Have the "selfless" team-spirited Patriots taken an ethical hit? Should fans no longer look up to Belichick and owner Bob Kraft as role models of the right way to build a sports dynasty? Or is this the moral equivalent of a parking ticket in a sport where competitive intelligence is as vital as a healthy quarterback?

Getting an edge over the competition is inherent in sports. Are there instances when stealing signs is OK? Does that apply to other types of unethical conduct?

In order to make heads or tails of this issue, let’s explore both the legal and ethical parameters of when it is acceptable to get information about another team and its players. Let's be clear on our terms. Most people, fans as well as players, accept the need for rules. Even if we like to bend the rules, we want the referees to be fair, if for no other reason than we want the other side to follow the rules as well. So being "legal" in sports means following the rules of the sport.

What about "ethics?" In sports, as well as in business, what is ethical is not often so clear. We believe in fairness and that one side should not have an unfair advantage over the other. But we also believe in winning, and being aggressive sometimes means pushing the rules to the limit, even if that means sometimes going too far. Balancing fairness and success is hard, but our heroes are those who manage to do both.

Part of winning is gathering competitive intelligence by getting clues as to what the other side is about to do. In sports what’s legal and what’s ethical clash confusingly as key values come into conflict. As baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson once said, "There's nothing wrong with trying to find an edge. That's smart. That's not cheating." Baseball commentator Greg Couch noted that "sign-stealing was invented the day after signs were accepted into the fabric of the game. There is a saying in baseball that if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying."

So if stealing signs is part of the game, and therefore part of the ethos of sport, how do we know when it goes over the line? With regard to stealing information, often the only way to know where the line is drawn is by seeing where the officials have put it.

Here are some examples of types of competitive intelligence categorized by whether they are ethical and/or within the rules.
 

	Legal	Against the Rules
Unethical	What if a coach stumbles upon the other team’s playbook accidentally left in a public space? Should the team scour the book for clues, or is that unsportsmanlike? Retailers have been known to post phony job openings to lure competitors’ employees into interviews in hopes of obtaining competitive information.	What about bringing one’s former team’s playbook to a new position, or bribing coaches to divulge information? Or, if a coach or player continues to violate rules after repeatedly warnings. Actions that are both against the rules and against the ethics of even aggressive sports fans engender Bronx cheers.
Ethical	In sports, trying to steal the pitchers’ signs and the coaches’ signals is part of the game. Teams study films and get as much of a competitive edge as possible. In business, competitive intelligence gained from public sources is expected.	Videotaping signs. If it’s OK to get the signs without technology, why is it unethical to get them with technology? The problem is when the action explicitly violates the rules.

We have a grudging respect for the rules though we are most ambivalent when the rules are perceived to be ethically neutral. A violator is not necessarily ostracized. They pay the fines as just a cost of doing business.

However, even "technical" violators can creep into unethical territory if they flaunt their lack of respect for the rules. Aggressive heroes can quickly become disgraced cheaters.

So what about the Patriots and Bill Belichick? Playing close to the edge is not an ethical problem according to the culture of sports. Coaches are supposed to be thorough in their preparation. Videotaping the opposing coach doesn’t seem to violate any ethical standards in and of itself. When is the line crossed?

Videotaping opposing coaches is against the rules, and Belichick, along with other coaches, was warned in an internal memo from the league to stop the practice.

Should an ethical coach have stopped after being reminded that the practice is against the rules, or does the ethics of the sports culture permit more aggressive behavior to be acceptable? Is the delicate ethical balance between technical violator and cheater not crossed by ignoring a warning? Many would say that ignoring a warning that rules were being broken is crossing the ethical line in the sand. However the reality in sports, as well as in many organizations, is that nudging the balance between the right thing to do and winning too close to the moral side runs the risk of having the rules ignored because they don’t reflect the reality on the field. Aggressive players need aggressive enforcement.

So the legal line was crossed when the taping continued after the warning. However, while some commentators were upset by this violation of the sanctity of sport, many treated this issue as being as heinous as someone showing off a glove compartment full of unpaid parking tickets. The ethical line, as defined by the football culture, was seemingly crossed only when Belichick and the team were fined and the incident became public. Apologies were given and assurances made that the practice wouldn’t happen again. At this point, even hardcore players and fans agreed that the practice shouldn’t continue. If it does happen again, then Belichick would definitely cross into the cheater camp in the eyes of other professionals as well as fans.

The lesson? Ethics and compliance work together. Ethics and compliance officers need to be aware of not only where particular legal lines should be drawn, but also where there are gaps between the legal lines and the ethical lines. And if the gaps are too far apart, then work is needed to close them if compliance is to be taken seriously. Sometimes achieving compliance requires more than warnings or even threats of punishment. Only when the violator crosses the fuzzy line of what stakeholders (players, the press, managers, the public, etc.) determine is fair or unfair will the practice become taboo. Therefore, the best way to achieve bright-line compliance is understanding what is necessary to achieving fuzzy-line ethical norms.

DAVID GEBLER, J.D. is President of Working Values, Ltd., a business ethics training and consulting firm specializing in developing behavior-based change to support compliance objectives. 

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