• To continually strive to increase the recognition and respect of the profession.

• To comply with all applicable laws, domestic and international.

• To accurately disclose all relevant information, including one's identity and organization, prior to all interviews.

• To fully respect all requests for confidentiality of information.

• To avoid conflicts of interest in fulfilling one's duties.

• To provide honest and realistic recommendations and conclusions in the execution of one's duties.

• To promote this code of ethics within one's company, with third-party contractors and within the entire profession.

• To faithfully adhere to and abide by one's company policies, objectives, and guidelines.

Given the existence of this statement, a number of companies have either adopted it just as written or referred to it in their own written polices. That means they have incorporated it by reference. While this provides a document, it is not enough, for several reasons:

• The very process of adopting and developing a written policy is an educational process.

• Using the SCIP Code produces a circular problem as the code refers to your firm's own policies, even if you have adopted it in place of your own.

• If you have incorporated the code by reference, you are placing changes in your own code in the hands of others.

In addition, the SCIP Code is not as well drafted as it might be. We will deal with just one part, the section dealing with a request for confidentiality. The SCIP Code of Ethics says, in part, that SCIP members agree "To fully respect all requests for confidentiality of information." While that sounds very simple, in the real world it is not so simple.

What about firms whose primary thrust is other than CI, for example, the global management consulting firms? Many of these firms have, historically, been able to deal with this issue of handling clients who are competitors (or at least in the same industry) by the use of the so-called Chinese wall. That is, they created separate teams that are not "contaminated" with information gained in confidence (or otherwise) from a prior retention.

• From the point of view of expertise, one can wonder how a firm could claim that the wall was effective, yet "sell" that same expertise to other clients. Now, that may actually be a serious issue rather than merely one of passing curiosity.

• What about some of these same firms that now boast that they are using knowledge management (KM) techniques to be able to retain and re-access every "learning" from every participant in every past retention? What does that do to the previous requests for confidentiality? If the KM techniques are that good, will they not destroy the Chinese Wall, and with it "full compliance" with a confidentiality request. If they are not that good, then the firms are not being honest. Neither possibility is a comfortable thought.

Take a second look at the standard on confidentiality and note what is missing: There is no limitation on the source of the request or on the nature of it. As written then, this admonition certainly is intended to apply to requests from clients (as described previously) and, obviously, to requests from interviewees that their comments be "kept in confidence." But does it apply elsewhere, that is, are there other requests a CI staff member might receive? If so, from whom else might they come? And just what is a "request"?