Acting justly

“Wisdom and acting justly are the same.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.37

I’ve always had a problem with the image of a wiseman as a long-bearded recluse living in a cave at the top of a snowy mountain. What can you be wise about if you live by yourself and do nothing all day?

I much prefer the Stoic view of Marcus Aurelius: “Wisdom and acting justly are the same.” When I hear that someone made a “wise move”, I picture a person who thought deeply about what needed to be done and then took the right action. Those who should know better and fail to act, we often call fools.

The ethical leader is not simply expected to act but to act justly.

On transparency

When I tell people that I strive to write a short blog post every day, I am often asked where I find the inspiration.

My job is such that it, alone, could be my muse. But I do rely on other sources as well. One of them is a list of bookmarks saved in a folder titled “Thought-provoking” in my web browser. From CNN.com’s homepage to Wikipedia’s “On this day…”, I often find a kernel of an idea.

One of my bookmarks is the results page of a Google search for news related to corporate culture. As a Canadian by birth, today’s top result caught my attention: “What of CBC‘s strange corporate culture?” Based on the facts made public to date, it seems that the news organization fired one of its reporters for writing a book without getting the proper approvals. The move appears harsh considering what we know about the case and the way CBC handled previous matters.

Which brings me to this post and the topic of transparency. With all the communication tools available to managers and business leaders today, I find it deplorable that most don’t take advantage of them. When they do communicate with their team, they usually stick to financial and operational matters. Once or twice a year, perhaps they’ll remind people to complete their ethics training – but they won’t share their perspective on the training itself (that would be outside their scope of work). Few are those who ever talk about culture, policies, or controls. Fewer still open up about the problems they face and how they make decisions and the actions they take to implement those decisions. If these topics were discussed openly, if employees could see how the Machine works, imagine how different the culture would be and how fewer violations would occur.

And how a journalist might still have a job.

Net neutrality

It’s an old story.

A group of individuals fight long and hard to rise to the top. Once there, they cut the rope.

We see this in Ivy League schools. We see this in C-suites. We see this in politics.

And now the top internet service providers want to do the same thing with the internet in the US. The two entrepreneurs currently coding the next killer app or that video site that is better than YouTube may fail in bringing their idea to the world because the FCC is about to give in to powerful private interests.

You can do your part to prevent this by breaking the internet today.

Those who care about business ethics ask the question “Should we?”

What hurtful words reveal

Perhaps today someone at work will say something that will hurt you, undeservedly. If not today, that day will come.

The ethical leader will remember that the words themselves have no power other than that which we ascribe to them.

Such hurtful words reveal the speaker’s pain, not the target’s true character. Understanding this will allow us to quickly let go of the anger that might naturally arise.

And let go we must, so that no more victims are made.

Data and fear

There is a difference between data security and data privacy.

When I purchase something online, I want my debit card number to be secure.

However, I don’t have great expectations of privacy. The store knows what I bought. My bank knows it too. (Same as 20 years ago.) The information is on numerous servers and on my web browser’s history. So when an ad pops up for the same product during my next Google search, I don’t freak out.

But many people do. They do because they imagine the worse, however unlikely. And the media picks up on the fear because it sells. And because it generates visits to their website where they collect our information to sell it to advertisers. {Suckers}

When it comes to data, the ethics & compliance officer will team up with an IT security expert to create secure vaults. She will also team up with a privacy officer to comply with the myriads of laws and regulations. But like all things, the work should be motivated by positivity, not by fear. Dangling the risk of heavy penalties and reputational damage never did much to fight anti-competitive behaviors, corruption or safety risks. If all you do to drive your GDPR/privacy agenda is freak out about the penalties that the European Union might impose next year, you’ll want to reconsider that strategy.

True compliance progress is made when organizations decide who they want to be.

Go talk to the ECO

A few years ago, employees would occasionally come to my office because their boss sent them to me. The employee had an ethical dilemma, went to their boss for advice, and the boss simply said “Go talk to the ECO.”

