By Roy Snell
roy.snell@corporatecompliance.org
There are times when taking the old school approach is helpful, but if your day is consumed by Old School Thinking… you are not part of the problem, you are the problem.
Please suggests other ideas and feel free to use any part of this with or without attribution.
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Compliance and Ethics vs. Old School Thinking
| Proactive | Reactive |
| Use incentives to change behavior | Punitive measures to change behavior |
| Find core risk areas of a law | Have academic debates about a law |
| Help people understand spirit of law | Discuss negative side effects of the law |
| Gather all the facts for leadership | Gather information to defend |
| Compliance protects the bottom line | Compliance is a cost center |
| Operational discussions | Academic discussions |
| Use all elements of compliance | Just tell people to do the right thing |
| Find and fix a problem | Find and pass off problem |
| Audit affected areas | Don’t turn over the rock |
| Root cause analysis of a mistake | Make excuses and blame others |
| This is a lesson we can learn from | We admit no wrongdoing |
| Help operations to find another way | Just say no |
| Stand ground on important issues | Go along and get along |
| Interest in preventing violations | Interest in discounting enforcement |
| Independent and unbiased | Defensive and conflicted |
| Correct serious problem | Worried about next promotion |
| Investigate allegation | Question complainant’s motives |
| Whistleblower may have something | Whistleblowers are whiners |
| Study and follow existing laws | Go to DC to get laws changed |
| Build ethical culture | Assume everyone is ethical |
| Education helps prevent problems | Education takes away from operations |
| Monitor compliance | My people would never do such a thing |
| Discipline equally amongst all levels | She/he is too important to discipline |
| Building trust increases business | You have to cheat to increases business |
| Determine right thing to do | Pick a side and fight |
| Is this the right thing to do? | Can we defend it in court? |
| Ethical culture = trust/growth/revenue | Ethics training is a waste of time |
| Study recent relevant settlements | Discount recent settlements |
| Study enforcement guidance | Belittle regulators/enforcement |
| Practical | Theoretical |
| Face the facts | Rationalize doing nothing |
| Learn from competitors mistakes | Discount others as bad players |
Wonderful posting for a couple of reasons.
One thing as someone who was and is an alumni of the “Old School” and its approach thinking (which doesn’t discount my openness to different approaches or perspectives on my never ending journey to Compliance Nirvana!) is that the lists seem to imply that “Old School” thinking doesn’t contribute anything that may be perceived as positive or proactive.
I think some people will agree that on some level they may have heard “there is no school like the Old School”. My point is that I do see some value in an Old School approach to include positives that come out of this type of thinking, all the while understanding we are speaking in terms of broad generalities to include that “Old School” thinking likely has no universal meaning or definition.
Just a quick off the cuff comment. I am curious to hear what others have to say. I am a bit puzzled though as I’ve posted to some of your comments and others who share their thoughts and ideas to even include taking a bit of a risky position on some comments in the hopes of sparking dicussion. But…lukewarm results at best.
Wait a minute! That’s certainly something I attribute to Old School thinking within the context of Compliance and Ethics….”Don’t wait for questions…ask them!” Hard to argue that such an approach isn’t a proactive, positive attribute and I know that was well drilled into me through my own “Old School” indoctrination.
… I share same views with quite numbers of Franks points above. I think Old school ordinarily should connotes doing the right things always (however with a qualifier) in a proactive, dynamic and evolving ways. I dont think old school v. Compliance & Ethics should be (completely) mutually exclusive but the evolvement of the former to the improving version of the later. Old school in itself sets out to follow defined sets of rules, checks and processes. It ought not be rigid, thus requires continuos review, updates with new operational and regulatory/enviromental factors.
Thanks for the comment Frank. Check it out, you solicited a response. I would not get hung up on the words “Old School.” The main point of this post are the words in the columns, not the titles of the columns. You can call it Column 1 and Column 2 if you like. However, if you advocate for continuing the approach depicted in the right hand column for preventing, finding and fixing ethical and regulatory problems we are going to have to respectfully disagree.
Wonderful! I was thinking more in a global sense in that my take on the post was that “Old School” seemed to connotate the idea to me that it did not have any positive attributes related to it. So if this is indeed consistent with the article’s intent or context…disagreement duly noted and welcomed!
I think we are on the same page. Doing things in the right hand column on occasion is not a problem. But in my view, if you primarily operate that way, there will be problems.
Like it or not, old school thinking will always exist. So learn to deal with it! Besides, there will always be people who refuse to change. Therefore, you have to handle.
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