How we see the world affects our behavior. When we see the world as a safe place, we extend trust.
But how we behave also affects how we see. Extending trust, in a smart way, reveals a world heretofore unseen.
The ethical leader understands both realities. With right actions, she glimpses at a brighter future. With right vision, she inspires her followers.
Here’s a game to play this week:
Make a list of all the things you see and hear in your organization this week that undermine your ethics and compliance program.
Rank them in order of difficulty to solve. Make sure the solution is in the form of a process.
Take action on the easiest one.
Repeat next week.
Twice this week I caught myself describing to a colleague a project I’m working on and saying “It might not work.”
This is new for me. By nature, I tend to play it safe. But I’ve come to accept the reality that it’s OK to punch a whole in the boat as long as it’s above the waterline. I see that the only way to innovate (and to learn and to grow) is to take risks. This doesn’t come easily to E&C professionals, whose job it is to minimize risks. But not taking any risks can be the riskier path.
What risk could you take today?
My best ideas surface when I make a connection between the problem I’m working on and something completely unrelated.
Which is why I find it exciting to learn new things. I learn mostly by reading books and watching documentaries or short videos. While I’m learning, I am also actively asking myself “How can I apply any of this to my work?” It doesn’t always lead to anything but, when it does, it’s exhilarating.
My friend Neel Doshi says that “learning goals improve performance faster than performance goals.”
I totally dig this.
Writing a policy is an activity.
So is creating a poster, delivering a training, implementing a control or conducting an audit.
It’s easy for E&C professionals to lose themselves in activities. It can keep us busy all day.
But that’s not enough. All this activity means nothing without results. This is a fact that we sometimes forget. We do things because we’ve always done them or because everyone else is doing them, and we assume that the results will come. We do things all day long without measuring their effectiveness. We talk about all the things we do but not about the results. When we face a bad result we are left to say “But look at all I’ve done!”
Whatever we did wasn’t effective.
Today is an opportunity to look at what we do and ask three questions: “Why am I doing this?”, “What result am I expecting out of this activity?” and “How will I measure this result?” If the answer to any of these question is unclear or unsatisfactory, we need to question whether this activity should be done in the first place.
We must focus on results.
“The way things are really done around here.”
It’s a common definition of corporate culture. It’s also my favorite because it means that leadership can actually influence culture by deciding how things are to be done.
Leadership. Or the regulators.
Which will it be for you?
Before philosophers started to ask questions like “What is the meaning of the number 4?”, they sought to identify actions that led to a better life.
Before ethicists started to ask questions like “Would you push the fat man off the overpass to save the two rail workers?”, they sought to identify actions that led to a better world.
As E&C professionals, what questions are we asking today?
The featured speaker for the final day of our conference was Gallup’s Vipula Ghandi.
Gallup has been studying human behavior for decades and Ms. Ghandi’s message was simple: if you want to be fulfilled and successful, bank on your strengths. You will learn faster, excel quicker, and enjoy every minute of it.
An important reality highlighted by Ghandi is that a person’s strengths can make them blind to another person’s strengths. For example, an “achiever” who must absolutely get something tangible done every single day (even while on vacation) may find a “learner” who prefers the process to the results absolutely maddening.
Reflecting on this reality, I can see how such differences in people’s strengths can lead to distrust and pressures in the workplace. Which makes for an interesting link between Ghandi’s message and what Stephen Covey had to say about trust on Day 1 and what Neel Doshi shared about performance drivers on Day 2.
From this, I am reminded of the importance of valuing differences, of seeking first to understand, of designing job roles carefully. And, more than ever, I am reminded of the strong relationship between ethical performance and business excellence.
ECI: well done.
The keynote speaker for Day 2 was Neel Doshi, co-author of Primed to Perform.
Based on the review of 100 years of social science studies and their own research, Doshi and McGregor demonstrate that how “why we work determines how well we work.” While it may appear that this book is about business performance, it has a lot to do with ethical performance.
People show up at work for various reasons. A few of us feel like we’ve won the lottery and do a job that we thoroughly enjoy. We simply can’t believe that we’re getting paid for this! Some of us do work because of its noble purpose or for the potential it creates. Meanwhile, many of us go to work under pressure, either emotional or financial. Finally, some of us go to work because… well… we don’t really know. This is the only thing we’ve ever done. What else are we going to do?
The low end of this spectrum (not knowing why we work) is called inertia. From a performance perspective, these employees do the bare minimum. From an E&C perspective, these are folks who, when asked why they do things a certain way, respond “I don’t know. We’ve always done it that way!” They don’t see the risks. They don’t care. They won’t raise their hand when something’s wrong. They are extremely dangerous to the organization.
Moving up on the spectrum are those who work because they are pressured to do so. Their focus is not on the work itself but on relieving the pressure. Thus, their performance suffers. From an E&C perspective, we have long known that these employees are more likely to engage in fraud or other wrongdoing if given the opportunity and a rationale (the three points of the fraud triangle).
As we move closer to the high-end of the spectrum, we find people who care more about the work itself than about external pressures. Those who care tend to perform better. From an E&C perspective, absent significant pressures, they are unlikely to engage in wrongdoing.
The lesson for organizations is this: how responsible are you for creating pressures in the workplace? Are you creating scorecards and weaponizing the data? Are your sales people compensated solely on commissions? In addition, are you creating potential for your employees? Can they see the impact of their work on the end-customer (purpose)? Are the jobs designed to maximize enjoyment of the work itself?
The science shows that getting this right will improve performance and the bottom line. And, as a significant benefit, it will also improve the ethical culture of the organization.
Those of us attending Day 1 of the ECI annual conference yesterday had the pleasure of listening to Stephen Covey describing the importance of trust in organizations.
Mr. Covey summarized the findings of his research, which is detailed in his book The Speed of Trust. As I listened to him describe how trust-generating behaviors directly, and dramatically, affect the performance of organizations, I saw a parallel with ECI’s own research showing how an ethical culture – built on trust – significantly reduces organizational risks.
As a practitioner working to constantly improve ethical culture, I am often overwhelmed by the multiple facets of culture. Where should you start? What levers give you the most leverage? What processes can have the most impact on culture? As it turns out, focusing on trust simplifies the problem. Creating trust might actually be the best way to make quantum leaps in improving any culture.
As Mr. Covey said, whether you are trying to build a performing culture, an ethical culture, an innovative culture, or any other type of positive culture, creating trust is essential to your success. If you are not convinced, consider this: would it be possible to create the culture you desire without trust?
The Speed of Trust identifies 13 behaviors, all very practical, that any leader can learn to increase the trust level in her team. I noticed several behaviors that I’m not very good at and I’m excited to put them into practice. I can’t wait to see how this will improve my effectiveness and the value I bring to my organization.
The Ethical Leader 