Tethix Elemental Ethics

Today we're consumed by the flames.

It's time to stop firefighting. As individuals, teams and organisations, we need to become responsible firekeepers.

It’s been happening now for months. There’s a manic rush. Sensationalist reactions are the norm. The fires of Generative AI are spreading.

You’ve been playing with the fire too. As have your colleagues.

We’ve seen what is happening. We’ve lived it together. All we seem to hear about is how bad it might get. Or how damn right awesome it is and will be. But, there’s an alternative.

You can temper the flame. You can benefit from its warmth and power, without being consumed by it.

Now’s the time for your organisation to build a safe campfire.

The thing is, you don’t have to look far. The discovery of responsible firekeeping has already been made. Tethix is here to share it with you, so let’s sit around the campfire together.

Balance the fire of your products

Technology is like fire. Exciting, powerful, but also unpredictable and dangerous.

By developing responsible firekeeping skills, you can learn how to build safer campfires for your products and reduce the risk of the fire spreading uncontrollably or dying out.

And you’ll learn how to balance your fire with other elements:

AIR – Communication & Collaboration

Provide adequate ventilation for your fire by making space for developing shared meanings and psychological safety, helping conversations flow in all directions within your organisation. By developing a culture of open and diverse collaboration, you can build windbreaks that protect your fire from strong winds of shifting public opinion.

EARTH – Research & Exploration

Gather different types of wood to keep your fire burning by exploring the forest and grounding your understanding to earth. Learn how to feed your fire with research from different disciplines and inviting diverse experts to contribute to your campfire.

WATER – Pause & Reflection

Bring a bucket of water by your campfire by reflecting on the impact of your work through self-assessment and evaluation, and developing moral imagination. Water can help extinguish accidental fires as you learn to be mindful of the dangerous side of fire.

This is Elemental Ethics

What we’ve just described is Elemental Ethics, a new type of ethics framework. It uses nature-inspired language and familiar stories to make ethics interesting, fun, accessible, inclusive, memorable, and practical.

Elemental Ethics is the culmination of decades of combined practice and research, born out of our own frustration with how products are designed and built.

It is the embodiment of SMILES, our blueprint for cultural change, designed to unravel complexity and nurture a profound kinship with the natural world.

Elemental Ethics leads to profound organisational shifts

With Elemental Ethics	Without
Responsible firekeeping	Reactive and resource-intensive firefighting
People tell stories and learn from each other	Wasting time in meetings due to miscommunications
Products are built with respect towards people and planetary boundaries	Harms are often ignored or missed
Embodying ethical principles	Ethics washing
Seeking a balance between elements, prioritising sustainability	Driven by fire, maximising short-term gains

Why choose Elemental Ethics over conventional ethics frameworks?

The tech industry deserves something better than dusty values on walls. It’s time for an approach to ethics that acknowledges the complexities of product development, and helps you build better products without accidentally starting fires all over the place.

Elemental Ethics	OVER	The Conventional
Living stories that grow with the organisation	OVER	Posters with values collecting dust on walls
Useful in practice at all levels	OVER	Impressing stakeholders on a website
Inspires conversation, curiosity, playfulness and action	OVER	Inspires boredom and does not close the intent to action gap
Exploring the forest and nurturing trees	OVER	Looking at an idolised picture of the forest
Awakens moral imagination	OVER	Too abstract to be relatable and applicable
Forged by practitioners, mindful of each step and oriented to action	OVER	Led by consultants without first-hand experience of everyday ethical tensions in the field

Ready to become a responsible firekeeper?

Don't let the house, city or forest burn down. Cultivate a sustainable flame by working with our team. Along with our platform ETHOS we also deliver workshops, keynotes and advisory services to companies that want to lead the way to a responsible tech future.

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