LRN’s Susan Divers recently published an excellent post on the importance of holding senior executives accountable to ensure a strong ethics & compliance (E&C) program.

Her post reminded me of a negative outcome of unfairness that we rarely talk about: the demoralizing effect on the E&C team.

Imagine that a senior executive is found to have violated a policy that would typically result in termination but is instead simply provided with “coaching” by the c-suite, who is judging him too important to lose. Perhaps less than a dozen people will be aware of the investigation and of the discipline imposed, but this small group is sure to include the CECO and a couple of her lieutenants. This will be like clipping their wings. Like deflating their balloon. Insert other rainy analogies here. How are they supposed to carry on, effectively, the mission of creating and touting an ethical culture?

Imagine instead that the executive is terminated and that employees are told that it was the result of a breach of company values. How empowering for the E&C team! What an incentive for all employees to act ethically! What a powerful way to recruit good people and keep bad ones at bay!

How long until all c-suites understand this dynamic?

The U.S. Bill of Rights was ratified this month in 1791.

For every right it conferred, the Bill created several obligations on the very government that granted those rights.

And that’s the hidden truth of rights. When you demand one, you create several obligations for other people.

This reality can serve as a check on the fairness of your demands. If the right you demand serves all people (and not just you), then everyone is more likely to accept the burden of the ancillary obligations.

There are two types of laws.

There are laws like “tax laws” and “succession laws”. Those are rules that humans invented to create order and fairness and justice. They don’t represent the Truth, so reasonable people can (and do) disagree about what each law should say.

Then there are laws like “the law of gravity”. Those are Truths that humans discovered. They can’t be disagreed with and reasonable people understand that.

Most of us go through our day confusing rules and Truths. At home and at work, we morph personal expectations into rules and then into truths. We believe that people should behave in a certain way and are aghast when they don’t, just as if they had defied the law of gravity.

Today, let’s remember that rules aren’t the Truth.

And the Truth doesn’t care about rules.

In court, a party can ask the judge to sign an “Order to show cause”. If she signs it, it forces the other party to explain why they should not be subject to the relief requested.

We’ve had something similar in my organization for several years now in the form of disciplinary guidelines. For example, if an employee engages in retaliatory behavior or lies to an investigator, the guidelines points to termination. If management wishes to keep the employee on the payroll, they need explain why the employee should not be terminated (i.e. show cause).

These are guidelines, not mandatory sentences. And, for now, they address only terminable offenses. Recently, I have been thinking about expanding the guidelines to other behaviors that may not deserve termination but, still, harsh punishment. For example, in what circumstances should a supervisor be demoted to an individual contributor.

Having such guidelines allows us to tell employees, in advance, what the consequences of their actions might be. It allows for consistency and fairness, specifically making it more difficult to have double standards for more senior employees or star performers. It can also make it easier for management to determine and communicate the sanction.

However, disciplinary guidelines can also have negative effects. They can support an unfair termination when management wants to get rid of someone and fails to show cause. In some cases, common sense or good judgment can be obscured by the guidelines.

So in this post, I am asking for your help, for your thoughts. If you have disciplinary guidelines in your organization, how do they work? Have you found them helpful? Do you wish they didn’t exist? If you don’t have guidelines, do you wish you did? If so, what would they look like?

Thanks for leaving your thoughts in the comment section. Much appreciated.

The industrial revolution invented the concept of replaceable parts. Shortly thereafter, the modern educational system was invented to create replaceable workers. Your accountant is worn out or broken? Take her out and replace her with another one. There are plenty.

This reality adds to our existential angst as human being. We increasingly seek joy and meaning outside of work. For many workers, what drives them to work is no longer related to the work itself. Unfortunately, according to the latest social science, these conditions lead to lower performance and an increased risk of employee fraud.

Hardly the ideal conditions for organizations and their ethics & compliance professionals.

It will take some time before the next revolution fixes our workplace and our educational system. Meanwhile, E&C professionals can start the process by asking themselves an important question: am I finding joy and purpose in my work? To be fair, our work is difficult. It is perceived by many as imposing restrictions on their work. We see it as a virtuous path to order, fairness and justice, but we are not always successful in communicating this perspective. It can be tiring to find joy in a confrontational setting. And so we must decide if we would be better suited for another organization, or perhaps for another vocation all together. If we find that this work is in fact for us, then our first order of business is to become a lifelong learner, to care about those we serve, and always to provide value.