Ethics and Compliance: Needs, Problems, Approaches, Solutions

Summary

We know ethics and compliance can and do work in organizations.  We have thousands of years of history to support this.  Yet the historical perspective is deceptive.  In previous generations, there was greater homogeneity in groups' ethical values, rules, expectations, and stricter punishments for certain ethics and compliance breach.   Today's recent history gives another, more troubling picture.  Both management and labor appear capable of unethical, non-compliant, illegal behaviors.  Now owners and managers must create homogeneity for ethics and compliance in all personnel.

Diversity Is the Rule

Human organizations bring together diverse individuals for a common purpose.  In itself, this is amazing.  Look at only a few of the differences in members of an organization:

• born different years, months, days, and times
• born in different nations, with different languages and traditions
• born to different parents, with their own values, beliefs, personalities, habits
• given different diets and physical regimens
• developed different self-images, feedback from parents/siblings
• experienced ALL THEY HAVE prior to coming into the organization
• bring with them their personal ethical values and behavioral habits

Yet day in, day out, organizations continue to function, in general, rather well.  Given all the diversity, given all the people involved--every one a single moral agent capable of doing anything at a moment's notice--this is almost miraculous.  Why do we not have more organizational problems than we do?

This is a testimony for large numbers of human beings--each one a unique individual--to engage singly and collectively in self-control, self-regulation, and collaboration and cooperation with other people.

Motives for self-regulation and collaboration vary, from the "paycheck" to "pleasing God," from hope for a "certificate of recognition" to avoiding "Third-Strike-You're-Out" and prison.

Past:
Ethical Homogeneity

For thousands of years, governments and organizations had "piggy-back rides" on the backs of various religious or philosophical systems. The writers of the Bible, Greek philosophers like Aristotle, and even American founders like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, all understood the positive role of religions to promote honesty, character, and social cohesion.

From Moses to Jesus to Muhammad, from Zoroaster to Buddha to K'ung-fu-tzu (Confucius), hundreds of millions of people--past, present, future--have their "ethics and compliance core" sown, grown, shaped, and fruitful from all the religious and philosophical systems of the world. These include the variants of political theorists like Adam Smith and Karl Marx.

As someone once truly said, "It is easier to tear down than build up." The historic foundations for much ethics and compliance has been torn down over the past one hundred years.

Present:
Ethical Subjectivism and Relativism

Ethics and compliance are up for grabs in the minds of many people. The oldest generations of Americans with clear and firm ethics and compliance systems are dying off. There is evidence to suggest younger generations have had less ethics and compliance values and education, training and practice.

This spells trouble for organizations seeking honest, diligent, loyal, trustworthy members and employees. When individual ethics are egocentric and hedonism--"All For Me and My Pleasure"--everyone else potentially is a victim. Too many individuals believe organizationally-harmful ideas like:

• "Get all you can, while you can"
• "If you can get away with it, do it"
• "Do unto others before they do unto you"
• "Whomever has the gold makes the rules"
• "Lie when you need to, blame when you want to"

What Some Managers Do:
Turn the Crank, Use the Door

Organizations have a mission to achieve. They seek and hire persons to execute the mission. They wish to invest minimal resources of time, personnel, and money to shape persons for the mission. They do NOT exist mainly to "create ethical homogeneity."

In hard times, many seek the minimal requirement of ethics compliance to achieve the mission. There are no extra funds for education and growth. Many believe, "You cannot make an ethical silk purse out of a sow's ear" (or some other porcine part). The task becomes "hire-and-fire" until good employees are found by an essentially impersonal, mathematical process of elimination.

The Leadership Ethics Forum:

Ethics and Compliance Assistant

Every organizations wants to reduce turnover. Every organization would like to learn what both management and labor think about ethics and compliance: policies, practices, and hidden dangers known to some but not all. The LEF does what no HR or Legal personnel can do--obtain from the entire organizational membership:

1. WHAT THEY THINK ethical, compliance, and legal subjects;
2. FRESH CONCURRENT data, potentially within one (1) hour of disclosure;
3. COMPLETELY HONEST disclosures, because fear of retaliation is gone.

Properly designed, deployed, and monitored, the LEF can acquire early, eager, candid, full cooperation of all organizational members--for the benefit of the entire group. Consider the LEF today.

Contact us by email atinfo@leadershipethicsonline.com. (1) Put "Leadership Ethics Forum" in the subject line; (2) provide your name and official responsibilities, (3) briefly give the basis for interest; and (4), submit contact information. These inquiries will receive prompt attention.