By Adam Turteltaub
adam.turteltaub@corporatecompliance.org
I was just in Amsterdam for the SCCE Basic Compliance and Ethics Academy. I was glad to be there, and not just because we had 70 people enrolled from around 30 countries.
What got me really excited was the opportunity to ride a bike in The Netherlands. I’m a bicyclist, as I’ve previously noted on the blog. Riding around Los Angeles I often feel as if I’m some sort of moving target for the drivers, which is odd considering how many of them don’t even seem capable of seeing a cyclist.
But in Amsterdam, it is the exact opposite. There are more bicycles than people, car drivers are on their best behavior around bikes, and bicycles rule the road. Even pedestrians – other than tourists – give bicycles the right of way. Plus, there are bike lanes, protected lanes and even bike paths that are like highways.
Feeling free of the risk of getting run over, I climbed on my rental bike joyfully, pedaled off, and within a block almost crashed into another cyclist. I quickly learned that in a city where bikes are everywhere and coming at you from all kinds of directions, you have to pay some serious attention.
It was a quick adjustment, but an important one since it showed how easy it is to make a mistake when assessing risk: just because a risk is big in Country A, but not a big risk in Country B, it doesn’t mean that Country B is free of risks. It’s just free of that one risk, and it may have risks of its own. They may not be as glaring or as great, but they’re waiting right around the corner.
So while it may be okay to relax a little, it’s not okay to heave a huge sigh of relief. There are other problems to worry about, too.
The good news is that the structures for one risk, especially the big, bad ones like anti-corruption and bribery or data privacy, are useful tools for a wide range of challenges. With some modifications, they can make what’s already an easier job in even easier.
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Absolutely agree, your article reminds me of a quote I read “Your positive attitude and willingness to adapt to any situation can turn a stressful day into a Positive one.
This reminded me of a similar phenomenon – how people compensate for new safety features by engaging in riskier behaviors, sometimes to the point of maintaining a rough equivalence of actual safety before and after implementation of the safety innovation. (The advent of mandatory bike helmets was one example, though the science may have been a little apocryphal.) Essentially we rely on whatever “safety net” is available to us.
There’s something similar in monitoring for compliance. When they know that they’re closely monitored, or subject to automated constraints in computerized processes, people sometimes tend to mentally outsource responsibility for compliance to the monitors or the systems – kind of a “it’s not (or “no longer”) my job” syndrome. They just “check out” and rely on the external people or systems to stop them or warn them if they go astray, so they don’t have to worry any more about where the line is. Studies have shown that when compliance is coerced via close monitoring, this can “crowd out” the employees’ sense of responsibility for their own behavior, good or bad — they no longer claim credit for their good behavior or accept blame for the bad.
Thanks Veronica.
Great point Scott. It is amazing our ability to avoid responsibility.
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