The time for reliability professionals to develop a default ethical framework is before the action occurs. Spend some time studying ethics. More importantly, watch the ethical practices of others in your organization. The great trusted advisors have a default ethical framework. Ethical communication is directly aligned with a reliability professional’s ethical framework.
Ethics are the way we make decisions.
Decisions When the Chips Are Down
“The truth! The truth?” exclaimed our project manager. “You can’t tell them the truth! They’ll fire us!”
“Well, I guess the truth will set us free,” I calmly responded. “We will move forward either way. But we will tell the Board everything.”
As the regional manager, I jumped on the phone to talk to a couple of the key county commissioners. I had to speak at the Board meeting that night and there was no way I was going to let them be surprised by the truth.
The reality was that the change in the estimated cost of the county’s largest project of all time was the result of an over-inflated forecast of needs and out-of-control costs in the construction market. But we had forgotten to include an additional $2M million in the most recent cost estimate. If there was a good side, that was around 10% of the escalation of the entire project. On the bad side, the media was at war with the county commissioners over our selection to be the project’s designer.
“Commissioner, I know the heat is on related to this project,” I stated on the phone to one of the most influential commissioners. “I’ll also share with you tonight that our firm was responsible for leaving a couple of million dollars out of the updated cost estimate. It’s worse than you think it is.”
“Are you good at groveling?” he replied. “I hope you are.”
There was a short pause. Then he added, “Just tell us the truth. We have big decisions to make. We need to know everything, regardless of how bad or how good.”
Why a Default Ethical Framework Matters
A personal ethical framework is not abstract philosophy. It is a practical decision structure you develop before incentives, personalities, and politics begin to pull on your analysis.
Without a defined framework, small compromises feel harmless. Over time, those small compromises accumulate.
A softened assumption here. A buried sensitivity analysis there. A probability described as “unlikely” instead of “one in five.” None of these feels dramatic. Together, they shift decisions.
Complexity and Uncertainty Magnify Ethical Challenges
Big presentations involve uncertainty. Uncertainty invites interpretation. When we present probabilities, asset conditions, or failure projections, we are not simply sharing data. We are shaping how leaders act in the face of incomplete information.
That influence carries responsibility. Responsibility requires clarity about how we, individually, decide what is fair, accurate, and appropriately transparent.
Ethics Is a Pre-Decision Discipline
Most ethical failures are incremental. They rarely begin with bad intent.
Ethical failures begin with convenience. They are exacerbated by pressure.
A default ethical framework answers a simple question before the meeting starts.
- What will I not compromise?
- Will I adjust my explanations to satisfy my (or my boss’s) preferred outcome?
- Will I stay silent if safety margins are thin?
If these questions are answered privately in advance, your behavior in the room becomes consistent.
Courage should become procedural rather than emotional.
When Presenting as a Reliability Professional
You do not need a textbook to build a framework. You need anchors that guide your communication.
Commit to Truthful Representation
Represent the data faithfully, even when the range is wide or the message is uncomfortable. If assumptions drive the result, show them. If the model is sensitive to one variable, explain it clearly.
Commit to Transparent Uncertainty
Executives do not fear uncertainty as much as they fear surprise. State what is known. State what is estimated.
Your responsibility is not to eliminate uncertainty. Your responsibility is to communicate it responsibly.
Commit to Decision Alignment
Frame your analysis around the decision being made, not around technical elegance. What choice is in front of the board? What tradeoffs are real?
Ethical communication focuses attention on what matters most. Irrelevant detail can obscure critical information just as effectively as omission.
When complexity is high, clarity is an ethical act. Confusion shifts responsibility to the listener.
A Practical Test Before You Present
Before your next major presentation, pause and ask three questions.
- Is this analysis faithful to the data?
- Have I clearly communicated uncertainty?
- Would I be comfortable defending this framing after the outcome is known?
If the answer to any of these is no, adjust. Adjustment before the meeting is easier than explanation after the outcome.
Three Types of Ethics
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics are based on an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Aristotle describes virtue as courage, temperance, patience, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, and modesty. Conversely, he frames vice as rashness, licentiousness, vulgarity, vanity, ambition, irascibility, boastfulness, buffoonery, flattery, and envy.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, describes good as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He characterizes bad as fornication, impurity, idolatry, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, envy, drunkenness, and carousing.