As tempting as it might have been to dive right in and help the employee, I would pause and tell them that I would like to bring their manager back in the conversation. When the three of us were together, I would tell the manager and employee that knowing where they stood on the issue would help me provide better advice. I would create a safe environment for both of them to reflect and share. Very often, they would get to the right place on their own.

I did this because I didn’t want management to send the signal that ethics is not their responsibility. I did this because I wanted them to exercise their ethical muscles. I wanted them to practice having these discussions.

Managers now understand how I roll and they don’t just send their employees to me anymore. They come in pairs, and prepared.

You cannot break just one rule

The latest scandal to hit Uber is a good example of the power of corporate culture.

At first glance, one could be tempted to label Joe Sullivan, Uber’s chief security officer, as a bad apple. After hackers asked a ransom for the personal data of 57 million drivers and riders, a breach that should have been reported to the authorities, Sullivan paid them hush money, had them sign a non-disclosure agreement, booked the payment as “bug bounty”, and didn’t disclose the breach to the CEO, the Board, or the authorities. It seems that only a lawyer working for him knew of these activities.

Of course, Sullivan’s behavior must be taken in context. When all of this happened in October 2016, Uber was sitting on numerous scandals yet to be disclosed: sexual harassment, theft of trade secrets, and blocking certain regulators from booking rides, among other shady practices. When hackers came to Sullivan for ransom, he knew exactly how Uber expected him to respond.

This should give us pause. A culture of sexual harassment does not simply foster more sexual harassment. It signals to employees that rules can be broken. Any rule. And the more rules are broken, the more disregard employees have for doing what’s right.

If our organization is tolerating a practice that should not be tolerated, we have more to fear than the proliferation of this one practice. Our entire organizational culture – in fact, our entire organization – is at stake.

Above the law

The idea that anyone can be above the law naturally offends our sense of justice.

This is why we can’t readily find a law that reads “This law applies to everyone in the country except for [insert name].”

Likewise, we are unlikely to find a corporate policy where the applicability section specifically excludes directors and officers.

If anything, laws and policies tend to impose a higher standard on leadership.

So why are they the ones most often tempted to claim a lesser burden?

Preventing harassment: involve the supervisors

Ten years ago, I led a team of about 100 ethics & compliance officers for a large multinational. Whenever one of them reported that “things were quiet” (i.e. they weren’t receiving allegations of wrongdoing to investigate), I would tell them to get invited to various staff meetings and to provide a short training on conflict of interests. This simple exercise was guaranteed to generate work.

In today’s climate, I would advise them to provide a short training on respect in the workplace. To cover issues related to bullying, discrimination, harassment and retaliation. That ought to generate work as well. And I would recommend one additional feature: make sure the group leader is involved in the training. Having her speak up on the importance of treating each other with respect will get employees to think about the culture of the organization as well. They’ll have a better sense for what’s acceptable and what’s not.

Of course, the goal is to create a culture where harassment doesn’t take place. But, at a minimum, we should want a culture where employees feel comfortable reporting harassment when it happens. The first place they’ll look to for comfort is at their immediate chain of command.

Rosa Parks and customs

Sixty-two years ago today, Rosa Parks, an activist in the US Civil Rights Movement, refused to give up her seat in the “colored” section of a city bus. She was arrested, despite the fact that she had not violated any laws. What she refused to comply with was a custom that had developed over time, where bus drivers made black passengers move, stand or disembark to make room for white passengers when the white section became full. This custom was so ingrained in the city of Montgomery that when Parks asked the arresting officer why she was being removed, he told her “The law’s the law.”

That is the power of a custom. So strong that people take it as law.

And that is the power of organizational culture. Those rules that we follow at work, whether or not they are written. Whether or not they are legal. The outcome of the masses adopting behaviors by consensus.

A good culture can propel the organization at the top of the heap and benefits everyone. A bad culture might benefit a few but creates a drag on the entire organization.

Every bad culture deserves a counter-movement. Every movement needs a Rosa Parks.

See anything you can fix today?