The Dilemma of Ethics in Mentorship: A Lighthearted Confession

In the pursuit of professional growth, we often encounter situations that blur the lines of ethics and creativity. Recently, I reminisced about one of those moments from my early career that still elicits a chuckle and a hint of embarrassment. It involved a group of eager associates and a hands-on mentoring project that put our ethical compass to the test in unexpected ways.

As part of our professional development, a few of us—second and third-year associates—took on the rewarding task of coaching a local high school Junior Achievement team. Their mission was straightforward: establish a mini-business that would operate for a couple of months. Our team decided to venture into the world of fruit basket sales, where we would procure fresh fruit, assemble delightful baskets, and deliver them to families in our community.

However, we quickly discovered that Junior Achievement had implemented a rule that initially seemed noble: no debts permitted. While this guideline was designed to safeguard the participating students and teachers, it posed a significant challenge. The reality was glaring; without the ability to incur liabilities, we were essentially trapped in a cycle of creative conflict. How could we finance our fruit purchases without incurring any debt? The question loomed large.

In true entrepreneurial spirit, we devised a workaround. Our solution? We required customers to prepay for their fruit baskets, effectively creating a form of liability that the rules ostensibly prohibited. Pre-orders became our bridge to securing the necessary funds, allowing us to operate smoothly and deliver our delightful offerings a couple of weeks later.

And here’s where things took a turn into the comically unethical realm. As part of our mentorship, we needed to guide the students through the creation of weekly financial reports to submit to Junior Achievement for oversight. We were faced with a predicament: if we accurately recorded our cash collections and anticipated revenue, the overseeing office would undoubtedly take issue with our prepayment strategy. Thus, we found ourselves in a peculiar situation—we started maintaining two sets of financial books. One was the “real” set to keep track of who had paid and what deliveries were pending, while the other was inflated and sanitized for the regional office’s review.

Surprisingly, this unconventional approach became a running joke amongst us mentors and the students. Somewhere along the journey, it dawned on us that we were, in fact, skirting the edges of ethicality by keeping dual records. By a mix of humor and the impending end