The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein
This is the first thing that popped into my head when I read about Deutsche Telekom, the German phone giant, getting itself embroiled in a scandal for allegedly spying on the phone calls between its board members and journalists. This is almost a carbon copy of the scandal that engulfed Hewlett-Packard in 2006. I can’t reason why any company would commit such a serious ethical breach in the first place. But two companies, doing almost the exact same thing?
There’s no doubt that this was an easy temptation for Deutsche Telekom. They’re worried about their board leaking information to reporters over the phone… Well, we are the phone company, so why not just…?
But there is no such thing as an easy temptation. If it’s a temptation, then it’s probably just a desire to do something you know to be wrong or unwise. Delivering the big “no” to a big bad is easy work; it’s the smaller “no,” the resistance to the fast ones that you think you can easily get away with, that define your ethical character.
Deutshe Telekom chose the fast way through a gray issue. They did the wrong thing because it was the easy thing. Instead of trying to find out who was leaking the information on their board, they should have asked themselves the tough question of why they were leaking that information. If your own board feels compelled to air its dirty laundry to the press, then who is the least of your problems.
