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.
When deciding to buy a car, too many people focus on its (sticker) price, not its long-term cost (fuel, insurance, maintenance, repairs, storage, etc.). The cost far exceeds the price.
Similarly, wise leaders understand that the cost of non-compliance far exceeds the price of compliance.
HT to Seth Godin, 16 Feb
If you have an unpleasant interaction at work today, try this: assume for a brief moment that the words you are hearing or reading are not the real message. Look for the real motivation behind the words. Assume positive intent.
Perhaps there is nothing more below the surface. But very often the jab comes from a person who is suffering through no fault of your own, and they see you as a safe place to offload their pain.
Looking at it this way will allow you to measure your response.
Building a more ethical and compliant organization is not as complicated as leadership thinks.
But it is more expensive and time consuming than they hoped for.
HT to Seth Godin, Feb 8
If you are a supervisor of 8 people in your organization of 100,000+ employees, simply focus on the culture you can create with those 8 employees. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, as Roosevelt once said. Outsiders will notice, and your microculture will spread.
HT to Seth Godin, January 30
If your organizational culture isn’t changing for the best, it’s because your leadership doesn’t want it to change.
If we saw a rusty spot on our car, we would probably take care of it right away to prevent the rust from spreading.
The same goes with a deteriorating culture. If we don’t address it at the first signs of decay, we risk that it will eventually fall apart.
HT to Seth Godin.
When something bad happens at work, we can try to find out who did it and punish them.
One way to prevent the same thing from happening again is to find out how they did the deed and put a new control in place.
Going one step further, we can ask why they did it. What pressured them? What belief did they hold? Then we can change our processes to alleviate that pressure, and we can articulate our values to change that belief – with all employees.
The last and most important question to ask is “What is it about our culture that led to this failure?”
Addressing only the first three questions will not solve the real problem. Only the last answer leads to an effective solution.
The Ethical Leader 