How informed does an investor need to be to vote?

Do we have an obligation to be as informed as possible when we make a decision?

When a reader we’re calling Sonra’s father died in 2006 at 100, he and his siblings inherited shares of stock in many different companies. “Between that, existing holdings in my wife’s and my IRAs, and trust we set up for grandchildren,” wrote Sonra, “we have holdings in dozens of companies.”

Sonra wrote that while he doesn’t have the time or inclination to read all the annual and semi-annual reports he receives electronically throughout the year, he feels a responsibility to vote for or against company board directors, housekeeping issues and controversial shareholder proposals for those companies.

“To familiarize myself with all the information required to make informed votes would allow little time for more important issues in my life,” he wrote. “I almost always take the easy way out and go with the recommendations of the board of directors, but I don’t feel right about it.”

He supposes he could just not bother to vote at all, but that doesn’t feel right to him either.

“What is the right and responsible thing to do?” asked Sonra.

While Sonra’s decision is specific to individual stocks, it could easily be asked of other decisions we make on a regular basis. On many of the online agreements we sign for apps or software or product purchases or updates, consumers regularly scroll quickly through the small and lengthy type and click off the box indicating agreement without really knowing the specifics of what they’ve agreed to. Sonra is ahead of the game on this front since at least he reads what it is he’s voting on even if he doesn’t read all the supporting material.

In terms of being informed, he’s also ahead of where many investors whose retirement accounts are invested in a variety of mutual funds. It’s a safe guess that many, if not most, investors have little clue about what specific stocks their mutual funds are invested in beyond having an idea of the broad category of investments that are the focus on each fund.

But Sonra’s question is specific to his situation about what is right and responsible to do in voting on issues related to the stocks he owns. I am not an expert in providing financial advice, so for that sort of thing, Sonra should look to someone who is.

I can tell Sonra that what he’s doing strikes me as responsible. From the details he’s provided me, he seems to inform himself with what his stocks are and what issues are being voted on when he votes. Sure, he often takes the recommendations of the board of directors rather than do a deep dive into issues at stake himself. But presumably, he wouldn’t keep his stocks in those companies if he didn’t have faith in leadership.

If there’s a particular issue that arises about which Sonra cares more or if begins to doubt the judgment of some board decisions, he can choose to rely more on research other than his own. But the right thing for Sonra is to continue to be thoughtful about the investments he holds, try to understand the issues he’s voting on when a vote arises, and get on with what he deems to be “the more important issues” in his life.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should you vote against your views to send a message?

Is it ever right to support someone whose views you abhor if it helps you achieve other goals?

During the Republican primaries preceding the midterm congressional elections in 2022, there was a bit of a hubbub about how Democrats had helped fund campaigns for Republican candidates whose views included denying the validity of the 2020 presidential election. The idea apparently was that their more moderate Republican opponents in the primaries would be harder for the Democratic candidates to beat.

Beyond the disingenuousness of pouring millions into campaigns of candidates whose views they claimed to abhor, it was a risky gambit. The election-denying candidates could after all end up beating their Democrat opponent in the general election. For the most part, that didn’t happen and Democrats fared well in the fall 2022 election.

Even if they got the results they wanted, were Democrats wrong to financially support something they claimed was destined to destroy democracy?

I was reminded of the tactic a few weeks ago during the presidential primary elections. In Massachusetts, where I live and vote, unenrolled voters (what they call independent voters here) are permitted to ask for a Republican or a Democratic ballot when they vote in the primaries. In February, of the 4,957,403 registered voters in the Commonwealth, 1,336,825 identified as Democrats while 415,438 identified as Republicans. Both were eclipsed by the 3,153,445 who registered as unenrolled. There was a bit of chatter encouraging unenrolled voters who traditionally voted a Democratic primary ballot to ask for a Republican ballot to vote for the only remaining challenger to the former Republican president. The idea presumably was to send a message that the former president did not have as much support in the primary as he and his supporters hoped.

What this meant for many unenrolled voters with more politically progressive views was that they would end up voting for a candidate whose views were far more conservative politically than their own and often fell into the category of those for whom they swore they would never vote. And they’d be throwing away a vote for the Democratic candidate who they knew they would be voting for in the general election regardless of how the primaries turned out.

Was it wrong for unenrolled voters to use their vote to try to send a message even if it meant voting for someone whose views they loathed?

Not necessarily. If these unenrolled voters felt more strongly about trying to defeat the former president than they did about voting for a candidate whose policy views most closely matched their own, that’s an ethical choice they could weigh and make, recognizing that it might result in boosting the candidacy of someone for whom they normally would never vote.

