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All this week we’ve been beginning to justify our position re: why design ethics are a good idea. I wrote on Tuesday that it’s reasonable, given a limited model of business transactions, to believe that poor ethics are advantageous. Yesterday, Paul wisely pointed out that with longer-term thinking, the smarter play is to be good. That’s where I’d like to start out today: pondering the ethics of the long game.

I can think of at least one way that design ethics can help a company succeed. It’s a simple idea, but one that I think builds upon many of the points we’ve brought up over the last few weeks here on BlogLESS.

The idea comes from an old Mark Twain quote:

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

To wit: being unethical takes more effort to maintain than being ethical. If you do something unethical, you have to watch your back, keep spinning the web of lies, and make sure that no one finds out. This takes resources away from your business: coordination, control, money, time, lawyers, etc. Of course, if someone does find out (and these days, it’s a good bet they will), the price climbs even more.

All those resources allocated to sustaining unethical behavior would be better spent making the core business better. To dust off an old chestnut: don’t sell the sizzle from a rotten steak. Invest in making a better steak and it sells itself.

In the long term, focusing on your core competency is going to pay off more than making something up or doing something underhanded.