This Job Isn’t Worth Your Freedom

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This Job Isn’t Worth Your Freedom
By Kristy Grant-Hart
KristyGH@SparkCompliance.com

My blood went cold as I looked through my Twitter feed two weeks ago.  Tom Fox posted that Volkswagen’s compliance officer had been arrested by the U.S. authorities for his involvement in the emissions scandal.  “It’s finally happened,” I thought.

Over the next few days, Roy Snell and others pointed out that the man arrested was in operational compliance, which we see as different than “the compliance profession” as described within the SCCE.  But to the prosecutor, the title “compliance” certainly didn’t protect the man from being charged.  Being in the compliance profession does not shield us from prosecution (whatever our title may be) but instead, puts us in a sometimes-precarious position from which we must protect ourselves.

Most of us know that there have been several financial service compliance officers fined, sanctioned and threatened with jail time. Our jobs are inherently difficult, and anyone who has ever worked within a corporation knows that without the support of the business, the compliance team is lost.  We can develop the most wonderful program and communication strategy, but if the business is actively hostile (especially at the top), no amount of skill can overcome that inertia.

I’ve performed keynotes all over the world, and inevitably after my speech someone asks me what to do because their company does not believe in compliance and is actively trying to thwart them.  They always seem shocked when I answer, “You should probably quit.”

There is a big difference between a lack of genuine enthusiasm and active hostility.  Many of us have to deal with inadequate budgets and lukewarm management.  But active hostility should be a warning sign that you need to consider your own self-protection above your commitment to your employer.

It is easy for me to imagine a scenario where a compliance officer asks the business about allegations of impropriety.  If the compliance officer were not able to ascertain the truth, and then passed on the business’ denials to the prosecutor, it isn’t hard to imagine that the denier might be included in charging documents.

Protect yourself.  If you’re in a company that is actively hostile to compliance, brush off your resume, start browsing LinkedIn, and reach out to your network.  This job isn’t worth your freedom.

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Kristy Grant-Hart the author of the book “How to be a Wildly Effective Compliance Officer.”  She is CEO of Spark Compliance Consulting and is an adjunct professor at Widener University, teaching Global Compliance and Ethics.  She can be found at www.ComplianceKristy.com, @KristyGrantHart and emailed at KristyGH@SparkCompliance.com.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Among the attitudes we tend to bring to work each day is optimism. The notion that, if we keep at it, we can change the thinking of those we work for.

    As a trusted advisor teaching others to better guide those who lead the question I get is,” how do you change their minds and get them to pay attention to what really matters?”

    ” I work for a guy I like, he seems honorable but he is very resistant to having a more robust controls and compliant structures I advocate?”

    My question is,” how long have you been advocating these things?” The response is usually some rather lengthy period of time. On things that matter like compliance I have a pretty short timeline on how to respond to stalling, delaying, and denying.

    When really smart people find reasons to act foolishly, especially when the recommendations made are sensible, constructive, necessary and important, rather than expect attitude changes, I recognize that adults are almost impossible to change.

    Resistance is often an indicator that other things are happening elsewhere that may be immoral, unethical, perhaps illegal or just monumentally stupid. Sometimes you’ll never know and it doesn’t matter.

    Set aside your inherent optimism and move along. Why hang around, stay too long, and take on the burden of failure when success never had a chance in the first place.

    Just remember, when you stay to the point of suffering, you suffer alone. Nobody cares, least of all the individual or individuals you’re working to change.

    Just quit does say it all.

  2. I was in law school during the Enron scandal. I will never forget my Legal Ethics professor, Carol Needham, telling us that we may face a situation where we have to quit our jobs suddenly because the corporation we work for engages in illegal activities over your objections. She told us if we work as in-house counsel, we should always have enough money in savings to walk away if we needed to.

    Lawyers have faced these challenges for years. Given the nature of compliance work, it is interesting that compliance professionals seemed to be immune from prosecution for as long as they have. There has long been debate about where to draw the line between legal and compliance. That line is often fuzzy. Even though the VW Compliance Officer may not have been a compliance professional in the terms we use, I expect prosecutions of actual compliance professionals to increase.

    We live in a very punitive culture. When something bad happens, everybody wants to point a finger at the people that knew that it could happen and were in a position to stop it. Compliance professionals operate at the highest levels of organizations. Even if they were kept in the dark, they will be subjected to intense scrutiny when it hits the fan.

  3. Well said, Kristy. As we all try to be politically correct and navigate the (interpersonal) workings within our organizations, it’s a bold statement to say, if compliance is lip service, just walk. It also brings up some basic truths, what you do when no one is looking, is integrity. Compliance supports integrity in our organizations.

  4. As a compliance officer I have been in a “let it happen or leave” situation a few times. It’s not an easy choice as, believe it or not, compliance officers are people too and have families to feed. In the end personal integrity should be most important though.

  5. Hi CCO! Certainly, it is never an easy decision to leave an organization. I tried to couch the decision in terms of the distinction between uncomfortable situations (e.g., decisions you disagree with, not having a travel budget, not getting real support from the top) versus situations where you’d be in an actively hostile and potentially dangerous environment. Personal integrity is important, but so is your freedom and reputation. Thanks for your comment!

  6. As in-house counsel I saw the private hostility to real compliance, and the public lip service supporting it. We all know the block-buster outcomes when the big companies went off the rails using such a strategy. But, there has been progress despite the hostility. I’ve made it my mission that every one of our contractors has a compliance program and to the best of my ability, that the compliance officer is not in operations, business development, HR, finance or legal. Moreover, we work hard to make certain the compliance officer cannot be disciplined without independent board member oversight/approval. Will this neutralize the hostility? I believe to some extent it can. But caveat emptor; the transparency movement has been stalled; and COI has apparently been redefined.

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