This blog started in 2015. My first post generated 8 views.
Between 2015 and 2024 I posted more regularly, sometimes up to 220 posts in a single year.
At some point in 2024 I stopped writing because I felt I had nothing new to say. It turns out I had simply stopped noticing remarkable things – things worthy of a remark.
I’m noticing again.
Welcome back.
Apple is turning 50 this year.
One of its employees – and only one – has remained on the payroll since 1976.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Chris Espinosa, Employee #8, shared that he could never be let go because his severance package would be too expensive for Apple.
I won’t suggest that Espinosa coasted at Apple for 50 years, confident that he couldn’t be let go. On the contrary, he made significant contributions over the decades. But his unique story should make us pause and ask “Why do some employees stay in our organization for so long?”
Find your long-tenured employees and ask them.
It might turn out to be your most actionable culture survey yet.
Australia is the latest country to pass a law protecting workers who don’t respond to work-related messages outside of working hours.
According to NPR, “a 2022 survey by the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute […] found that seven out of 10 Australians performed work outside of scheduled working hours, with many reporting experiencing physical tiredness, stress and anxiety as a result.”
As a result, these employees are likely to experience resentment, which they often use to justify some form of retaliation against the company (lying about their performance, stealing time or resources, etc.)
Giving our employees some breathing room between shifts is good for their health, and that of the organization.
Think of employees as sailors and leadership as the wind.
Sailors can navigate forward no matter the direction of the wind, but anything other than beam reach is more challenging and time consuming.
If your organization is struggling with a poor compliance culture, could it be that leadership is blowing in the wrong direction?
We knew there would be a corruption scandal around the Paris Olympics when the city was selected in 2017. This is not a jab on Paris. It happens with every Olympic event.
We also know that sales professionals who are paid only on commissions and required to meet unreasonable targets are almost certain to cheat and lie. We know this the minute we create the incentive program.
What else is your organization doing today that clearly points to a compliance failure in the future?
We know that people don’t like change.
Which is why employees, and often leadership, resist when a company tries to improve its ethics and compliance program. “Our learning modules have always consisted of 40-minutes videos with real actors. Don’t change that.”
So meaningful change typically happens only after a crisis. A crisis that perhaps was occasioned by the prior resistance to change.
Socrates used to say that “nobody does wrong willingly.”
He simply meant that when people do wrong, they think they are right. If they thought otherwise, they wouldn’t do it.
And so it goes with those who engage in wrongdoing in the workplace. They think they are right. Because it’s funny. Because the company owes it to them. Because their family needs the money. Whatever the reason, they feel justified.
This is why it is so important for management and leadership to understand why people engage in wrongdoing at work. No amount of policies and controls will stop people who believes they are right. We must convince them that they are wrong.
And we must be right about that.
The ethics and compliance function exists to serve all employees in an organization.
As such, it should pay more attention to the feedback it receives from the rank and file than to the demands it gets from the executive population (which is often less than five percent of all employees).
I have visited the facilities of Ben & Jerry’s in Vermont and Heineken in Amsterdam. Both offer a tour that shows you how the product is made, and they give you a taste at the end (actually, Heineken gives you a taste in the middle and at the end). I’m convinced that the ice cream and the beer taste a little bit better because of the tour.
What these companies don’t offer is a tour that shows you how decisions are made. Imagine if we could see how Heineken compensates their farmers, or how Ben & Jerry’s treats their employees. Assuming they do it fairly, their product might taste even better (even though it’s a placebo effect).
Few companies show you how they make ethical decisions. In fact, few companies are transparent even with their employees. To me, that’s a missed opportunity. An employee who is proud of their leadership is more likely to go the extra mile.
By nature, cultural problems are systemic problems. That’s true of racism in a country, bullying in a school, or fraud in an organization.
Culture is how we do things around [here].
The only way to change culture is to change the system.
The Ethical Leader 