Category: Uncategorized

Is this good for humanity?

When we first invented the car, its adoption was slow and we had plenty of time to figure out what rules of the road would be necessary. A century later, we invented the self-driving car and we can’t fully bring it to market because the rules aren’t in place.

We’ve entered an era when technology moves faster than our ability to create rules around it. I doubt we will ever go back to a slower pace, at least not in our lifetime. So what shall we do?

One answer is to once again become comfortable relying on values. In the absence of rules, values fill the gap. We need to bring ethical considerations to new technologies, starting at the ideation stage. We need to ask “Is this good for humanity?”

Technology is neither good nor bad, but what we do with it can be one or the other. Let’s adopt a values-based approach to technology.

The best time to start changing your culture

Yesterday I attended a meeting about corporate culture and, more specifically, about employee empowerment.

Midway through the meeting, the leader mentioned that culture doesn’t change overnight. He used the apt expression “It takes time to turn a ship around.”

Looking at him speak to only two dozen employees in a company of over 40,000, I knew he wasn’t using the expression as a platitude. This was his third meeting on the topic, with a plan to have many more. A few employees at a time. Drip by drip. Helping turn the ship around.

As Seth Godin says, the long run is made up of a bunch of short runs. Which means that the short runs truly matter. None of them alone will change the whole thing but without all of them the change doesn’t happen.

The best time to start changing your culture was 10 years ago. The second best time is today.

At will

In many countries, employment is “at will”.

This means that we can get a job without having to sign a multi-year contract and we can quit anytime we like if a better opportunity presents itself.

It also means that an employer can let us go at any time for convenience. If the economy is bad, they can let us go. If they don’t like the types of movies we watch on the weekend, they can also let us go.

There is more room for abuse in such “unregulated markets”, and most of the employment abuses comes from employers (employees don’t kill their income just to spite their employers). This is why corporate values are important. Values like trust, respect and integrity can prevent jerks from firing employees for no good reason. Where there is no rule, values fill the gap.

Leaders should meet regularly with HR to review recent terminations, with a goal to verify that they were both legal and ethical.

Would they pay a bribe to work for you?

As I read Michael Volklov’s excellent summary of the college admission scandal, I wondered if any employee had ever bribed their way into my company.

Seems crazy? Ask yourself these questions: Has anyone ever lied on their resume to get a job with you (padding their educational or professional experience)? Has anyone ever improperly used a relationship they have with an existing employee to get through the door (a classic conflict of interest)? If your organization is large enough, the answer is probably yes.

So while it’s unlikely that any of your current managers would accept a bribe in exchange for a job, it’s not impossible. And it’s worthy of a fun 5-minute exercise during your next management meeting.

Love the process

I’m not going to be happy just when I finally buy the New York Jets. I’m happy now trying to buy the NY Jets. You have to love the process.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Ethics and compliance professionals aim for specific outcomes. We strive to reduce the pressure that employees feel to engage in wrongdoing, to reduce the number of instances employees notice wrongdoing around them, to increase their levels of reporting when they do see wrongdoing, and to decrease instances of retaliation when they report wrongdoing.

We engage in specific actions to reach these outcomes. We seek to draft simple policies, to create effective training, to communicate clear expectations, to investigate swiftly, and to discipline fairly.

As with all in life, we have more control over our actions than we do over our desired outcomes. Thus the key to a happy work life for an E&C professional is to love the process, to do each task as well as we can, in the present. If we devote ourselves to this art, we should get the outcomes we seek. If we don’t, we’ve been handed a learning putting us back on the path to mastery.

On loyalty

Imagine you lead a small team and learn that you will have to dismantle it in 6 months.

In an employee-centric culture, you will be expected to let your team know immediately and given resources to make sure they land in a good spot within or without the company.

In a customer-centric culture, you may be expected to keep it a secret until the last minute, for fear that your team will neglect the customer once they know their fate. The irony is that this fear would most likely materialize because your team had been operating in a customer-centric environment for so long, one where they always came second at best.

In an employee-centric culture, the employees’ loyalty to the company enures to the benefit of the customer.

Training options

There are different ways to train employees. Depending on the risk we face, some ways are better than others. Here are a few options (among many others):

  • Onboarding training – That’s the one-and-done approach. It should be reserved for no/low-risk activities, like “Here is where the corporate policy manual is.”
  • Basic training – Also for one-time training events, and recommended for low/medium-risk activities, like “Careful Email Communications”.
  • Refresher training – The training we repeat every year or every other year, for specific groups of employees. Best for medium/high risk activities, like “Discrimination and Harassment”.
  • Task-based training – This is when the training is baked into the actual tasks of the high-risk activity. Ideal for significant risks like antitrust, corruption, or trade sanctions.
  • Simulated-risk training – I call it War Games. A common example today is phishing your own employees to test their alertness, awareness and decision-making skills. When used for high-risk activities, repeatedly failing these exercises could lead to disciplinary actions.

The jerks we protect

Is there someone you work with that is so toxic that if they were to be fired you would feel compelled to thank leadership for getting rid of them?

If so, why wait to speak up? If you truly feel that leadership would welcome your thanks after the fact, rest assured that they would prefer that you speak up now before it gets worse.

(And it’s fine to do it anonymously)