A resolution for 2017

If you manage people, you should resolve to demonstrate ethical leadership every day.

Every. Single. Day.

Some ideas:

As you read the morning news, share with your team an E&C article that discusses a best practice or the latest scandal, and include your thought on its applicability to your business.
Send reminders as the E&C training deadline approaches.
Encourage employees to use the anonymous hotline to report a concern if they are not comfortable speaking with you.
When appropriate, share disciplinary actions taken against those who violated company policies.
When appropriate, recognize those who did the right thing to protect the company and each other.
Explain what conflicts of interests are and what the organization does to avoid them.
Lead training sessions (don’t always delegate them to Legal or your E&C professional)
Invite E&C professionals from neighboring companies to share their program with your team. Then share the results of this benchmarking event with the entire organization.
Talk about a section of your code of ethics at an all-hands meeting.

I could probably add 100 bullets to this list.

The point is: demonstrate the importance you place on E&C.

If it’s important to you – and your team can see it – it’ll be important to them.

Basics: ethical awareness

On the spectrum of ethical leadership, the worse place for an employee to be is at bottom end.

In that place, employees don’t even know they are facing an ethical dilemma. Thus, they have no ability to make the right decision or to inspire others to behave ethically.

At the very least, our role as E&C leaders is to provide them with just enough knowledge so that they recognize the danger and understand they must seek help.

If you ever had to discipline an employee who violated a rule she truly didn’t know existed, then it’s time to go back to basics.

Know thyself

Why do we survey our employees?

Why do we ask them to disclose potential conflicts of interests?

Why do we provide training and track its completion?

Why do we maintain an anonymous hotline?

Why do we approve business gifts before they are given?

Why do we have a code of ethics?

Why do we recognize positive behavior?

Why?

Our employees want to know.

Otherwise, it all seems like CYA stuff to them. Things we do to avoid fines and penalties.

Instead of focussing our efforts on telling our employees what to do, we should tell them who we are.

When we know who we are, we know what to do.

Time for celebration

Celebration matters.

Employees first look to their leaders to understand what is important to them. Then, they proceed to do that very thing. Finally, they look for validation.

A simple “thank you” is a mini-celebration. Think that’s cliché? Try working for someone who doesn’t say thank you and see how you feel.

Now is a holiday season in many parts of the world. Everywhere, it’s the end of the calendar year. A time to look back, a time to look forward. A time to celebrate. Even if the results were not as expected. We can always celebrate effort. We should always celebrate effort.

Bring some food in the office. Take your team out to lunch. Have them in your home for dinner. Say something nice, something that comes from the heart. You could not have done it without them.

Celebrate. It’s a beautiful way of saying thank you.

P.S.: To my handful of core readers (and to my one follower), I say thank you for paying attention to my writing. I appreciate you.

Double standards are cancerous

When senior leaders decide to discipline their own more leniently than how low-level employees are disciplined for the same infraction, they typically think that no one will know.

But someone always does. The assistant who anonymously reported that her boss was cheating on his expense report. The ethics officer who received the anonymous report. The few who have access to the system where the allegation was recorded. And those who might be the confidents of the previously-mentioned – among others.

Everyone who knows of an actual double standard become disillusioned. We all believe in fairness and it hurts when we see it stolen. We become less enthusiastic, less engaged. We think “what’s the point?” The entire organization suffers as a result.

Double standards are born out of a lack of courage by those who are in the best position to fight.

Getting out of a conflict

Here is a standard 3-step process to resolve conflicts of interests:

Disclose the conflict
Remove the conflicted person from decision-making
If 1 and 2 are not enough, follow company policy or the law.

Sometimes, the first two steps are enough. For example, if one of the suppliers bidding for work is the brother of a low-level employee, you can just make sure that this employee is not part of the selection committee.

Sometimes, step 1 is enough. If a nurse is selling jewelry at the mall on the weekends for extra income, it’s unlikely to affect decisions she will make at the hospital.

Sometimes, the conflict is self-evident and need not be disclosed. In the case of a joint venture, everyone understands that JV managers also have a loyalty to the organizations they came from (majority and minority JV partners).

And then you have cases where these 3 steps are simply not sufficient. Cases where the conflicted person has too much power and influence. Even when they are removed from decision-making and all the rules are followed, they can still influence outcomes that will benefit them (or their protégés) over the organization they serve.

In those cases, the powerful and influential must turn to their own sense of ethics and do what they know is right.

I don’t vs. I can’t

A study has shown that people who say “I don’t do X” feel more empowered than those who say “I can’t do X”, and thus are less likely to X.

When we train our employee about, say, corruption, what is our message?

“We don’t bribe”, because this is not who we are? Or,
“We can’t bribe”, because it is illegal and the fines are huge?

It is much easier to teach the law. However, teaching values and ethics can prove much more effective.

Business ethics conversation starters

The era of annual performance reviews is coming to an end. More companies are moving to frequent meetings between supervisors and subordinates to discuss objectives and performance.

This is good news for E&C professionals. Working with HR, we can insert ourselves into this regular process and help managers have more conversations about corporate culture and ethics.

Here are some conversation starters that any supervisor can use:

“You are still new here. What do you think of our team’s culture? Is it different from your previous department/company?”
“You have been with us for many years. How does our culture today compare to what it was when you started?”
“These meetings are great to raise concerns you might have. But I realize that some people might prefer to talk to someone else. Are you familiar with our confidential line? Please know that I am a big supporter.”
“The holiday season is approaching and I’m sure you saw the reminder about our gift policy. Do you have any questions about that policy?”
“I’ve been reading the news about the latest corporate scandals. Sometimes, I wonder if we are doing enough in this company to prevent that from happening to us. What do you think?”

As you can see, we can easily insert a short ethical discussion in these performance meetings. After all, ethics and performance are inseparable.

I am in the process of writing a long list of these conversation starters to use in my own company. And I would love your help. Would you please contribute by using the comment feature below?

Thank you.

How are they supposed to know that you are an ethical leader?

You will face at least one ethical dilemma this week, if not today.

And for sure, you will make the right decision.

But will you share that decision with your team?

If you don’t, how will they know that you are an ethical leader?

Your team is alway trying to figure out what is important to you. What are you communicating to them, by what you say and don’t say?

This is post 100!

Is anyone paying attention to your work?

The usual ethics & compliance program comprises a team of ethics officers and compliance counsels. The lucky one also have professional investigators. But the majority lack a critical team player.

A communication specialist.

This is the person who writes articles on the intranet to summarize recent cases, to feature a member of your team, to recognize an employee exemplifying good behavior. This specialist can create a blog, send Tweets with the right hashtags, edit videos of an event and upload them to your company’s YouTube channel. She can help you prepare slides for your next employee meeting, arrange for a photographer to document your next trip overseas, and create a communication plan for the launch of your new Code of Ethics.

This expert becomes a megaphone. Someone to showcase all the good work done by your team. Without him, only you know all the work deployed to make your organization a better place. With him, employees see the organization in a new light and can feel a responsibility to support your efforts (dare I say “feel inspired”?).

In 2016, we must all think of ourselves as media companies. Doing good work is essential but often insufficient. Our work must be visible and communicated in a captivating way. No offense, but compliance counsels are rarely good at that.

If you are lucky enough to have the budget to hire a new team member, consider a communications guru.