A code of ethics is not a nice list of values on the wall. According to the source, it is a set of restrictions you choose to take on, and you keep them because of who you are, not because someone is checking. And you already have one, even if you have never written a line of it.
You already have a code, you just never wrote it
There are things you won't do even when they would pay. And there are things you do even when nobody is watching. That is your code.
The problem is that it only lives in your head. So it bends, and not in the calm of the morning. It bends at six in the evening, after a hard day, across from a client who is threatening to leave.
Most writing about business values tries to solve this with a poster on the wall. It doesn't work, because a poster describes what you say. A code describes what you have decided ahead of time that you will not do.
Who set the rule
The source opens with a distinction that sounds academic but is very practical. In its words, ethics is “simply of the actions an individual takes on himself.”
Ethics here is not a field of study. It is the set of rules you lay down for yourself and keep by your own decision. According to the source, it stands on a foundation that you alone set. It makes the point about personal decision twice, in two separate places. A line that comes back like that is not said in passing.
That gives you a simple test for any rule you follow in your business: who decided on it? When the rule comes from the tax office or from your biggest client, there is no code there. There is a requirement, something pushed on you from outside. When the rule comes from you, it is a code, even if it was never put on paper.
And the difference isn't a matter of words. A requirement holds while someone is watching. A code holds when nobody is. In a small business, where nobody above you is checking on you, that is exactly the difference that shows.
Suppose a carpenter won't deliver a piece that is off by even a hair's width, even when the customer would never notice. Nobody makes him. That is a code.
Now the other way around. The same carpenter issues an invoice for every job, because the law says he must. That is a requirement, not a code. And the check is easy: if the law changed tomorrow, would his behavior change along with it?
Why people keep a code
Here the source gives a reason you might not expect. A person follows a code because he wants to, or because he feels proud enough, decent enough or civilized enough to behave that way.
Look at what is missing. Not because it pays, not because it is expected, and not because he would be punished otherwise. The only reason is self-image, how you see yourself. You keep the code because you see yourself as someone who keeps it.
It may sound soft, but watch what it does in practice. A code that rests on money will vanish the day the money does. A code that rests on who you are is still standing on the day everything else collapses. Losing a big client doesn't take your code with it. Unless what you called a code was really a contract.
Suppose a renovation contractor sees steel prices jump halfway through a project, and refuses to raise his price. He loses money on that job. When someone asks him why, he doesn't talk about the long term. He says he already gave a price, and that's it.
A code lists restrictions, not aspirations
The third definition in the source is the one that turns all this into something you can write. It calls an ethical code “a code of certain restrictions indulged in to better the manner of conduct of life.”
Restrictions, not aspirations. That is the point most values documents miss.
Being excellent is not a code. There is no moment when you break it, which means there is no moment when you keep it either. On the other hand, not delivering work you haven't checked yourself is a code, because there is a clear moment when you know you broke it.
That also explains why words like integrity, service or growth never stop a single decision. They are always true, so they never bind you. A line in a code binds you precisely because sometimes it costs you something.
What the booklet has on this
The chapter this article draws on includes two exercises: the test, and the break. After them comes a self-check, and later on the booklet brings three written codes so you can cut your own lines out of them.
Your code already exists and is already running. The only question is whether it will hold at six in the evening, across from the client who is threatening to leave.