Can Anyone Survive Whistle-Blowing on Ethical Issues?

To summarize, the long term suggestions have been – build a culture that does not tolerate lapses at any level, develop solid internal successors and conservative pay programs, create good relationships and credibility at the Board level so better internal successors are more likely to be chosen and finally, educate everyone in sensible investing through retirement planning to ultimately lessen pressure from shareholders for the short term results in all companies. Cumulatively I believe these steps can have tremendous effects over a reasonable time, but they certainly aren’t instantaneous. The toughest question is can or when should HR or other executives speak out, and how, about ethical lapses.

At some point, the popular quick-fix idea of ‘whistle-blowing’ has to be addressed. Can’t we somehow make it possible for insiders who know what’s going on to protest bad practices or unethical decisions, so the public and employees aren’t hurt by bad actions on the part of a few senior people? In fact, shouldn’t we ourselves, as HR executives, routinely put our necks on the line to be the ones who do this? Isn’t this really part and parcel of ‘good HR?’ Perhaps I should ask whether, like Sidney Carton in Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, we ought to offer to step into the shoes of the person destined to be guillotined especially since that person may be appealing directly to HR to decide what to do.

Self-sacrifice may seem like some peak of honorable behavior, but it’s unlikely ever to be viable for executives with families and mouths to feed. Moreover, it’s far more valuable in the long run to set up the systems and culture to avoid problems than look to last ditch efforts to save things. Could we ever pay people enough so that they could realistically protest, knowing it probably means an end to their career and steady income altogether? How many companies will hire someone with a record of ‘whistle-blowing?’ This unfortunate fact isn’t likely to change easily no matter what sort of legislation is created. Can this be changed… or, if not, what else can be done? The expectation of personal sacrifice seems to loom over all HR professionals constantly. If I had a dollar for every time I was told, “you should go in there and tell the CEO… [whatever the speaker thinks someone else should say],” I’d truly be rich by now. It’s easy for everyone to look to “them” to solve the problem, but when “them is “me,” I have more thinking to do before I act.

To put some perspective around such questions for I’ll try to summarize the sort of thinking I believe we all typically go through. First, when we recognize an ethical question, we most likely all react initially based on the question, “how significant is it?” That probably shouldn’t be the case. A better way to put it is, “how urgent is it?” Every violation of ethics has significance. We shouldn’t overlook a single issue, but we have some latitude to decide whether it needs a quick solution, especially when we’ve been talking about useful long term solutions. Can it wait?

Urgency depends on imminent danger. If a safety violation could get someone killed or injured, that takes immediate action of some sort. Most of the time, one could presume most managers would agree with us and a critical mass would develop pretty quickly to save the law suits from happening if for no other reason. Much as we would hope everyone would fix such problems for purely unselfish reasons, we all know that doesn’t always happen. Nevertheless safety is more likely to be seen generally as urgent and get resolved than, say, minor pilfering or somewhat questionable results-reporting by your boss.

At some point, urgency is low enough for any of us to step back and put our efforts solely into long term solutions involving education or culture change rather than risk our jobs by going over our bosses’ heads if we can’t find other ways. Of course, with pilfering there’s always the anonymous note to audit or whoever ought to react. Not a very honorable feeling, but if it gets the job done, lots of companies encourage it. Reporters get these notes all the time, but ethically they can’t act unless there is confirmation. Imagine the chaos if every wild allegation got reported publicly. Typically when a major problem surfaces everyone becomes aware that there have been such warnings and no one acted, but is that so unexpected? The alternative could be worse.

If none of the easy routes work and the problem is important, I believe a second level of analysis arises in one’s mind. It’s best described by a hierarchy that we consciously or otherwise use to sort such issues and choose an action. We consider where the matter fits:

1. Routine – Problems you know senior executives will recognize and want to fix – which therefore pose no problem to raise. Thank heavens we live in mostly ethical organizations.

2. Easily solvable – Problems we believe we could openly confront the CEO with and expect discussion to reveal the logic. Great to have an ‘open-minded’ boss.

3. Solvable with effort – Problems where some senior execs have blind spots, but approaching various people carefully may build consensus so a team takes a united front with the top people or puts a solution in place themselves.

4. Solvable if not too urgent – Problems where you have a snowball’s chance of convincing anyone to act short term, but one of the long term approaches previously discussed may jog corporate policy and action – and you can live with that.

5. Unsolvable, but livable – Silently accept that you probably can’t do anything ever – consider it ‘not my problem.’

6. Hopeless, mild and unacceptable to you – Start a job search with possible future action when you’re ‘safe,’ if you still care.

7. Hopeless, serious consequences but not fatal – Quit as soon as possible. Have you followed the common recommendation to save six months salary somewhere?

8. Hopeless, immediate and fatal – Blow the whistle, wait for consequences.

Like it or not these are likely the pragmatic thoughts that we all have to face one time or another in organizations. They are more rare as you go down the list. With luck one can get through a career with no number 8’s or find that one of the other solutions finds a sympathetic ear further up the line without becoming fully public. By laying out the hierarchy clearly perhaps we’re in a better position to help everyone struggle as effectively as possible with such decisions. I believe it’s truly difficult to categorize some types of situations. Each is complex and we typically don’t have all the facts. The time of decision-making is extremely stressful. This creates a tendency to waffle between ignoring the issue or blowing it out of proportion as we mentally test what we should do. It rarely helps for people to offer snap judgments about what someone else ought to do.

Ethics, done right, are ultimately very personal and there is no way to escape the inevitable soul-searching and hesitation. Thoughtfulness is a requirement or there isn’t really an ethical “question.” The sad truth is that we don’t get a lot of preparation to make reasoned, balanced decisions on this sort of thing… and we should. That takes us back full circle to my first article recommending we build a culture that routinely involves people at every level in thinking about and participating in decisions to enforce ethical behavior.

Whatever the individual’s decision when an apparent ethics issue arises, it is complex and can have far-reaching consequences for them, for the whole organization and for a lot of other people. It’s time we started making this a part of everyone’s responsibilities and training. As an HR manager I didn’t see it as my role to make the decision for someone or blow the whistle for anyone except perhaps in matters that were literally life and death. We must each face our own issues. There is, however, a role for HR to work with people to help them think through their roles logically and to encourage this sort of discussion.