Why Good People (And Good Brands) Do Bad Things
Let’s start with the elephant in the room, shall we?
Yes, there are con people and sociopaths who set out to do harm individually and in groups, but most damage in business is not caused by villains. It is caused by individuals and groups who began with conviction and a genuine desire to do something better.
Acknowledging this reality and understanding the forces that drive good people to do bad things is vital for high-integrity founders who see entrepreneurship as a way to realize positive change.
What Behavioral Science Actually Shows
For decades, researchers have studied a disturbing pattern:
Ordinary people, operating inside ordinary systems, reliably produce harmful outcomes under certain conditions.
Not because they lack values, but because systems shape behavior more powerfully than personal ethics.
Obedience and the Abdication of Judgment
Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments (1961–1963) observed how ordinary people behave when instructed by a legitimate authority to carry out actions that conflict with their personal moral judgment.
Participants were instructed to administer what they believed were increasingly dangerous electric shocks to another person. And they did. Over and over, participants deferred their own moral judgment to the structure of the experiment because they were told it was necessary and absolved of responsibility.
(Primary source overview: Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1963 — https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Milgram/)
Roles, Authority, and Normalization
The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) examined how behavior changes when people are placed into clearly defined roles, granted authority, and embedded in systems with weak oversight.
Participants were randomly assigned to the role of “guard” or "prisoner."
Despite being screened for psychological health and explicitly instructed not to use violence, the "guards" rapidly escalated controlling and abusive behavior.
What changed was not their character. It was their context; their role, the associated authority, and the absence of meaningful accountability.
Within days, behaviors that would have been unthinkable outside the system became normal and routine. In fact, the cruelty unfolded so quickly and intensely that the study, which was designed to last 14 days, was terminated after only 6.
(Primary source overview: Philip Zimbardo, “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” Stanford University — https://www.prisonexp.org/)
Moral Self-Concept as a Blind Spot
Research in moral psychology, specifically Monin & Miller's (2001) work on moral credentials and moral Merritt, Effron & Monin's (2010) self-licensing, has explored how people’s self-concept as “good,” “ethical,” or “values-driven” shapes their ability to perceive any harm they cause, particularly harm that is indirect, systemic, or unintended.
Across multiple studies, researchers have found that a positive moral identity can function as a psychological buffer. It reduces scrutiny while also increasing rationalization.
In short, when goodness is assumed, vigilance declines.
(Representative research: Monin & Miller, “Moral Credentials and the Expression of Prejudice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001; Merritt, Effron & Monin, “Moral Self-Licensing,” Psychological Science, 2010)
What Does This Mean For Founders and Their Brands?
The Founder
Founders will default to the moral norms legitimized by advisors, investors, industry standards, and marketplace expectations.
They will adapt their behavior to match the persona of “Founder” they have seen celebrated—often unconsciously—even when that behavior contradicts their conscious sense of self.
And the more a founder identifies as "well intentioned," the more likely they are to filter out, dismiss, or ignore evidence that their brand is doing harm.
The Team
Teams follow the same pattern.
They default to the norms modeled by leadership and reinforced by systems. They learn what behavior is rewarded. They defer judgment upward.
And the more "well-intentioned" they believe the brand to be, the more likely they are to filter out, dismiss, or ignore evidence that they are contributing to wrongdoing.
Does this mean we should abandon conscious capitalism and intentional brand development altogether?
No. Quite the opposite.
It means we should double down. Because the keyword in both of the above-stated scenarios is "default."
Founders who wish to raise brands that improve the lives of the people in their orbit must go above and beyond to seek evidence to the contrary. They must work to anticipate and also uncover the inherent shadow cast by their vision.
Using Brand IdQ™ to Anticipate and Uncover Brand Shadow
Like the Brand IdQ™ Identity Framework itself, the concept of Shadow comes from the Jungian tradition.
At an individual level, identity organizes how a person moves through the world. Shadow consists of everything excluded, ignored, or denied by that identity.
Not because it’s bad, but because it’s unseen.
Unseen variables don’t disappear. They operate as uncontrolled variables, unintegrated and without regulation.
The same is true of brands.
Brand is the collective identity that organizes a business’s movement through the world, hopefully realizing the founder's vision. Brand shadow is everything else, unknown, ignored, or denied. And it's these variables that quietly threaten brand integrity.
It’s important to note that while Brand IdQ™ may appear simple at first glance, four Core Motives and twelve Emotive Styles, there are more than 600 possible identity profiles. Each configuration has its own strengths and predictable Shadow.
The framework helps surface the most obvious Shadow by including “Be mindful of…” as part of each Core Motive description and through identified style contradictions among the selected Emotive Styles. But no framework is exhaustive.
The context in which a brand is activated and raised will always shape how Shadow shows up.
Knowing your brand identity and its resulting Shadow is not a one-time exercise, it is a practice.
"Know thyself and thy brand."
Ask for feedback.
Look for problems.
Stay curious about what you don’t want to see.
That is how the threats of Shadow are minimized.
The Call to Action
If you are building something you believe is good, your responsibility does not end with intention.
It extends to vigilance, accountability, and course correction.
Brands that endure are not protected by values alone.
They are protected by leaders who remain attuned to the Shadow their vision and success creates and who take responsibility early and often.
That is the work of raising brands up right!
Who We Are
"We don’t create brands, because we truly believe that every business already has a brand. Rather, our role is to help founders and their teams embody the brand fully, express it with more clarity, and expand its influence and impact with more confidence."
~ Charlie Birch, Author of On Raising Brands + Founder and Creative Director @ Humaniz Collective
Bringing a brand to market is just the beginning of your brand’s development and life story.
And that’s where we come in!
We’re creative, marketing and operational experts working together to ensure brands come to life from the inside out.
We support brands throughout their lifecycle across three phases of service:
Brand Strategy
Brand Design
Brand Stewardship
If you’re looking for a brand partner to walk beside you, ensuring your brand grows up healthy and strong, makes good life choices, and attracts the right people into its orbit, Humaniz Collective is the obvious choice.
Engage with Brand IdQ - our complimentary brand strategy generator - and let us prove our worth.
