Compliance teams often think they have an awareness problem, when what they really have is a positioning problem.
Most leaders already understand that ethics and compliance matters. The issue is how compliance shows up inside the business: too late in the process, speaking a different language than everyone else, and reporting metrics that describe activity instead of impact. That combination keeps compliance in a support role, even when the risks on the table are strategic.
If you want more influence, you can’t wait for the organization to grant it. You have to design for it. That is the compliance multiplier.
The multiplier is alignment that creates shared ownership
Cross-functional alignment is a leverage strategy, not a soft skill exercise.
When compliance ties its objectives to the priorities of HR, marketing, sales, communications, security, and audit, the work stops looking like a standalone requirement and becomes business objectives that multiple teams have a reason to advance.
That shift changes the economics of your program. You get reach without adding headcount. You get adoption without escalating. And you get behavior change because the message is coming from more than one voice.
Get in early, or accept being the obstacle
Unfortunately, timing often drives reputation.
When compliance is brought in at the end, the business experiences compliance as an interruption against plans that are already set, budgets that have been committed, and timelines made visible. If compliance needs to halt or change something, that rework gets the function labeled as the reason things slowed down.
When compliance is in early, however the same guidance lands differently. It becomes planning input, not late-stage friction. The objective shifts from “stop this” to “here’s how to do it safely and still hit the goal.”
If there is one operational change worth pushing across a compliance team, it’s this: stop waiting to be asked. Identify where the organization is making irreversible decisions, and show up earlier.
Say “no” less often by getting better at “no, but”
Compliance leaders should not pretend that “no” can be eliminated. Sometimes it is the right answer.
But the strongest compliance teams reduce the frequency of hard stops by improving the quality of alternatives. “No, but” is not a communication trick. It is a strategic posture:
- No, but we can structure it this way.
- No, but we can pilot it in a lower-risk segment.
- No, but if we add these controls, we can proceed.
That approach preserves business intent while protecting the organization. It also changes how the function is perceived. The business may not love constraints, but it respects solutions.
Stop reporting what you did. Start reporting what changed
Many compliance dashboards still read like a work log that lists hotline volume, training completion, investigations opened and closed. Those metrics can be useful internally, but they rarely persuade executives or boards because they don’t provide an answer when leadership asks: “So what?”
This matters more now because risks are converging across functions. AI, third-party risk, privacy, cyber, ESG, and business continuity are not separate board conversations anymore. Leadership wants integrated visibility, not a stack of siloed updates.
If compliance wants strategic airtime, it needs to move beyond output reporting and into insight reporting: trends, root causes, pressure points, weak controls, cultural signals, and operational friction. In other words, what is changing, why it’s changing, and what to do about it.
Be in the room where it happens
Some alliances are natural. Audit, investigations, and information security usually share a risk-management posture. Other partnerships are harder, especially when incentives don’t align.
The move is not to demand cooperation. It’s to create shared value and then build something together.
Consider, for example, web accessibility. The compliance driver is to reduce legal exposure. But accessibility improvements can also strengthen SEO and improve customer experience, which gives marketing and sales a reason to care. When you can credibly frame the same initiative as risk reduction and business advantage, leadership support tends to come faster and execution gets easier.
That is also a good litmus test for compliance messaging. If the only value proposition you can articulate is “we have to,” the organization will treat the work as a cost. If you can also show how it improves performance or resilience, the work becomes easier to sponsor.
Reach the workforce you actually have
Plenty of organizations still act like corporate email is a communications strategy. But really, it isn’t.
Field teams, technicians, manufacturing, distributed sites, and non-desk employees require different channels and different messengers. This is why it is so important to work through local leaders and site contacts, and adapt communications to regional context.
If a program is designed for headquarters employees, it will not land reliably everywhere else. And then your result is as predictable as it is unhelpful…a culture that looks consistent on paper and uneven in practice.
The hard truth
Compliance influence is not something you win once and then keep. It is something you build into how the organization operates.
The multiplier comes from disciplined alignment: early engagement, shared value, credible reporting, and communications that meet people where they are. When compliance teams engineer that alignment, they stop fighting to be heard and start shaping the decisions that matter.
To learn more, check out Ethisphere’s free webcast, The Compliance Multiplier: Maximizing Organizational Impact Through Cross-Functional Alignment, now available on demand.
Bill Coffin | Editor-in-Chief, Ethisphere Magazine, Ethisphere
Bill Coffin is the Editor-in-Chief of Ethisphere Magazine and supports the larger content strategy of Ethisphere. He is an internationally recognized writer and editorial leader in the fields of ethics, compliance, insurance and risk management. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes and Fortune, as well as Compliance Week, National Underwriter, Risk Management, Best’s Review and other B2B media. Previously, Bill served as Director, Senior Editor at AIG, leading content strategy for one of the world’s largest insurance companies.
