The Art of Compliance

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The Art of Compliance by Art Weiss

ArtWeiss_webLGBy Art Weiss
From the January 2016 issue of Compliance & Ethics Professional

In most any news story you can find a compliance angle.  Recently, the Kansas City Royals won the World Series, the Republican presidential candidates debated, and a 747 made an emergency landing in Bali after smoke alarms sounded.  Let’s start with the World Series.

Notwithstanding the Cubs didn’t make the World Series this year, or any other year since 1945, it was still a great baseball season.  After the Cubs eliminated the Pirates and the Cardinals, I enjoyed watching the Royals play the Mets.  Baseball has become complicated since I was a kid.  We now have replays so the networks can sell more advertising  and the ballparks can sell more beer while the game is delayed for umpires to huddle around a video monitor until they get the call right.  Unfortunately the strike zone the networks superimpose over home plate to show us balls and strikes calls is not (yet) used to correct bad calls.  Now we have new policies and procedures in place to remove the human element of the game.    Maybe we need a policy prohibiting pitchers from throwing high inside fastballs to send a message to an opposing team’s leadoff batter.  Does Major League Baseball have a compliance officer?

Last week we saw the Republican candidates for the presidential nomination debate.  It was fun to watch; almost like a Cubs-Cardinals game where the fans yell at each other and everyone yells at the network moderator (umpire).  After the debate, most of the candidates publicly bashed the network and its moderators for not doing a good job.  Maybe the presidential debates should have instant replay to let us see who really was at fault.  Never mind, watching once is enough.  Since the candidates didn’t like the way the debate was organized, they met afterwards to change the rules and format for future debates.  I think it’s the first time they have been in a room together and agreed on anything.  We now have individuals rewriting polices they don’t like.  Do the debates have a compliance officer?

Many airlines have compliance officers.  I don’t know if Singapore Airlines does.  If they do, I’m sympathetic after a Singapore Airlines Cargo 747 was forced to make an emergency landing after smoke alarms went off during flight.  Fortunately, the plane landed safely and all 2,186 goats that set off the smoke alarms due to their collective gas passing, survived.  The plane was inspected, from a distance I hope, and resumed its flight.  Maybe the airline can use the incident as an opportunity to improve its process controls.  But in all fairness, who would have ever identified goat gas as a risk?

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1 COMMENT

  1. Good points indeed. Though I never played in the BIGS but did play some ball in college and had friends that did play in the Minors and Majors…suffice it to say that in many ways there are many “unwritten rules” in baseball which to those on the outside are often the brunt of many jokes but WELL KNOWN between the lines of the diamond (example: you don’t bunt to get on base in the 9th inning if you are trailing in a 5-0 game and the opposing pitcher is working on a no hitter). And as for pitchers…in many ways they do fulfill the role of compliance officer as well as perform the enforcement function.

    I am sure there are people that will agree that you will “behave” yourself so as to avoid seeing…and actually hearing as well as the seams spin when the ball is thrown, a baseball thrown at you in response to breaking a rule.

    As for the can of worms on correcting bad calls from umpires, total disclosure and transparency from one who still umpires at the high school level, if you automate the ball and strike calls, people (especially the pitchers that complain the most) will quickly realize and admit that many of their strike outs and no hitters will decrease…but that’s a discussion for another day.

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