Who wants to reduce corruption?

China has punished one million public officials for corruption (including tens of thousands in jail or under house arrest).

India recently demonetized two popular bank notes to curb illicit payments and exchanges.

Saudi Arabia arrested 200 princes and billionaires accused of corruption, saying it cannot afford to allocate 10% of its government spending to corrupt payments.

These countries have taken bold steps  because they understand that it is in their best interest to reduce corruption.

Yet, too many P&L owners bemoan the fact that their compliance office requires gift approvals and third-party vetting. They call it red-tape and claim it will kill the business.

Anyone else here sees a disconnect?

Do less, care more.

The job of an ethics & compliance officer has peaks and valleys. Times when we love our job and days when we dread walking through the door.

For me, the low points are when I have too much on my plate. Not necessarily in the form of a single big project but rather when I have a few dozen minor initiatives going on all at the same time (on top of a big project!). With so many deadlines looming, I skip over details, I decline meetings I should attend, and my sense of humor goes south. In other words, I stop caring. I get in these situations because I allow good to be the enemy of the best. I say yes to projects with marginal benefits without weighing the opportunity cost. And when that cost manifests itself, it’s usually too late.

I find the greatest job satisfaction when I do less and care more. By “doing less”, I don’t mean a 4-hour work week. I mean having a curated selection of projects allowing me to be focused (AF). Never more than a handful, ideally two or three. By “caring”, I mean having the time to think about the impact I can create, to identify the best ideas to create that impact, to come up with a plan, to execute with focus, and to reflect on the outcome. Caring also means that people come first and that failure is seen as learning.

The next time you find yourself uninspired at work, check to see if perhaps you are caught up in second-tier activities. If so, prioritize your work to maximize your impact through activities you enjoy. You will feel the excitement. You will feel the energy.

You will care.

Teaching our way to a healthy culture

“A good teacher knows that when a student is failing, the blame falls on the instructor, not the pupil.”

– Ryan Holiday

We are all teachers.

So when an employee slips up, we must have a critical look at our policies, training, controls, and audits, and ask “Where have we failed?” More importantly, we ought to examine our culture. Are we walking the talk?

And then we proceed with kindness, treating others the way they would want to be treated.

Doing so teaches all involved the way to a healthy corporate culture.

E&C podcasts

Today I am sharing a short list of ethics & compliance podcasts that I regularly listen to.

I enjoy podcasts because they save me time. Unlike articles and books and videos, I can listen to an episode while doing something else (like driving to work).

Here are the shows I currently subscribe to:

Are you listening to others? If so, please list them in the comment section below. I would love to try them out.

P.S.: I am dabbling into the audio world myself and considering upping my game in 2018.

There will be challenges

The work of an Ethics & Compliance Officer can be stressful at times.

We deal with colleagues who break the rules and who violate our values. We participate in the resulting investigative and disciplinary processes. We are forced to engage in unpleasant conversations.

We wish it wasn’t so. That we didn’t have to deal with it.

Of course, it would be silly to expect otherwise. That’s part of our job. Anyone signing up for this role knows these situations will arise regularly. Yet, we feel unprepared and uneasy each time.

In the quiet moments between crises, it is helpful to anticipate the next one. To accept that it is coming. To understand our role in the process.

We can then face the challenges with equanimity.

Emotional labor

In his post today, Seth Godin tells the story of a store clerk who was described as competent but who couldn’t engage very well with customers.

A few decades ago, perhaps a clerk’s competence could be narrowly define as her ability to punch the right button on the register and give correct change – what Godin calls “compliance” (just doing your work). But no more. Today, Godin says, we seek employees that can also engage in emotional labor.

Emotional labor + compliance = competence.

Interesting.

I can’t help but wonder: Is “ethics & compliance” the same as “emotional labor & compliance”?

One could argue that merely complying, simply following the rules or just doing what you’re told requires less emotional labor than asking the right questions, looking for better ways and standing up when things aren’t right.

When we say that we are looking for ethical employees, are we actually looking for emotional laborer? For people who don’t check their emotions at the door when the come to work? For people who want to bring their whole self to work? For people who care about our products, services, customers and mission?

I think we do. That said, what are today’s employers doing to attract and retain this type of employee? Have they engaged in the necessary emotional labor?

Legends

In large multinationals, the brave decisions of lonely ECOs in far-away business units are often unpopular with local management. But in the halls of corporate C-suites, no one sings the praises of the meek ECO. Legends are made of those who stand up and stand firm.

Combat-ready

The ancient Stoics would practice their response to unpleasant situations in advance. From the possibility of meeting a rude person to the certainty of their own death, they would rehearse the event so as to be better prepared to respond with virtue.

In the corporate world, we know that conflict is inevitable yet few of us truly prepare for it. But what if we rehearsed our response to a colleague asking us to punch his time card so he can sneak out early? Or our response to a boss asking us to work on the weekend without claiming overtime? To an inspector asking us to falsify test results? To a government official asking us to hire her nephew during contract renewal negotiations?

There’s a reason we keep our soldiers combat-ready in peacetime. Why not prepare our employees for the conflicts we know they are going to face one day?

Show me how

“Top managers [at Kobe Steel] escaped direct blame for the scandal: The report said there was no evidence that they were aware of the data falsification, though it criticized executives for setting unreasonable production targets and then failing to scrutinize how subordinates met them, or at least appeared to meet them.”

– https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/business/kobe-steel-scandal.html

A few decades ago, it was more common to hear managers say things like “I don’t want to know how you meet the targets, just meet them.”

Today, most managers have learned not to say such things. In fact, often now they will finish their sentences and say “Let’s make sure we meet those targets the right way.”

It’s better but, as it turns out, it’s not enough. For many employees, these words must be backed up by actions to be credible. Managers must do one more thing: ask employees how, specifically, they will meet the targets (or have met them).

Managers must demonstrate that how we do things matters just as much as what we do.

It’s the only way to create an ethical culture.

Keep out!

People have been cheating, lying and stealing from time immemorial and we can expect them to continue until the end of times.

Thus, the job of an ethics & compliance professional is not to eradicate these behaviors. It is to create a culture where they are not welcome.

Since culture is an outcome of our processes, our job is to remove from our processes any tolerance for cheating, lying and stealing. People engaging in these behaviors do not get hired, promoted or otherwise rewarded. Our processes either gets them fired or leads them to leave on their own.