I remember when I went to present a paper at the Pennsylvania Political Science Association annual conference in 2005. The introduction of my paper was imbedded with political humor. Here is part of it:

Little Joe approached his father Ben and inquired, “Dad, what is politics?” Dad said, “Well Joe, let me try to explain it in this way: I’m the breadwinner of the family, so let’s call me capitalism. Your Mom, she’s the administrator of the money, so we’ll call her the Government. We’re here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you the people. The nanny, we’ll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we’ll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense.” So the little boy went off to bed reflecting on what Ben had said.

At midnight, Joe heard his baby brother crying, so he got up and went to check on him. He found that the baby had severely soiled his diaper. So little Joe went to his parent’s room and found his mother sound asleep. He decided not to wake her and went to the nanny’s room. He found the nanny’s door securely locked, and so he peeked in the keyhole and found his father in bed with the nanny. He gave up and went back to bed. The next morning, little Joe told Ben, “Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.” The father said, “Great! Joe, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.” Then little Joe replied, “Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in a deep mess.”

A good follower should have mastery over his/her sensory modalities in order to excel in executing/implementing organizational/institutional policies without fear or favor. One’s good intentions crowned with success will know no bounds if the sensory modalities, including the mind, are monitored and are under check and balance. More than a few employees/leaders have been victims of the unruly and impetuous sensory modalities that have resulted in job loss, judicial action, embarrassment or a combination of these.

Broadly, there are two sides of this bad coin of not thinking deeply. There are sociological and organismic factors which inhibit managers from thinking deeply. By sociological factors, we would be referring to those forces outside of the embodied soul that impinge on him/her and checkmate him/her from thinking deeply; and by organismic factors, we would be referring to those forces within the living being that inhibit him/her from thinking deeply. The sociological factors include our educational methodological paradigm, societal needs and interests, attachment to sensory objects, lack of motivational incentives, and artificial lifestyle. The organismic factors include the inability to control the mind and sensory modalities; influence of the gunas, or “modes of material nature” – namely, goodness, passion and ignorance; influence of endogenous lust; lack of awareness of our pristine identity; lack of analytical skill; disdain for introspection; Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), etc.

There are organismic and sociological factors which militate against ethical decision-making. Discernibly, endogenous factors such as bias, anger, greed, lust, the mind’s demands, integration of the three gunas or qualitative modes of material nature (namely, the modes ignorance, passion, and goodness), identity crisis, pathological state of consciousness, low self-control, phenomenological mindset, and maladjustment play some role in ethical decision-making.

Essentially, it is germane to be sure that our decision-making process has passed the litmus test of social and psychological sanity so as to be effectively positioned on the pivot of ethical thinking inasmuch as decision-makers imbued with phenomenological mindset, maladjustment, pathological state of consciousness, bias, identity crisis, etc. may not facilitate ethical decision-making in organizations.