This post on semiotics by Seth Godin got me thinking.
Can a business leader increase her social standing by being ethical?
Will her ethical behavior increase her sense of belonging with an important group?
If so, what flags, signals or other communications should she use to convey her status?
And if she does all of these things well, will it be enough for her?
Would it be for you?
Seth Godin often encourages us to “find the others.”
If we want to do something significant, we can rarely do it on our own. Changing the culture at work, for example, is not something that any single individual can do on her own, not even if she’s the CEO.
We need to find the others. Not just a supporting boss, but others in different departments, functions, countries and companies. We need to share a clear vision* and mission with others and welcome those with whom it resonates.
How many do we need? As long as the change we seek is yet to be, we need more.
* I define vision as “what the world will look like when the mission is accomplished.”
In The End of Reputation, Seth Godin offers examples of new types of fraud and explains how they erode trust.
Of course, fraud itself is not new. In the markets of 1,000 years ago, merchants used rigged scales and weights to defraud their customers. It was difficult to uncover the fraud back then, as it is today. Once uncovered, the merchant lost his reputation, as he does today.
A bad reputation destroys trust, which is the currency of business. No one wants to do business with someone they don’t trust. In a low-trust industry, buyers flock to the one who restores trust. This is why people left taxis for Uber, and then Uber for Lyft.
There has never been a better time to work on your reputation.
I recently returned from the latest ECI Fellows meeting, which focused on behavioral ethics. This post is part of a series where I share my insights and lessons from the meeting.
There is a story about a United States Marine who halted a fellow soldier about to commit a war crime by saying “Stop! This is not what Marines do.”
The Marine didn’t pull out a copy of the Geneva Conventions and point to a specific article prohibiting the conduct. He simply explained that “people like us don’t do things like this.”
It’s tempting to point to the law when we want people to do or not do something. But no one likes to be told what to do. We’d rather feel in control. At the same time, we want to belong, we want to be part of a group where “people like us do things like this.”
Consider this the next time you write a policy or create a training or implement a control. Are you pointing to a force external to the group (like a law) or are you drawing on a tribal bond? One is stronger than the other.
We know that it’s way better for employees to hear about ethics & compliance from their business leader than from their ECO.
And do you know what’s even better than that? Two or more business leaders debating an ethical issue in front of the employees, each arguing in favor of a different path or outcome.
In a healthy culture, these debates happen daily.
When’s your next ethical debate?
HT to Seth Godin
Yesterday I attended a meeting about corporate culture and, more specifically, about employee empowerment.
Midway through the meeting, the leader mentioned that culture doesn’t change overnight. He used the apt expression “It takes time to turn a ship around.”
Looking at him speak to only two dozen employees in a company of over 40,000, I knew he wasn’t using the expression as a platitude. This was his third meeting on the topic, with a plan to have many more. A few employees at a time. Drip by drip. Helping turn the ship around.
As Seth Godin says, the long run is made up of a bunch of short runs. Which means that the short runs truly matter. None of them alone will change the whole thing but without all of them the change doesn’t happen.
The best time to start changing your culture was 10 years ago. The second best time is today.
At first, there are no rules.
A new technology comes along and it’s unregulated. Soon, we discover that it has harmful effects on the environment or on human beings. The regulators try to step in and do their job but the industry fights back. Profits before people and planet, they say.
Or…
A new technology comes along and disrupts an existing, well-regulated industry. The incumbent cries for justice and demands that the regulations be imposed on the newcomer – the same regulations the industry fought against when they were first proposed.
Hat tip to Seth Godin
In January 2017, a colleague and I challenged each other to write about ethics & compliance every day for two weeks. We also invited all E&C professionals to join the challenge and share their thoughts about the state of E&C in their industry.
Our goal was to increase the body of practical knowledge in our profession. Personally, it was also a trick to force me to pay attention to how things really are. Knowing that I have to write something the next day makes me notice the world.
Once the two weeks were over, I never stopped. I don’t write on weekends, or on vacation, and I’ll miss a day here-and-there if I’m traveling (especially crossing the International Date Line!) but, on the whole, I’ve been writing a short post every workday.
The writing is at times difficult but it’s always nice to click the “publish” button. I’ve learned a lot about myself and I’ve made new friends. I also think I’m a better E&C professional because of my writing practice.
Seth Godin inspired me to do this during his appearance on the Tim Ferriss show in 2016. Take 45 seconds to listen here.
I hope to see you online.
In his blog post today, Seth Godin shared his thoughts on the cost of collecting data, specifically useless or bad data.
Here are his three rules on collecting data:
It got me thinking about the data that E&C professionals collect and I realized that we don’t always collect data on purpose. Some of the data collection “just happens”. For example, when we track online training completion, we want to know how many employees have completed the training. If we are not at 100%, we chase the laggards. But in the process, we also know where the laggards are (in what department, country, etc.) and what courses they haven’t completed. What do we do with this information?
Or think about the cost of collecting the data around supervisors communicating regularly about the importance of E&C. My organization has 25,000 supervisors. If my data collection process costs $40/year in person/hours for each supervisor ($10/quarter to report their efforts), this collection just cost my company one million dollars. Investing $100,000 in an automated platform that could collect the same information in half the time is clearly worth it.
Of course, I’m not advocating that we simply stop collecting data that is “too expensive.” Paul McNulty once quoted the Siemens’ General Counsel:
If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance.
Culture is how things are really done around here.
And how things are done is often the result of a story. For example, the story of the employee who got yelled at for holding a shipment after he feared that the product inside was defective. Now, no one holds a shipment around here.
Which is why recognizing good behavior is so important. People doing the right thing must be celebrated. Their stories must be told so that everyone knows what we do around here.
HT to Seth Godin
The Ethical Leader 