James Quigley talkes about the importance of building community within a workplace. Photo credit: Les Todd

Durham, N.C. - Creating an ethical climate in a workplace isn't just a good idea -- it's good for business, said James Quigley, CEO of Deloitte & Touche USA.

Quigley, who oversees more than 31,000 employees in a leading international financial business company, was the keynote speaker Monday at the 2005 Fuqua School of Business and Coach K Leadership Conference. In its fourth year, the conference this year explored how organizations can create a positive workplace culture distinguished by shared values and a sense of common ownership.

Quigley was one of more than 30 leaders scheduled to speak at the two-day conference, which attracted more than 300 participants.

Quigley said the need for organizational community was driven home by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Deloitte's office in New York 's WorldFinancialCenter is about 200 feet from the WorldTradeCenter. After employees were evacuated, the company's priority was to locate their employees.

"[My leadership team and I] were so anxious to try to determine and secure and understand the health and welfare of our 3,500 colleagues who have offices in the WorldFinancialCenter," Quigley said.

Quigley said he believes those actions after the disaster demonstrated the firm's values. "We have a shared value. It says: 'Commitment to each other.' But when we demonstrate that shared value in a very tangible and real way, everyone then understood that [the value] had graduated from being some lofty word on a page that someone in a conference room once crafted, printed and distributed," he said.

Community service can also be a way to build community within a company.

"Our people, I believe, want to be part of something bigger than themselves," Quigley said. "They want to feel like they are doing something that makes a difference. By getting involved in community service, I believe, that becomes another technique in which you can build a sense of community."

He expressed concern about the ethical lessons that children are learning today. A recent national Junior Achievement survey regarding ethics and integrity showed many teens in the JA program have a blase attitude toward cheating.

When asked "If you knew if you would never be caught, would you cheat or lie to get ahead," 45 percent of the students answered either yes or they were not sure.

"As I read the results of that survey each year, in some ways it breaks my heart," Quigley said. "In other ways I view it as a wakeup call. I just emphasize one more time how critical it is to build a sense of community, how fundamental it is to have a strong culture, and how wrong it would be for us to assume that [new recruits] are all going to act in a way that would make me very proud."

Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski opened the two-day event by identifying similar leadership abilities required to coach a basketball team and to lead a corporate team. He encouraged the participants to work as a team "to get the full effect of the conference."