To restore your faith in the human being I have (after reflection) corrected my error from< to >. You guessed it was wrong anyway.

Of course you remind me of Hippocrates, who was able to recognise the right response without any professional bodies.......not to knowingly do harm.

Best regards

Cliff Moggs

Cliff, whichever ever way you have your <>, if you ever want to put your theory to the test, just try driving at the speed limit ... 

Owen, you're now coming across something that will echo throughout your career as a manager and a member of a professional body. It's very likely that 95% of the stuff in things like codes of ethics are blindingly obvious to 95% of the readers; but the double-dilemma is, first, if those self-evident truths aren't stated clearly somewhere, will they drift through time until the 'moral compass' ends up pointing in a completely different direction? And, second, how else do you remind, encourage or nail the 5% to whom they're NOT self-evident?

And I always argue that there's nothing wrong with making a profit, the absolute failure of anti-social enterprises is when they act only in the self-interest of a narrow group of stakeholders. Cadbury would never be in the mess it's in now if its employees were shareholders too. There goes my Dairy Milk ....

Cliff, I'm assuming your question is rhetorical! You argued that 98% of citizens are law-abiding. The plain fact is people obey laws only if they accept them (ethics) or are forced to (penalties). The people who happily ignore the law on speed limits would be rather annoyed at someone else ignoring the Theft Act or laws on TWOC when the vehicle's parked. But the principle's just the same.

So I'd agree only that your 98% of citizens are law-abiding only when it suits them or when they have no other choice. As it's usually difficult to tell the difference, Owen and his cohorts have to sit through what he's been describing.

The Swiss also have cuckoo clocks and the stuffiest chocolate outside Belgium, both of which they're very welcome to and neither of which I'd want to see here! 

My point was that "law-abiding" is an elastic term, and nothing like 98% of UK citizens obey all of the laws all of the time. That's why Owen's codes of ethics have to go into such mind-numbing detail. ( Swiss people are very welcome as far as I'm concerned, it's just their clocks and chocolate I'd prefer to see left high in the Alps - but isn't raclette something Andy Murray uses?)

How can a people that produced the "Gettysburg address", "I have a dream ...", "The Grapes of Wrath", "Shrek" and "Toy Story" come up with that garbled train-smash of a sentence? (I think you're right - 'fondue' probably describes most of Federer's opponents post-match!)

Owen, you've just half-blogged your way to the heart of the matter: you might have missed the deep arguments when the US tried to impose SarBox on non-US companies, about whether a rules-based approach to audit was more or less effective than a principles-based approach. 

Who decides what's common-sense? At some point in your career you'll come across someone who will have a very different definition to yours. With a little effort most of us can find a way around most rigid rules, so the Hippocratic approach Cliff likes can be a better catch-all but at the same time a get-out-of-gaol card - you're then in an arena of interpretation of what exactly is "harm"? Is foul-tasting medicine "cruel to be kind" or doing harm to your taste-buds?

Laws cover what you must or must not do; ethics cover how you do things and bring justice out of law. Students and members should be reminding ourselves of that, probably much more than we do, because that's why we can claim to be professionals.

And that moral compass has to have some clearly set out cardinal points. When the compass shifts, you either nudge the person at the helm or check to see if it's been affected by something external - then you either recalibrate or stand by to repel boarders.

Wow! I think Cliff and I have avalanched your blog - oops! Maybe we should stick to yodelling.

I think my parents realised I was going to be an accountant when they gave me my first penknife, and at the age of around seven or so I tested the sharpness of the blade by running it over my thumb ... Casualty Departments are so un-Christmassy, aren't they?

You're absolutely right about growing crops of carrots rather than reaching for the "Judge Dredd Guide to Management". If we have a community of practice where people "Do the Right Thing" (great film, by the way, all about moral compasses in a complex world) because that's just the way we do things, rather than from the dim memory of lectures on Codes of Behaviour, then perhaps the Bibles can remain unthrown and the world outside the city limits left free for the lone traveller searching endlessly for a decent mobile phone signal so they can Google-map their way home.

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to simply X-factor ethical issues; the difference between community-action and mob rule rather depends on which side of the blazing torches you happen to be standing at the time, and that awful 2009 Christmas No. 1 was even worse than most of the 'winners' and still made piles of money for Simon Cowell. But Clay Shirky of NYU researches how Web 2.0 is changing communities and I'd really recommend his "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations" as a highly readable guide to "putting things to the people".

X-Factor and Big Brother do actually have a lot to teach industry, commerce, politics and CIMA about making decisions.

but loses its simplicity the minute you introduce people. The precise meaning of that simple-sounding and seemingly all-embracing Hippocratic oath could be argued and debated ad infinitum if not ad nauseam given almost any real-life situation. That's why some folk write the huge documents that Owen first blogged about.

(Cliff - I'd happily be corrected, as CIMA's coat of arms and motto is hardly high-profile even on cimaglobal.com, but I believe you've hit a slight typo - wasn't the coat of arms granted in 1952 not 1932?)

The book is brilliant - informative, thought-provoking and readable - and I'd be interested in your thoughts on how Shirky's view of Web 2.0 is relevant to the NHS and LAs ... those pesky publics of ours might just become genuine partners in what we do, instead of being held at-bay by call-centres, web-pages and Communications Departments ...

But ... AMAZON? Don't you have quirky little local bookshops where the owner-proprietor makes you a cup of tea, tells you their own favourite author, and orders a copy of the book you want to be especially printed just for you by a group of wizened little gnomes who live in the basement? Mr Wilde would surely consider the 'Tesco Express of the web' beyond even his definition of a cynic!