Culture is a shortcut.
When employees don’t have all the necessary information to accomplish their work, when they need to make educated guesses, culture provides the answers.
We don’t have to spend a lot of time explaining how to do something, or why. Culture knows.
Which is why the quality of our culture is so important.
{Warning: This post is a little jocular}
Here are a few technologies that exist today:
With these technologies, you can create a workplace where risks could be mitigated in real time.
Imagine an in-person meeting with a branch manager and her staff. The facilities manager explains the need to hire a window washer for the external windows on the second and third floor of the building. The branch manager exclaims that her brother-in-law has a window washing business and would certainly give them a deal. Everyone seems to think this is a great idea.
The conversation is recorded, analyzed by a ChatGPT-like tool, which runs it against the company policies. An email or a text is immediately sent to all attendees, highlighting possible violation of the conflict of interests and procurement policies. Even better, the alert could be sent over the speakers in the meeting room.
Very creepy, I know. And unlikely to survive the scrutiny of current privacy laws.
But think how helpful it would be from a compliance perspective, especially for bigger risks related to corruption, global trade, product safety, etc.
Until such a day is possible (if even desirable), we need to sustain our efforts around communications, education, and ethical culture.
Companies can now put their corporate policies in a version of ChatGPT and let their employees ask questions like “Can I give a bottle of wine to a customer for Christmas?”
So far the results I’ve seen are mediocre at best, and sometimes misleading. But soon the AI will be better and provide correct answers. What does this mean for ethics professionals?
For now, they need to work closely with their digital technology friends to make sure the AI tool is heading in the right direction. Once the tool is able to provide correct, unbiased answers, ethics professionals can use their newfound time for more meaningful work (more meaningful than pointing an employee to section 4.2.11 of the gift policy, where the answer resided all along).
Ethics professionals are not going away anytime soon. It’s not like there is a shortage of business ethics issues to be addressed right now. The more complex and deserving ones often get pushed aside because of the urgency created by an employee who needs a Christmas gift reviewed on December 19. We can let a chatbot take care of that, and focus on questions that require creativity, empathy, and generosity.
People want to fit in.
It’s in our DNA. It ensures our survival. So we do what other people do.
If we don’t see anyone at work actively creating and managing a positive culture, we hesitate to go first.
But if we go first, others might follow. If they do, we’ll create something beautiful together.
If they don’t, it’s a sign that we need to work elsewhere.
First day back at work for 2024.
Will your company culture be the same this year as it was last year?
Will you try to make it better? If so, what will you do differently? What intentional behaviors will you adopt?
The wars, the upcoming elections, AI and ChatGPT – they will all influence your culture, all on their own, and probably not for the best.
Unless you are intentional about making your culture better.
President Lincoln is said to have written many letters in anger, and to never have sent them to the person he was angry with.
If we meditate on our anger, and focus on its physical manifestations, all of it often dissolve rather quickly.
Anger is simply an elevated heart rate and a troubled mind. Who can make good decisions in such a state?
Whether we are a parent or a manager or a politician or a general, let us be mindful of our state today.
The penalties for assaulting a mail carrier in the United States are steep.
This is as it should be. The health of a nation’s postal service still determines the health of that nation. Any attack on a postal service should be punished accordingly.
And so it goes in a corporation. Some activities are more important than others. An attack on those activities should trigger harsher punishments for employees. Which is why I have long said that the right punishment for retaliation is termination of employment. Compliance activities are vital to an organization’s survival, and nothing is more detrimental to a compliance program than retaliation against employees who speak up.
Cultural differences sometimes create compliance problems.
The only way to truly solve that compliance problem is to truly understand the cultural difference.
How much effort are we willing to exert to understand another’s culture?
A direct flight from New York to Charlotte can be more expensive than a longer flight from New York to Miami that stops in Charlotte.
It only makes sense if you understand that flight distance is only one price factor. For example, airlines charge travelers more for the convenience of a direct flight, just because they can. They also charge more for less-travelled routes and routes with less competition, just because they can.
So I find it ironic that airlines are now attacking passengers that engage in skiplagging – and the websites that facilitate the practice. If they want their passengers to be “fair” with them, perhaps the airlines should behave accordingly.
In many corporations, retaliation is defined as a negative consequence against an employee for raising a concern or participating in an investigation.
In Fulton County, some grand jurors are on the verge of being retaliated against for participating in one of the many Trump indictments. Nowadays, going against Trump puts you at risk of physical violence.
In a corporate setting, the appropriate discipline for retaliation is termination of employment. Nothing is more damaging to a compliance program than retaliation. Similarly, nothing is more damaging to democracy than violence aimed at silencing the other side. Those engaged in such violence should face severe charges.
The Ethical Leader 