Staff photo by Gage Cureton New Ulm area high school juniors and seniors discuss their roles within the fictional company “ACTive Inc.” while taking part in a team simulation during an ethics workshop hosted by New Ulm Rotary Club at New Ulm Country Club Tuesday. The simulation is designed to introduce discussion of challenges a business might encounter.

NEW ULM — Imagine you’re two months into a new job, the money’s good and you finally don’t have to worry about affording to pay the bills.

One day, the boss calls you into their office and offers you a managerial position in the company’s shipping department. However, they say they’ll only give you the job if you do a “favor” for them.

They ask you to falsely report shipping crate numbers on an upcoming manifest so they may take one of the crates for themselves. They ask you if you’re on “their team.” You really need the job, but you don’t want to lie or go against your morals.

Do you say “no” and risk your job, or do you commit a possible crime that has few consequences?

A situation like this is one of a few dilemmas that New Ulm area high school juniors and seniors were faced with during an ethics seminar hosted by the New Ulm Rotary Club at the New Ulm Country Club Tuesday.

Select students from New Ulm High School, Cathedral High School, Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School and RiverBend Education District were invited to the seminar, said Rotary Club member Harold Remme. The goal of the seminar is to generate discussion amongst students revolving around situations in life and how ethics might play a role in decision making.

Following keynote speakers and discussions on ethics, students underwent a management team simulation to apply what they’ve discussed in the seminar to a real world business situation.

Called the “ACTive Inc. Management Team Simulation” — developed and owned by David Rodbourne of DHR Consulting & Associates — the simulation is intended to introduce and prompt discussion of challenges that a business might encounter when working to achieve business goals.

“Ethics is kind of a team sport,” Rodbourne said. “You’ve just got to be talking about it, you’ve got to be practicing it and you’ve got to be reminding yourself ‘who am I and who do I stand for?'”

The simulation has students form into teams and assume the roles of CEO, CFO, human resource VP, public/government relations VP and manufacturing VP for the fictional company.

“This is a company that buys its products from offshore, from southeast Asia as well as manufactures things there,” Rodbourne said. “So are we going to keep both sources going? There’s employees, different payscales and different cultures. How do we make sense of all that?”

Rodbourne said ACTive Inc. is also in trouble financially, and students have to try to figure out how to make it profitable and how to sustain it.

Rodbourne describes the simulation as an introductory educational tool. He said many people are confronted with complex situations where there may be several competing demands, and there may be no right answer or outcome.

The simulation begins with students reading a one-page overview of the fictional company, and then they’re assigned their roles within the company. As the exercise unfolds, each member of the team gets a set of messages unique to their role. Each role is faced with situations regarding financial, competitive and market pressures, and labor issues for both domestic and off-shore stakeholders in the company.

“They need to figure out how they’re making a business decision, and it is also an ethical decision,” Rodbourne said. “Because they’re always intermingled.”

The simulation ends with teams designing and then giving an oral presentation that describes the actions they took with the company and why those decisions were the right course of action in terms of business and ethics.

Rodbourne said he hopes the simulation can help sharpen students’ critical decision making skills. He said as they get older, they’ll be confronted with new ethical decisions every day.

“Almost all the things we decide to do day in and day out have ethical components,” Rodbourne said. “But when you become an employee and you start working for a business longterm, when you have a family, when you’re trading off your family needs for work, you’re going to have to get used to it.”

Gage Cureton can be emailed at gcureton@nujournal.com.