Right and wrong is a personal journey that takes years to acquire. That’s time that senior management doesn’t have, either. Going into a boardroom with a “we are right” and “you are wrong” is not how to get things done.
Consequentialism
Consequence-based ethics refers to moral theories that hold the consequences of an action serve as the basis for any valid moral judgment. From a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right action produces a good outcome or consequence. In other words, “the ends justify the means.”
Advocates seeking to persuade or manipulate human opinion usually encourage a consequential approach. If the ends justify the means, then senior management needs to know only the aspects that bring them to the desired position.
Advocates usually fall into broad classes like salespeople, attorneys, politicians, and self-enlightened crusaders.
Duty-Based Ethics
Duty-based, or deontological ethics, holds that the consequences of actions do not make them right or wrong. Instead, the motives of the person who conducts the action make the action right or wrong.
The obligation to make good decisions is in the process. Information sharing can be honestly managed. Outcomes, governed by an uncertain future, are not the basis of a good or bad decision.
Deontological ethics prioritizes full disclosure and “treating others in the manner you wish to be treated.” Deontological ethics is in direct contrast to consequential ethics.
Licensed physicians are legally bound by duty-based ethics. So are licensed professional engineers.
Develop Your Default Ethical Framework
Ethical behavior is not as “pure” as described in the simplified triangle of ethics. Most individuals and groups predominantly follow one form and secondarily follow another.
As a decision maker
We tend to use duty-based ethics or virtue ethics before an action happens and consequences-based ethics after an action has occurred.
There is nothing wrong with leaning more on one leg of the three-side ethics stool depending on the context. However, we should be prepared for potential inconsistencies in our decision-making process in advance, rather than struggling with them in the heat of the debate.
As a trusted advisor
As technical professionals, we often (and incorrectly) try to read our audience first and then give them what they want. At its heart, this is consequences-based ethics and it is the wrong approach as a trusted advisor. The correct approach is to let the information speak for itself.
At some point, you will fear saying the wrong thing and jeopardizing your career. Be prepared in advance to deliver information that your audience may not want to hear.
Tell Me the Truth!
The county manager added, “But let’s get the engineering director up to the podium and verify that.”
“I don’t exactly recall,” said the director. “I think it was late last week, and the information probably just got to you today.”
Another lie. They had gotten the information several weeks ago. In fact, that was why the manager and director had me sitting in the second row that night – in case commissioners asked any detailed questions that could be deflected to me.
“Tell me the truth!” the enraged commissioner asked the director. No response. “Tell me the truth!” No response. And again, “Tell me the truth!” The commissioner was now standing, his face red and his eyes boiling. The whole room was uncomfortable.
Then a brief pause. The tone was calmer and the pitch lower.
“If you don’t tell me the truth,” the commissioner said to the director, “I will ask JD, and he will tell me the truth.”
“Oh shit, don’t call me forward,” I thought, as I felt all eyes in the room on me. The commissioner was a pro and didn’t call me onto the stage. But he had made his point.
If asked, would I have told the truth? You bet I would have. I had already set my ethical compass with a default ethical framework. I don’t always know exactly what will happen, but I am seldom surprised enough to compromise my ethics when under fire.
Duty-based is Best for Trusted Advisors
Use a duty-based approach when communicating to senior management on big issues with high levels of complexity and uncertainty. You do not want your subordinates or team members to hide information to persuade you. Why do you think senior management wants you to persuade or manipulate them?
Ethics is the Tail Fin of the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram
Ethical communication is directly aligned with a professional’s ethical framework. The second E in FINESSE stands for Ethics.
Default Ethical Framework
A default ethical framework does not eliminate pressure. It stabilizes you within it. Under stress, reliability professionals default to what they have practiced. Develop your framework deliberately so your default serves both the decision and your integrity.
This article first appeared on Substack as:
Solomon, J. D. (2026, March 11). Why technical presenters need a default ethical framework. Communicating with FINESSE. https://communicatingwithfinesse.substack.com/p/why-technical-presenters-need-a-default
JD Solomon champions practical communication skills that help technical professionals convey complex ideas clearly and confidently. Need help getting started? Visit his company’s website, www.jdsolomonsolutions.com.
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