Today I am hosting a call during which I will be discussing conflict of interest (COIs) situations with my team.

COIs are very common in organizations. Every employee is likely to face one. Some employees fall in love with a colleague, some need a second employment, others might have a financial interest in a customer or received a gift from a supplier.

Being common doesn’t make COIs easier to resolve. While there are similarities between COIs, each is unique to the persons involved. It might be fine for Employee A to receive a gift from Supplier B, and completely inappropriate for Employee C to receive the same gift from the same supplier. My standard response to an employee who calls me and asks “Do you have 5 minutes for a quick COI check?” is “Do you have 30?” I know from experience that I will need to ask her several questions and consider not only the likelihood of a true conflict but also even the appearance thereof. Both should be avoided.

So naturally, E&C professionals find it difficult to resolve COIs. The best way to get better at it is to do it often. Which is why I am hosting this call. Over 160 of my team members have signed up. Our plan is to repeat this exercise every month.

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What’s another topic that keeps ECOs awake at night? Let me know in the comments below. Thank you!

Conflicts of Interest (“COIs”) are among the thorniest issues that organizations and ethics and compliance (“E&C”) professionals face.

These are the opening words of ECI’s latest resource created by its benchmarking group. The 40-page guide goes into details about how to define, prevent, identify, and deal with all types of COIs. Every E&C professional should have a copy at hand.

My typical conversation with an employee about a COI starts like this:

– Employee: “Do you a 2 minutes to discuss this potential conflict?”

– Me: “Do you have 30?”

COI questions are the “bread and butter” for most E&C professionals. Sadly, they are not the easiest to answer.

This guide can help.

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

1. Disclose the conflict
2. Remove the conflicted person from decision-making
3. 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.