I regularly encourage as many people as possible to register to vote and then to vote. But I draw the line at telling them how to vote. That choice is their call. Regardless of how they end up voting, it strikes me that the right thing is for them to become as informed about candidates or issues as possible, weigh the strengths and weaknesses, think through the implications of their decisions, then to make the choice they believe is best for their community and their country.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is it OK to snoop on a neighbor if the neighbor won’t know?

Should you look at something that you know wasn’t meant for you to see?

I regularly write recommendation letters for former colleagues, students and others whose work I know and with whose character I’m familiar. It takes time to write these letters well, but I gladly do it for most who ask.

A few weeks ago, I emailed off a recommendation to the emails provided me by the person I was recommending. A few hours later I received an email from one of the recipients telling me he may have the same name as the intended recipient and they may work at the same large institution, but he was not the person for whom the letter was intended. He wrote that he didn’t know the correct email address for the other guy and ended with: “But I can reassure you that I destroyed your recommendation without reading it.”

The incident reminded me of a recent report from a reader we’re calling Tom who wrote that a neighbor of his had asked if he could print something on the reader’s printer since he didn’t own his own. The neighbor emailed Tom the document, a job offer letter, so Tom could print it out and his neighbor could pick it up. Tom waited for his neighbor to arrive and then opened the attached document on his email, printed it out and let his neighbor grab it from the output tray on Tom’s printer.

Tom noted, however, that the document itself was still in his email and if he wanted to he could easily look at it without his neighbor ever knowing. He suspected that financial information and details about the neighbor’s job offer were in the letter. Even though he told Tom the nature of the letter, he never told him that it was confidential and never asked him not to read it.

Tom wondered: Would there be anything wrong with taking a peek out of curiosity, especially given that he didn’t plan to do anything with the information or to share it with anyone else?

A good rule of thumb to remember is that just because no one might discover we did something wrong, that doesn’t make that wrong action OK. This goes for reading someone’s email that they might leave open on their screen when you happen to be near their computer. Or to glance at their text message if they left their phone sitting near you when they weren’t around. Or to read the details of a document inadvertently left on a copier by a colleague. Or to read the hard copy of someone’s performance review if they left it on their desk and happened to notice it when no one was around.

In cases where a piece of information is clearly personal and likely meant to be confidential, the right thing is to treat it as such and either destroy it without reading it or fight the urge to read it if the opportunity to do so arises.

The only reason Tom should read his neighbor’s letter would be if his neighbor had told him it was OK to do so. That Tom knew it was unlikely his neighbor would do that should confirm for him that he should simply delete the email with the attachment and feel good about lending his printer when his neighbor was in need.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should you speak up when boss’ actions bug you?

Should you always say something when your boss does something that bugs you?

A reader we’re calling Clarence works as a teacher in a public school. He enjoys his work and likes his colleagues. He regularly receives work-related emails on his work email.

Lately, however, the chair of Clarence’s department has sent the occasional group text message to him and his colleagues, following up on a recent issue or preparing them for an issue that is soon to arise. The chair had access to each of the teachers’ cell phone numbers in case of emergency so they could be reached.

Even though the chair had not let the teachers know that they'd be receiving texts, Clarence didn’t really have an issue with receiving the occasional message as long as they arrived during the workday.

Increasingly, Clarence said, the texts have been arriving randomly and throughout the day and evening, often during dinner time or late at night. So far, he says, there’s been nothing urgent that couldn’t have waited until the work day or, even better, couldn’t have been sent through official work email since the texts were all work related.

Clarence checks his email regularly, but he can set it aside when the work day is done. His cell phone, however, remains on and texts come through on his personal cell phone whenever someone deems to send one.

If there were an emergency and his chair were to text or call him, Clarence says he’d have no problem. But receiving random, non-emergency texts on his personal phone after hours strikes him as inappropriate. He’d like to say something to his chair but he says he knows they would be “mortified” if the intrusion were brought to their intention, so he is reluctant to do so. He also doesn’t know if the practice is bothering his colleagues as much as it bothers him since they haven’t discussed it. He is concerned that raising the issue with colleagues might result in building the issue into more of a crisis than the nuisance it is.

Nevertheless, he would like the practice not to persist. What, if anything, should he do?

It was bad form not to let the teachers know that the chair planned to use their personal cell phone numbers to text them from time to time. It also seems perfectly appropriate for Clarence to say something if the practice of after-hours texting bothers him.

That Clarence is concerned about his chair being mortified shouldn’t stop him from saying something if he wants to change things. He might do well to decide how strongly he wants to register a complaint about the practice.

One thought is for Clarence to ask his chair if it’s possible to use the school email for communication so the teachers don’t have to try to remember if a message about a meeting or an issue is in a personal text or in school email. Approaching the issue this way lessens the possibility that the chair will be mortified in learning how they have been invading the teachers’ personal space.

But saying something is the right thing to do if Clarence would like the practice to stop.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.