What is better than sending your teenager to a driving class? Also telling her what to do when she gets into a fender bender and gets a ticket. What’s better than that? Role-playing the incident two or three times until she gets it right.
Similarly in the workplace, we should not only teach employees about rules and values, we should also teach them what to do when they observe wrongdoing. Better yet, we should role-play the actual reporting process. It’s easy to say “If you see something, say something.” It’s a lot harder to actually do it, especially if you’ve never done it before.
Most drivers will get into a minor accidents. Most employees will observe wrongdoing. Why not prepare them?
HT to Seth Godin and Mary Gentile.
The Ethical Leader 