This is post 500

In January 2017, a colleague and I challenged each other to write about ethics & compliance every day for two weeks. We also invited all E&C professionals to join the challenge and share their thoughts about the state of E&C in their industry.

Our goal was to increase the body of practical knowledge in our profession. Personally, it was also a trick to force me to pay attention to how things really are. Knowing that I have to write something the next day makes me notice the world.

Once the two weeks were over, I never stopped. I don’t write on weekends, or on vacation, and I’ll miss a day here-and-there if I’m traveling (especially crossing the International Date Line!) but, on the whole, I’ve been writing a short post every workday.

The writing is at times difficult but it’s always nice to click the “publish” button. I’ve learned a lot about myself and I’ve made new friends. I also think I’m a better E&C professional because of my writing practice.

Seth Godin inspired me to do this during his appearance on the Tim Ferriss show in 2016. Take 45 seconds to listen here.

I hope to see you online.

Does your board know how to hire the next CEO?

Most employees agree that culture is important, and that their CEO strongly influences the organization’s culture.

So why do companies ignore this vital culture-building skill when selecting their next CEO?

Perhaps it’s because the board of directors selects CEOs, and most companies don’t educate their directors about the importance of culture.

What training do you provide to your board members?

HT to Eric Landicho

Ethical mantra

A former leader at my company used to repeat that we would rather lose business than compromise our standards.

He said it in speeches after speeches. We created a poster with that quote. Ethics & Compliance Officers used the same words during employee training sessions. Soon, other business leaders started to borrow the expression. Then, employees who reported wrongdoing told us they found the courage to speak up because they knew that this is what the company wanted.

That sentence became a mantra.

What’s your ethical mantra?

On data

In his blog post today, Seth Godin shared his thoughts on the cost of collecting data, specifically useless or bad data.

Here are his three rules on collecting data:

  • First, don’t collect data unless it has a non-zero chance of changing your actions.
  • Second, before you seek to collect data, consider the costs of processing that data.
  • Third, acknowledge that data collected isn’t always accurate, and consider the costs of acting on data that’s incorrect.

It got me thinking about the data that E&C professionals collect and I realized that we don’t always collect data on purpose. Some of the data collection “just happens”. For example, when we track online training completion, we want to know how many employees have completed the training. If we are not at 100%, we chase the laggards. But in the process, we also know where the laggards are (in what department, country, etc.) and what courses they haven’t completed. What do we do with this information?

Or think about the cost of collecting the data around supervisors communicating regularly about the importance of E&C. My organization has 25,000 supervisors. If my data collection process costs $40/year in person/hours for each supervisor ($10/quarter to report their efforts), this collection just cost my company one million dollars. Investing $100,000 in an automated platform that could collect the same information in half the time is clearly worth it.

Of course, I’m not advocating that we simply stop collecting data that is “too expensive.” Paul McNulty once quoted the Siemens’ General Counsel:

If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance.

Early adopters can change the culture

I came across a game-changing idea a few years ago. An idea that fixes everything that is wrong with today’s corporate culture.

Since then, I have been trying to implement it at work. I have presented it to my boss, to my peers, and to my team – and it hasn’t taken off yet. So my next move is to embed the idea in the next all-employee training. By getting it in front of thousands of people, I’m hoping to infect enough of them to get the idea viral.

If you have an idea whose time hasn’t come quite yet, remember that there are early adopters in every market. Find the right one, and you might also find your tipping point.

Beware the compliant employee

Compliance professionals work hard at defeating the efforts of sociopaths like Madoff and Skillings. But sociopaths account for only a tiny percentage of the workforce.

Far more numerous are inert employees. They are the employees who simply do as they are told. When asked “Why did you do it this way?”, they respond “Because we’ve always done it this way.” It’s ironic that we often call them “compliant” employees.

For every control we add, the sociopath will find a way around it. What we need to do is create a workforce around them acting as their conscience and creating the cognitive dissonance a sociopath cannot produce. We need employees who questions orders and who raise a red flag every time they see a work habit settling in.

In other words, we need to eliminate inertia from the workplace.

HT to Primed to Perform

What we do around here

Culture is how things are really done around here.

And how things are done is often the result of a story. For example, the story of the employee who got yelled at for holding a shipment after he feared that the product inside was defective. Now, no one holds a shipment around here.

Which is why recognizing good behavior is so important. People doing the right thing must be celebrated. Their stories must be told so that everyone knows what we do around here.

HT to Seth Godin

The only thing you control are your ethical choices

The Stoics taught us that we should focus exclusively on what’s within our control.

It turns out that the only thing within our control is our mind. Our bodies can get sick any day; our possessions can break or be destroyed or stolen; even a piece of jewelry in the bank safe is outside of our control.

For the business leader, this means that the only thing she truly controls are her ethical choices. Of course, she can use her judgment and reason to implement a compliance program – complete with policies, training, controls and audits, but she won’t be able to control how others respond to these efforts.

This reality might be unnerving to anyone seeking certainty in all aspects of life but chasing that ideal is the quickest path to unhappiness.