buildingOne of the dominant stories we have in South African business is that of fraud and corruption. The corruption story pervades every aspect of our business dealings, relationships and value added (or not added) to clients. I’m intrigued as to how the strongholds that a dominant story like this begin to break. My background as a narrative therapist suggests that the breaking free of an unhelpful dominant story only begins to happen when … one acknowledges the dominant story for what it is , the lies it perpetuates and one begins to explore the alternatives available. And so, we need to do this as a society: start tackling the stronghold corruption has in our business landscape.

This is why I’m impressed with the Unashamedly Ethical movement. I first noticed it driving along the R21 to Pretoria and seeing the slogan on all the Power Construction equipment involved in the freeway expansion project. Graham Power has chosen not to have some arbitrary slogan like “becoming the leaders in the industry”, but has rather elevated the value of ethics to the forefront of his clients, suppliers and staff.

I would also recommend watching a little video clip they’ve put togther on how they’re tackling the corruption monster: view it here.