Under the Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, Prong 2, it states:
Conduct at the Top – How have senior leaders, through their words and actions, encouraged or discouraged the type of misconduct in question? What concrete actions have they taken to demonstrate leadership in the company’s compliance and remediation efforts? How does the company monitor its senior leadership’s behavior? How has senior leadership modelled proper behavior to subordinates?
This requirement is more than simply the ubiquitous ‘tone-at-the-top’ as it focuses on the conduct of senior management. The Justice Department wants to see a company’s senior leadership actually doing compliance. The DOJ asks if company leadership has through their words and concrete actions brought the right message of doing business ethically and in compliance to a company. How does senior management model its behavior on a company’s values and finally how is such conduct monitored in an organization?
How can senior management operationalize compliance going forward? One of the best places to start is the article from the Harvard Business Review by Professor Lynn Paine entitled, “Managing for Organizational Integrity”. Five factors, derived from the article, can be used guideposts to not only to set the right tone from senior management on doing business ethically and in compliance but also lay the ground for senior management to model appropriate behavior and then have it monitored by the company going forward.
David Lawler, in his book, Frequently Asked Questions in Anti-Bribery and Corruption boiled it down as follows “Whatever the size, structure or market of a commercial organization, top-level management’s commitment to bribery prevention is likely to include communication of the organization’s anti-bribery stance and appropriate degree of involvement in developing bribery prevention procedures.” Lawler went on to provide a short list of points that he suggests senior management engage in to communicate the type of tone to follow an anti-corruption regime.” I had a CEO of a client, who after I described his role in operationalizing his company’s compliance program observed the following, “You want me to be the ambassador for compliance.” I immediately averred in the affirmative. The following is a list of things that a CEO can do as an ‘Ambassador of Compliance’ to fully model the conduct that senior management must show.
Coming at it from a different perspective, author Martin Biegelman provides some concrete examples in his book entitled, “Building a World Class Compliance Program – Best Practices and Strategies for Success”. Biegelman begins the chapter discussed in this posting with the statement “The road to compliance starts at the top.” There is probably no dispute that a company takes on the tone of its top management. Inspired by a list from Joe Murphy of actions that a CEO can demonstrate to set the requisite tone from the Captain’s Chair of any business, you can do some of the following.
Another area a CEO can forcefully engage an entire company through is a powerful video message about doing business the right way and in compliance. A great example was a CenterPoint Energy video put out in 2015 after the Volkswagen (VW) emissions-testing scandal become public. The video featured Scott Prochazka, CenterPoint Energy President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He used the VW scandal to proactively address culture and values at the company and used the entire scenario as an opportunity to promote integrity in the workplace. But more than simply a one-time video, the company followed up with a with an additional resource, entitled “Manager’s Toolkit – “What does Integrity mean to you?””, which managers used to facilitate discussions and ongoing communications with employees around the company’s ethics and compliance programs. Finally, as noted by Amy Lilly, Director, Corporate Ethics and Compliance at CenterPoint Energy, the cost for the video was quite reasonable as it was produced internally.
Three Key Takeaways
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