| Introduction
Today,
the emphasis is on market conduct and compliance in
most areas of accounting and legal services, health
and social services, life and health insurance sales,
and the investment arena. The concern, for those involved
in such endeavors, centers on establishing trust, servicing
client needs and creating appropriate recommendations,
as well as building long-term client relationships.
When trust, needs-based selling, and long-standing relationships
exist, there are few, if any, complaints regarding ethical
misconduct. A professional’s success is greatly
enhanced by high ethical standards.
Many approaches are available for developing high ethical
standards; for example, Rotary International, the world’s
oldest and largest service club, encourages its members
to apply The Four-Way Test to everything they
think, say or do. Rotary claims that The Four-Way
Test can be applied profitably in relations with
others in the home, the community, and business, as
well as national and international life. It is particularly
helpful in its application to proposed plans, policies,
statements, and advertising in business and the professions.
The Four-Way Test is simple yet effective. It
asks:
Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
If you were to apply that uncomplicated test to everything
you think, say or do, an intimate knowledge of a code
of ethics would be unnecessary, because you would, implicitly,
be in conformance with it. Anyone may put the test into
practice.
All of the approaches to high ethical standards have
honesty as their cornerstone. Many consider the old
expression “Honesty is the best policy” as
trite and out of date. The general public and the writers
of the several codes of professional responsibility
do not think so.
Earl Nightingale once considered the issue of honesty,
and then he said:
Every time you do something
less than honest, you’re throwing a boomerang.
How far it will travel no one knows. How great
or small a circle it will travel only time will
tell. But it will eventually, it must finally,
it will inevitably, come around behind you and
deliver a blow to you.
|
A recent research project conducted by the Indiana
University Graduate School of Business and the General
Agents and Managers Association (GAMA) found that successful
life insurance field officers believe that the most
important traits in new recruits are ethical conduct
and honesty. Notwithstanding that finding, the number
of people who think that financial services companies
possess high ethical standards has fallen from 50% to
24% over the past 28 years. We have a duty to do what
we can to improve that image; we owe it to the communities
we serve, and we owe it to ourselves.
You are the representative of your company in dealing
with seniors. Your high ethical standards are the key
to establishing trust and building long-term relationships
with your senior clients. As a Certified Senior Advisor
(CSA) ®, you are called on to ask prospects and
clients several very personal questions and to make
some confidential financial inquiries. Your senior prospects
and clients will only answer those questions completely
and honestly if they believe that you are ethical (which
includes keeping the answers in confidence), forthright
and well-intentioned.
The best way to establish, maintain or enhance your
ethical standards is to live by a code of ethics. Practicing
high ethics, or responsibility, is the task of everyone
in our business — from the home offices to the
independent producer, from the nursinghome owner to
the health-care provider, and from the manager of a
brokerage firm to the salesman.
The CSA Board of Standards has established CSA Code
of Professional Responsibility (Code) for you to live
by. The Code embodies six fundamental principles of
ethical conduct. They are:
- To conduct your business according to high standards
of honesty and fairness and to render that service
to your clients that, in the same circumstances, you
would apply or demand for yourself.
- To provide competent and consumer-focused sales
and service.
- To engage in active and fair competition.
- To provide fair and expeditious handling of client
business, complaints and disputes.
- To provide your clients with advertising and sales
materials that have a clear purpose and an honest
and fair content.
- To maintain your competency through continuing education.
Being competent means having the skills, knowledge,
commitment and attitude to do a professional job as
a senior advisor.
Although you have been provided with the CSA Code of
Professional Responsibility that you are required to
practice, if you want to remain a Certified Senior Advisor
(CSA) ®, you need to do more. Public demand, marketplace
complexities, and a firm regulatory environment require
strict adherence to market conduct and compliance regulations.
You must combine high ethical conduct with diligent
compliance. Just as ethical conduct alone is not enough,
compliance alone is not enough either; compliance regulations
present only a bare minimum. A particular act or deed
may be legal but not necessarily ethical. You can make
compliance a competitive advantage by serving prospects
and clients in a highly ethical fashion, with full compliance. |
