The arc of the moral universe

This post was originally published on January 17, 2017.

A century before Martin Luther King’s “Where do we go from here?” speech of August 1967, Theodore Parker said the following:

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

The arc doesn’t bend on its own. The bend is created by the courageous and persistent work of a minority, who possesses a moral imagination capable of seeing a future world that is better than today’s.

And so do we all have a responsibility to see the injustice about us, and to work towards its elimination, even if we never enjoy the fruits of our labor.

You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to evade it. — Rabbi Tarfon

ECI Fellows Meeting – Day 2

[If you haven’t done so already, I recommend you read my notes on Day 1 first]

My biggest insight on Day 2 came when a colleague asked “When do you stop looking for the root cause of a problem? Because if you keep asking “why?”, you’ll always end up at the same place: a failure of leadership.”

Perhaps there is one more “why?” after this cause. Why did leadership act this way or failed to act appropriately? The answer will point at the organization’s culture. It will highlight “who they really are”. And since culture is an outcome of processes – of “how things are really done around here” – we can then identify the process that needs to be changed.

In essence, every root cause analysis effort should aim to answer “What is it about our culture that allowed this failure to happen? And what processes are generating this culture?”

If we address these processes, we can start changing the culture.

ECI Fellows Meeting – Day 1

The ECI Fellows are currently meeting to discuss root cause analysis (RCA) and how to apply it in the E&C function. Here are some of my notes from Day 1.

The first question on the most recent FCPA guidelines that the DOJ issued to help its US Attorneys determine if an organization should be prosecuted is whether a RCA was conducted.
Many organizations do not conduct RCA because they suffer from 4 common learning biases:
- Success bias: We prefer success over failure. When we fail, we don’t want to spend time on our failure.
- Action bias: We prefer to do rather than reflect. We are too busy to learn.
- Fitting-in bias: When we join an organization, we believe it’s best if we just fit in, so we don’t challenge how things are done.
- Expert bias: Rather than learn how best to do the work from those at the front lines, we tend to run to senior executives in the ivory tower or to external consultants.

To learn how to overcome these biases, see this HBR article from our presenter.

Effective RCA usually requires an executive champion in the organization.
69% of legal violations resulting in public settlements between 2011 and 2013 can be attributed to cultural issues in the organization. Yet, most RCAs do not look at the cultural or behavioral aspects of the violations.
When defining your problem statement before the RCA exercise, make sure it follows the MECE principle: Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive.

How good do you want to be?

Not everyone aspires to be an ethical leader.

Some simply want to do what is right, quietly, on their own. They are not looking to inspire others to do the same (although they might do that occasionally without intending to).

Others simply want to follow the rules. They believe that playing by the rules is playing fair. Whether the rules themselves are fair to all players is for someone else to decide.

A few believe that all is fair in love and war. They love their family and business is war. They have one life to live and they want what is best for their loved ones. If being loyal means that they need to break a few rules here and there, then so be it.

And perhaps all of us fall on different points of this spectrum at different times. Especially if we don’t give much thought to how good we want to be.

How about today? How good do you want to be?

Modeling

Some organizations are known for their culture.

Uber, Zappos and Southwest quickly come to mind. And of course, Netflix, with it’s famous culture deck.

In a recent podcast, the author of the Netflix culture deck, Patty McCord, was asked to describe the best way to create (or fix) a corporate culture. Her answer was simple: model the behavior you want to see in others.

This simple tip is important for leaders who do the right thing (who behave like adults, as McCord would say) but who fail to be visible about it. Many ethical decisions are made within the C-suite and not shared with the rest of the organization. That is not a good example of “modeling”. We need these executives “on the runway”, flaunting their good behavior, if you’ll excuse the analogy.

This is where we, the ethics & compliance professionals, can come in. We are often close enough to our leadership to witness these commendable acts. We should document them and broadcast them for all to see, so that everyone understands what behavior is expected.

(For tips on branding, documenting and marketing, check out Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk.)

Caring for success

At this time each year, I start thinking about the all-employee training for the following year. Along with my extraordinary team, we work on identifying the topic, the content, the format and hundreds of small details.

Each year, I struggle with voices in my head that say things like “The employees won’t like it” or “It’s not as good as last year” or “We’ve never done something like that before.”

And each year I’m right. With 200,000 employees in my organization, some of them won’t like the training and some will think it wasn’t as good as in years past.

The same goes when I write a policy, or create a new control, or change a process.

My trick to get rid of these voices is to focus on the process and add a generous dose of caring. If we care about the employees and the organization, the outcome is almost assured to be positive. It won’t be perfect – we can’t please everyone – but we will hit our mark.

The next time you doubt your capacity to deliver, ask yourself how much you care for those in your care. Focus on them. Think about the value you want to bring to them. Feel the energy swell. And then set about to do the work. You will most likely succeed.

What will you do today?

What are your goals as an ethics & compliance professional? What should you be working on every day? How do you know when you’ve gone off track? When should you stand firm and when should you give way?

Many of us don’t know. So we just follow orders from “corporate”. We distribute the policies, we send training reminders, we investigate when a complaint is made. It all seems out of our control.

Here’s a classic exercise to get you back on track. Imagine that you’ve reached retirement age after a successful career as an ECO. At your retirement party, several people will take the stage to share how you have positively influenced their business life. You will hear from the CEO of your company, from an important customer, from a key supplier, from your professional association and from your local elected official. What would you like to hear?

Now you have goals.

Now you know what to do today, and how to do it.

Are we really listening?

Here’s an interesting exercise for the ethics professional: make an approximate count of how many policies, training modules and communication campaigns (posters, CEO message, etc.) have been created by your company to encourage employees to speak up.

Then, compare that number to how many policies, training modules and communication campaigns were created to encourage managers to listen up.

Chances are, there’s a serious disconnect.

What a wonderful opportunity for 2018!

“Why you need to worry about ______.”

GDPR. Cybersecurity. FINRA. Blockchain. You fill in the blank.

We see this title everywhere on the internet. For fear of missing out – we are compliance professionals after all – we click on it. We have to. We need to be informed.

But we approach our learning session with fear. We are primed to look for the monster, not for the sword to slay it. Often times, these articles are written by consultants in shining armor looking for you to hire them to slay the dragon. But you are not a damsel in distress, are you?

By all means, read the article but keep calm. Look for learnings and solutions. When none can readily be found (among all the hype), do a Google search on the topic. There is always another expert generously offering wisdom for free, using titles like “What you need to know about _____.” or “How to prepare for _____.” These titles don’t generate as many clicks but they will bring you more value.

2018: Positivity

I took the last two weeks of December off. It’s good to be back.

On this day last year, I decided to write every business day for two weeks. I never stopped. The process forces me to pay attention, to take notice, to think, to be more than a headline reader.

I had a look at my 2017 blog statistics and noticed that my “positive” posts were the most popular. A positive post is one that focuses on how to be a better ethics & compliance professional rather than focussing on the unethical behavior of celebrities, executives and politicians. I find that encouraging.

So I will make 2018 an experiment in positivity. I will endeavor to write posts that help employees feel empowered, that help executives create positive cultures, and that help ECOs support their business’ objectives.

My goal is to provide value. Please let me know if you think I’m succeeding or not.

Thank you for reading.