Gripes go up

When E&C professionals interview employees in the course of investigations, they often hear employees say that their wrongdoing was motivated in part by what their supervisor said to them or to their team. Things like:

  • This policy doesn’t make sense. None of these policies do. And there are so many!
  • This training is a waste of time. But we need to check that box.
  • If you don’t think that extra test is necessary, use your judgment.
  • If an auditor comes, just answer the questions. Don’t volunteer other information.

These short sentences compromise the culture of compliance. If indeed a policy doesn’t make sense, the supervisor should elevate the issue and, in the meantime, comply with the policy. Same idea with training, controls, audits and everything else.

Gripes go up, not down.

The true heroes of an ethics & compliance program

Ethics & compliance professionals use a lot of neat phrases to inspire good behavior:

  • Don’t cheat. Don’t lie. Don’t steal.
  • Do the right thing, even when no one is watching.
  • We’d rather lose business than compromise our standards.

These sentences sound amazing in corporate videos or printed on posters.

But once you release them into the wild, things get ugly. Employees wrestle with the business pressures as they seek to live by the corporate values. Many will fail and those who don’t often get hurt. We have to celebrate those who are willing to get hurt. They have forsaken short term gains to ensure the survival of the organization. They have gone into battle because they believe in doing the right thing. They got bruised and cut and beaten down and yet they got up every time. These are the true heroes of an ethics & compliance program.

Don’t investigate your boss

I’m fortunate enough to support a team of 500 Ethics & Compliance Officers (ECOs) at my organization.

Yesterday, I learned that one of them received an allegation against his boss from another employee. He did the right thing and immediately contacted a more senior ECO to handle the investigation. It’s never a good idea to investigate your boss.

I immediately scheduled a call with that ECO, to be held later today. I want to make sure he is OK and that he knows we will protect him during and after the investigation. The job of ECO is supposed to be career-enhancing, not career-limiting. It’s a job that gives you a 360-degree view of the business, either molding you into a great utility player or helping you discover your interests and strengths for the next job. It should not force you to burn your bridges.

But the nature of the job puts us in a tough spot. When a salesperson does her job well – and sells – she gets rewarded. When an ECO (or anyone in a control function like an attorney or a financial controller) does his job well, he may face the ire of management for “impeding business.”

The role of an ethical leader is to seek always to do things the right way. They should thus be grateful for the work of ECOs and others in control functions.

Leadership and cultural problems

Let’s play a game.

Let’s pretend that, like President Trump, some of our direct reports are recording our private discussions at work.

What should we do?

The “usual” steps are:

  • Create a new policy prohibiting recordings at work
  • Create training about the new policy
  • Search all employees at the door for recording devices
  • Conduct random checks
  • Terminate violators

Of course, none of these steps are addressing the cause of the problem.

When our employees’ behavior suggests a cultural problem, we need to find the cause in our behavior, not theirs.

A community produces most what it honors most

This is a quote from an article on DaVita’s corporate culture.

DaVita seeks to intentionally build its culture. To do so, it focuses on 7 activities that any company can adopt. One of them is revere, i.e. honoring teammates who live by the company values.

I’ve said it many time before but it’s worth repeating for those who don’t believe in rewarding people for doing what they are supposed to do. When you recognize someone for good behavior, what you are truly doing is helping everyone else recognize the behavior you want them to adopt. It may look like the spotlight is on one person  but the focus is really on the audience.

I have two daughters who share a bedroom. When they were younger, all I needed to do was praise one for how neatly her bed was made to ensure that the other would make hers just as neatly.

Honoring ethical behavior in an organization is a key driver of an ethical culture.

How to create time

Some problems show up simply because we failed to communicate properly.

In most cases, we had time to communicate but chose not to. We decided that we were too busy, that we told them enough already, that it was their job to figure the rest out.

And then it came back to bite us, forcing us to spend more time fixing the problem than it would have taken us to communicate properly in the first place.

Take a minute today to send an update to those who need to know about the most important project you are working on.

You will create time in your future.

Playground at work

The science shows that employees perform best when they are in roles that allow them to be curious and to experiment. The employer’s job is to provide a sandbox where employees feel safe to play. This is what Google did when it allowed its employees to spend 20% of their time working on whatever they wanted.

A playground at work allows employees to learn and develop their skills in a safe way. If they try something and it doesn’t work, it’s OK. As they try and fail and try again, their skills improve, all to the benefit of the organization.

The best-selling video games know a thing or two about play and skills. The first challenges the present to players can be met with almost no skills at all. The next challenge is barely more difficult. Players acquire skills rapidly while having fun. If they make a mistake, they can start over again and again. Consequently, players spend countless hours honing their skills.

Imagine a workforce that comes to work for play. Each employee has a job designed for their current skill level. Experiments are conducted to generate learning and growth. As their skills increase, their job is redesigned and their pay is adjusted. They keep playing, they keep learning, they increase their skills, all in a virtuous cycle.

There is a roadmap to this future workforce. It’s called the science of total motivation (ToMo). You can learn about it in the book titled Primed to Perform.