has been undermined by stress or peer pressure. The real test of character is whether we can learn from our mistake, by understanding why we acted as we did, and then exploring ways to avoid similar problems in the future.
However, the fact that such a violation is "unintentional" does not excuse the misconduct. Ignorance is not a defense.
In sum, we all have a common stake in our school, our community, and our society. Our actions do matter. It is essential that we act with integrity to build the kind of world in which we want to live. In any activity in which people interact, moral codes are developed. This is true of any group of any size - a family, a team, a company, a nation, a race.
We have all heard people attempt to justify their actions and all of us have known instinctively that justification amounted to a confession of guilt. This is a downward spiral. One commits overt acts unwittingly. He then seeks to justify them by finding fault or displacing blame. This leads him into further overt actions against the same people which leads to degradation of himself and sometimes those people.
With the arrival of the "corrective action" proposed by Darrell Nelson on September 23rd it appears that not only Don Helmuth and his Technology Transfer Office are responsible for what has happened, but other administrators too. My initial request was for nothing more than an apology and having to have both my name and records cleared. That is no longer the case. Justice needs to be swift in dealing with the Don Helmuth, Walter O'Farrell and Turan Odabasi.
How the University wants to play out my this corrective action and grievance is up to them. I can only say that any offer I have made to settle for anything less than full vindication of both my actions and that of Dr. Milford Hanna and the Industrial Agricultural Products Center represent is only a small part of what is needed, for what has happened to me. How will this final play out, will it be in the new papers, the courts, both or neither, I do not know. Yet one thing is certain. The Center with the most prolific publication record and the most successful record of research with businesses on the East Campus has been destroyed and will never be the same. Too high a price has been paid by to many. Or was the price to high?
You can hold up the integrity of the University, or not. Maybe Don Helmuth and others are supposed to get away with what has been done.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Gerald D. Biby
P.S. On October 6, 1999 I contacted the Office of the Nebraska Public Counsel and requested in writing an investigation in the way this entire controversy has been handled from the very start. It is my understanding that they will conduct a preliminary investigation and have a written report to the appropriate state officials by November 12, 1999. At that time they will determine is a comprehensive formal investigation should begin.
