Lance Armstrong Ethical Decision Making

While reading this article about Lance Armstrong, I thought to myself what would using performance enhancing drugs have to do with ethical decision making? As I read further into the story it all began to make since. Not only is ethnical decision making important for businesses but, it is just as important for individuals.

As we all know Lance Armstrong is famous for winning the Tour de France a record number of seven times. This is unreal for the normal human being and he did so after winning the battle against testicular cancer. I know you are probably sitting there wondering how can someone that has already been through so much from battling cancer go on to win the Tour de France seven times. Well this went through the minds of others as well and they began to question whether Lance was taking performance enhancing drugs during the times he raced.

Mr. Armstrong denied that he had ever used performance enhancing drugs for many years and even told an attorney for SCA that if he continued to say that he used these performance enhancing drugs he would sue him. SCA was the promotional company that paid Armstrong

after winning the races. SCA along with others had a suspicion that Armstrong used the drugs during the times he was racing and continued their investigation and found lots of evidence against Armstrong. After the evidence was presented to the courts Armstrong was eventually stripped of all seven titles from winning the Tour de France.
Armstrong was unfazed by the punishment and even posted a photo on Twitter of him relaxing in a room at his Austin home with the seven jerseys he wore for the races.

This is the problem we have athletes these days believe that they are untouchable and that there was no punishment for taking performance enhancing drugs. Lance Armstrong would later learn that this is not the case anymore. Arbitration was over turned against Armstrong in 2013 and he was ordered to pay SCA ten million dollars. This is just some of the money that Armstrong was paid by SCA during the times he was racing. Not only was this a huge hit to Armstrong but, after admitting to Oprah Winfrey in 2013 that he did indeed use performance enhancing drug every one of his sponsors dropped him costing him a whopping seventy five million. He was also banned from professional cycling for

life.
For a long time Armstrong thought that he had gotten away with taking these drugs and was only stripped of his titles and still seeing his self as someone that had won the Tour de France seven times. After losing the arbitration Lance had soon realized that he made a huge mistake in his career and it was now costing him millions and millions of dollars. Had Lance made an “ethical decision” earlier in his career as to not use performance enhancing drugs and to win the Tour de France by means of pure determination and training he would still today be considered one of the most elite athletes of all time.
So as you can see making an ethical decision can cost companies millions and even billions of dollars. However, ethical decisions are just as important to individuals as they are to a large company. Every day we should use ethical decision making. What we do today could affect us for the rest of our lives not only financially but, professionally as well. Just as it did with Lance Armstrong he not only lost millions of dollars but, now he can never compete in professional cycling for the rest of his life and this is something he dearly loved and enjoyed doing after overcoming his battle with cancer.
When making big decisions in your life I would recommend that you use the Ethical Decision Making Model to assist you in making the right decision.