Ethics consulting. Who knew you could make a living at it?

I was moving along through a Wall Street Journal article on moonlighting, quasi-employed or re-deployed real estate agents.  It's certainly no surprise that employment is way down - ditto for income.

The Coldwell Banker sales manager who's now the deputy sheriff in Lee County, Florida.

The Hollywood glam realtor who's just opened a women's clothing store with a friend - but is keeping her eye on the real-estate game 24/7.

And then there was the Virginia woman who's now working in a "ethics-consulting company." Here I paused - and not just because all she's making at the ethics-consulting company is $25/hour.

An ethics-consulting company?

My first thought was anyone who needs ethics consulting probably wouldn't be the type to actually go looking for it.

Hard to imagine Ken Lay and Jeff Skillings sitting around saying, "Hey, let's each throw $500 bucks in the kitty and get an ethicist in here for 40 hours so we can bounce a few ideas off them."

Or Bernie Ebbers of Worldcom. Let alone the more recent Bad Bernie, Mr. Madoff.

Sure, I can see that a company might seek professional advice on what should be covered in an ethics policy, or look for someone to provide ethics training - why does "training" always make me think 'Sit, Fido. Roll over. Stay. Shake paw." Arf!

Still, I found it strange that there are so many ethics consultancies out there. (Go to the Google...)

Which didn't prevent me from considering - at least fleetingly - how much fun it would be to go in to a company and start yacking about doing the right thing.

Of course, while we've certainly seen ample instances of rotten ethics over the years - cover up of asbestos shingling carcinogens; liar, liar unfiltered cigarette on fire behavior on the part of Big Tobacco; killer cars, killer toys, killer baby formula - but most of what companies could stand a dose of is a big lower down the importance chain.

Forget absolute right from absolute wrong.

How about providing consulting on:

• Greed: Taking huge pay for paltry results may not be a matter of ethics. But it sure is matter of greed. Hey, if you can demonstrate that you're absolutely responsible for a huge up-tick in long-term profits and viability, feel free to let your hand linger in the till. But have some sense of whether it's truly earned - not just legalistically "okay" - not to mention whether it's truly proportional. And whether the world would be better served if that wealth were spread out a bit more. Rather than cadge, say, $100 million for yourself, why not take $50 million, and divide the remaining $50 million among rank and file employees. Even if you have 50,000 employees, that's $1K per capita. It may not float a very big boat, but the rich are still getting richer, while the (relatively) poor are getting a bit richer, too.
• Tone-deafness: I have to say I am always shocked by the tone-deafness of some business leaders. Taking the big pay off may not be a case of pure tone-deafness. It's probably an equal matter of not giving a crap. But there are so many examples out there of utter, jaw-dropping tone-deafness. Refurbishing your office a million dollars worth of antique whatevers while your company is showing folks the door. Laying people off via mass e-mail. Flying down to Washington on separate private jets to ask Congress for a bail-out. Bernie Madoff's sons claiming that they're owed big bucks by his firm. (Good luck with that, boys.) What is it with these captains of industry? Do they entirely lack the ability to consider how something might look? Don't they ever say to themselves, "Sure, I can do this, but it will make me look like a completely cold, out of touch, rancid s.o.b."? Or are they singularly blessed with the capacity to not care what anyone else thinks. (Maybe that's how they got where they are to begin with.)
• Mean, crappy behavior:  This is not, of course, isolated to an organization's corner office-sitters. But somehow it's worse when it's the big guys, not the little guys, who are being mean. (Let's face it, your peers you can always find a way to get back at or, preferably in most situations, tell off.)If I had a buck for every time I saw some manager throw an underling under the bus, who grabbed credit, who pointed the finger, who publicly criticized when private would have done just fine, who made fun of someone in a vulnerable position.

Forget ethics consulting. How about companies just keeping someone around who they can run their piss-poor ideas by before they put them into action? I think these used to be called executive secretaries. Do they just not exist anymore?