When deciding to buy a car, too many people focus on its (sticker) price, not its long-term cost (fuel, insurance, maintenance, repairs, storage, etc.). The cost far exceeds the price.
Similarly, wise leaders understand that the cost of non-compliance far exceeds the price of compliance.
HT to Seth Godin, 16 Feb
Building a more ethical and compliant organization is not as complicated as leadership thinks.
But it is more expensive and time consuming than they hoped for.
HT to Seth Godin, Feb 8
If you are a supervisor of 8 people in your organization of 100,000+ employees, simply focus on the culture you can create with those 8 employees. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, as Roosevelt once said. Outsiders will notice, and your microculture will spread.
HT to Seth Godin, January 30
If we saw a rusty spot on our car, we would probably take care of it right away to prevent the rust from spreading.
The same goes with a deteriorating culture. If we don’t address it at the first signs of decay, we risk that it will eventually fall apart.
HT to Seth Godin.
If you create the right conditions, plants will grow. That’s what they want to do.
Likewise, people want to do the right thing (except for sociopaths). Your job as a leader is simply to create the right conditions for ethical behavior.
HT to Seth Godin
“Don’t cheat. Don’t steal. Don’t lie.”
That’s a phrase my CEO repeats regularly at town hall meetings. It compresses our code of conduct and our policies into a neat reminder that we seek always to do the right thing.
The problem with compressions is that they are low fidelity. “Don’t lie” doesn’t tell an employee what to say or who to ask for help. The high fidelity recording is the actual policy.
So, of course, we need both.
Hat tip to Seth Godin.
This post is for E&C professionals who prepare slide decks at this time of the year to show “annual key metrics” to leadership.
This should sound familiar: you look at a chart and anticipate what questions leadership will have. Questions like “How does this compare to the previous 5 years?” or “What discipline were imposed for this category of allegations?”
And off you go preparing more charts. Each leading to more anticipated questions. And soon your deck becomes an exercise to answer questions from people who, at times, just like to hear themselves asking questions.
The only data that leadership should have is data that helps them make decisions, trust the current system, and anticipate what’s ahead.
If the data doesn’t do that, resist the temptation to include it.
HT to Seth Godin
I don’t know who said it first, but having a healthy speak-up culture does not only serve the compliance function.
When employees feel comfortable enough to raise concerns, they usually feel comfortable enough to share good ideas.
A good idea often brings disagreement. It disagrees with the old way of doing things, and some people are likely to disagree with the new idea.
We need organizations that can live with disagreements. As the world changes (and it always does), the faster new ideas are welcome, the more resilient is the organization.
Building a speak-up culture may be the most important thing we can work on.
What would your mother think?
What if it were on the front page of the newspaper?
These two integrity tests apply strong emotional pressure.
But here’s a more subtle test, one that we can use for most interactions:
If the people you’re interacting with discover what you already know, will they be glad that they did what you asked them to?
Seth Godin, The Practice, #36
This post from Seth Godin could have been written for ethics and compliance professionals who regularly scramble to create charts for the next board meeting.
Those charts are often filled with output metrics and lagging indicators that beg more questions than they answer. Those metrics are used because they are easy to track.
If I show you a chart that tracks my daily body weight (output metric), and you notice a trend or spikes, you will immediately ask for details about my nutrition and exercise (input metric). Keeping track of my weight is easy. Keeping track of my caloric intake and outake is a lot more work, but that’s where the answers are.
The next time you look at the chart that tracks the number of calls to your helpline, ask yourself how helpful it is (it’s not, at least not on its own). Then find something useful to measure.
The Ethical Leader 