by Steve Priest, President of Ethical Leadership Group, a Global Compliance Company

This is a terrific day for America. E pluribus unum indeed.

That’s enough basking. True to the spirit of President Obama’s speech, let’s get to work. No work in America—or the world—is more important right now than business ethics. We face a financial crisis in large part because of a failure by many—lenders and borrowers and those who aided and advised them—to take responsibility for making prudent choices.

And our crisis continues because now we have a lack of trust. Lenders and investors and suppliers don’t know if they can trust the person or company on the other side of the transaction. And without trust, the economy grinds to a halt.

As ethics and compliance professionals, our ultimate job is to build trust. President Obama gave us at least two lessons today on how to do so.

First—deliver the bad news. It was striking how direct our new President was about the difficult conditions we face. Many business leaders choose to give only positive messages, and when they deliver bad news, others are to blame. President Obama didn’t blame solely the greedy and irresponsible for our economic state—he assigned responsibility to all of us.

Second, he focused on the values we share as a way to bind us in pursuit of a common objective. Consider these words from the Inaugural Address. Substitute “company” or “organization” for “government.” Think about how messaging consistent with this might serve your organization—and your ethics and compliance program—in the weeks and months ahead.

"For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. . . . Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."