As Executive Editor at Ethisphere Magazine, I’ve worked with some of the brightest and most passionate ethics and compliance professionals to bring their insights and expertise to our global community. Time and time again, the topic of ethical culture finds its way into our publication.
Below, you’ll find five of my favorite pieces. I hope you’ll enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed editing.
Ethics Is Everyone’s Business
In the latest edition of Ethisphere Magazine, our 2021 World’s Most Ethical Companies Issue, Antonio Neri, President and CEO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, shares a few concrete policies and structures to make sure that people outside of ethics and compliance are also discussing ethical culture, and responsible for understanding ethics-related risks multiple time a year.
“Our updated approach to training plays directly into our goal of creating a culture in which ethics and compliance is everyone’s business. Last year, we introduced a program that requires the Managing Directors of each of our Global Sales geographies to include a discussion of ethics and compliance issues in their quarterly State of Readiness reviews with our Chief Sales Officer. Our Managing Directors each work with our Ethics & Compliance Office to address risks and trends specific to their business and geographic region.”
– Antonio Neri, President and CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Culture Champions: The Emotional Wellness Revolution
From our 2019 Employee Issue of Ethisphere Magazine, read how Booz Allen Hamilton has “gone all-in on transforming its culture around mental and emotional wellness, in part because a handful of leaders at the company made it a priority.”
This special feature dives deep into emotional and mental wellness in the workplace, and how the slow, gradual, but impactful process of opening this conversation can take place at even the largest of organizations. Included in the piece is a profile on Barbara Van Dahlen, who partnered with Booz Allen Hamilton on their cultural transformation and has gone on to run suicide prevention for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Communicating Culture from the CEO
From the Super ESG edition of Ethisphere Magazine, read an interview between Ethisphere’s Erica Salmon Byrne and Brian Pieninck, CEO at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. At the core of the conversation is Brian’s commitment to being hands-on in ethics, compliance, and culture work, embracing the responsibility to set the right tone at the top and be a champion for E&C within the organization.
“… I would not consider us to be unique, other than that I think we are building a culture where we’re persistently willing to say out loud to each other, “Hey, we haven’t quite gotten this right yet.” I would say what I’ve recognized is that you need multiple listening devices and you need multiple feedback devices. If you are relying solely on the waterfall effect, you will fail. If you’re relying solely on grassroots efforts, you will fail. What we try to do, what I personally try to do as the CEO, is to develop as many listening devices within the organization as I possibly can, including firsthand perspective, indirect perspective, and hierarchical perspective that’s filtered through layers.”
– Brian Pieninck, CEO at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
Creating Psychological Safety for Speaking Up
In a conversation from our “Ethicast” interview series that was so good I decided to print it, I spoke with Katie Lawler, Chief Ethics Officer at U.S. Bank, about creating psychologically safe environments to support a speak-up culture. With a dedicated focus on ethics and ethical culture, Katie’s role is to integrate a culture of integrity across the organization.
Our conversation touches on defining psychological safety, why a speak-up culture matters, getting internal stakeholders to buy into the idea, and working with leaders and managers to help them act as champions for the culture you aspire to build.
Dive into Culture Data
From our Spring 2020 World’s Most Ethical Companies edition, Scott Stevenson, one of my colleagues at Ethisphere, writes about the methodology behind the Ethical Culture and Perceptions Assessment, the flagship survey we use to measure ethical culture. He also shares the kinds of analysis and interventions that companies are able to do with good culture survey data. At the time of the interview, the data set contained the perspectives and responses of 630,000 employees, but it has since grown to over 1.1 million responses!
If you’re interested in contributing your insights to a future edition of Ethisphere Magazine, let me know!
For more insights into Ethical Culture, and how Ethisphere can help, visit our website. To learn more about how you can more directly improve the culture in your organization, register to attend our free three-part Masterclass series on Ethical Culture, now eligible for 3.6 CCB CEUs!
