Wouldn’t you like your compliance program to be as infectious, contagious, and as long-lasting as COVID-19?
Forgive the analogy, but every compliance officer aspires to see their diligent efforts in establishing and upholding a compliance program bear fruit in the form of a lasting impact on the company’s culture and noncompliant behavior.
Society provides some great examples of how turning a blind eye to compliance can cause others to follow bad trends. Conversely, society also shows us that actions started by a few can have a positive effect.
Looking at some of these lessons and underlying societal behaviors may help you make your compliance program contagious.
In corporations, noncompliance can become contagious when employees follow in the footsteps of those who have tested the system and got away with it. On the other hand, compliance ambassadors can do a lot to enhance compliance and culture.
Here are five lessons I learned from my time trying to make compliance contagious.
1. Break the pattern
It is not a secret that altering attitudes toward compliance is a formidable task. Merely gathering your employees and proclaiming, “All noncompliant behavior will cease immediately,” is unlikely to yield significant results. Noncompliant individuals will dismiss it, and compliant ones will respond, “We are already aware of that.”
In his international bestseller, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear contests that success is gained by slow and small increments to replace bad habits with good ones.[1] In the book, he provides examples of how the science of small changes had a lasting effect on leading CEOs, Olympic gold medalists, and distinguished scientists.
Triggers for noncompliant behavior can come from external, internal, or factors deliberately constructed by bad (noncompliant) people. In society, for example, individuals may be dissatisfied with their current existence (external), which leads to aggression and a need to become dominant among their peers. This creates internal pressures that lead to a group behaving badly.
In the area where I live, for example, there was a persistent problem with groups of unemployed youths creating disturbances and vandalizing public property. It was interesting to follow how this progressed. The bad behavior usually started with a gesture, presumably from the leader. This was then picked up by the “followers,” who then tried to outdo each other to gain the leader’s respect. Most of the damage was not done by the leader but rather by the followers responding to the internal pressures to be recognized.
Habits in corporate life
Changing habits in a corporate environment—just as in private life—requires the slow, progressive execution of sequential steps. Some of the key considerations are presented in Table 1. One of the most important factors related to making your compliance contagious is to acknowledge that change may not occur quickly. You will need to be patient; that means having a plan in place that addresses what you want to change and in what order, expecting setbacks, and having a plan in mind to counteract these. There will also be opponents to your ideas, and although we would all like to believe that everyone wants to do the right thing, evidence shows this is not the case, particularly if there is a perceived negative effect on the individuals.
|
Behaviors |
Actions |
|---|---|
|
Make a plan |
Meet the plan and measure your progress |
|
Keep it simple |
One step (change) at a time |
|
Identify the triggers |
For each trigger, have a change that is desirable |
|
Stay positive |
Celebrate successes |
|
Plan for sabotage |
Isolate the offenders |
|
Lead but do not control |
Enlist support |
