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Most ethics and compliance codes are developed with legal defense in mind, as "Exhibit One" against future litigation. Yet everyone knows the best rules never achieve behavioral compliance simply because they are the best. The members of an organization may "sign off" with their hands, yet never emotionally, intellectually, or behaviorally "sign on" with their hearts. Careful, artful organizational discussion can help more and more members come on board in ethics compliance.
Attitudes About Rules
The phrase, rule-breaker, has a nasty ring for us in certain contexts. If we are organizational leaders or HR managers, we do not like rule-breakers. People who do not abide by the rules almost inevitably become trouble-makers.
Some people have more or less compliant personality types. They enjoy conforming and fitting in. Others seem to resist conformity by nature, and enjoy pushing boundaries as evidence of their individualism. Whatever our fundamental attitude to rules in general, many of them often were shaped in us as children.
Other attitudes towards rules are shaped by later experiences in life. A person who never fastened his seat belt begins fastening it--and makes sure all passengers are fastened in--after a best friend was killed. A basically good and honest person with a bad supervisor decides to break some rules because anger and retaliation overruled the the rules.
Leadership Approaches to Rule Attitudes
Some for-profit leaders and HR managers focus only on behavioral outputs. "Pain gets the gain." They do not invest time on motives and attitudes for ethics compliance. They put out the rules, wait for the breakers, then punish according to the rulebook.
This seems logical, reasonable, and economical, particularly in a bad economy. "There are a 1000 waiting for your job, so I dare you...." This is the Hamburger Approach. Hamburger can be eaten, cooked, allowed to rot, or thrown away. When HR managers view their labor pool as an endless supply of consumables, they make a huge mistake.
Leaders and managers who take the Hamburger Approach are not wise, though some employment attorneys absolutely love them. Why? People are living beings with emotions, attitudes, and behavioral capacities to express those emotions and attitudes. Abuse them, ignore them, and they will respond in some way.
A single person with a bad attitude towards organizational rules can generate losses--active or passive--in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of dollars. Multiply the total of potential persons (within or outside) an organization with potential bad attitudes towards rules. Multiply this potential total by the total number of rules potentially broken (written and unwritten).
Dialogue for "Compliance Attitude Adjustment"
Given the right, guided opportunity, members in an organization not only can "vent" their frustrations and attitudes. They also can be the sole "front-line" sources to get the pulse of other rule-breakers. Every leader (not using the Hamburger Approach) wants to tap into the entire organizational membership to learn:
- what rules and compliance measures are good and working
- what applications are not working or even unwelcome
- what new rules and edits can improve the organization
- what trouble spots/groups in the organization need special help
Leadership Ethics Forum:
Generate Meaningful Dialogue
The Leadership Ethics Forum is a tool designed and controlled by management to enable:
- management-generated dialogue on ethics/compliance
- full or selected group dialogues on any subjects
- immediate-edit capabilities as data emerges
- ethics, rule, compliance research/policy-making acceleration
- litigation rapid-response data stream
Contact us at info@leadershipethicsonline.com. Send us an email including the following information: (1) "Leadership Ethics Forum" in the subject line; (2) your name and official responsibilities; (3) context or situation prompting contact; and (4), all contact information. We will respond promptly to such inquiries.
