Organizations need to be organizations of integrity. What we communicate to the world about our policies, compliance and ethics practices, values, code of conduct, regulatory commitments, and now ESG statements is a reality in the organization and not fiction. The Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer (CECO) has become the Chief Integrity Officer of the organization. Integrity is a mirror. What we tell the world what the organization is about, is that what is truly reflected back to us in our behavior and operations?
Growing up, I was always told, and I am sure you were as well, that actions speak louder than words. Or you can talk-the-talk but can you walk-the-walk? It was an encouragement to ensure that what we tell people we do is what we actually do. That we do not live a fictitious life by portraying to the world that we are something that we really are not.
This is true on an individual level, but it is just as true in an organization. Organizations need to be organizations of integrity. What we communicate to the world about our policies, compliance and ethics practices, values, code of conduct, regulatory commitments, and now ESG statements is a reality in the organization and not fiction. The Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer (CECO) has become the Chief Integrity Officer of the organization. Integrity is a mirror. What we tell the world what the organization is about, is that what is truly reflected back to us in our behavior and operations?
This is why organizations need to operationalize compliance. There is a big push to move beyond paper-based compliance programs that look good in policies and procedures but are poorly implemented in operations. Enron had a great Code of Conduct that others copied, but it failed in implementing that Code of Conduct. If you look at the consent decrees, deferred prosecution agreements, non-prosecution agreements, and corporate integrity agreements by regulators and law enforcement over the past fifteen years you will see a lot of pressure that organizations move compliance outside of legal. Legal has the duty to deny and protect while compliance has a duty to discover and fix. The focus of law enforcement, regulators, and even the courts in the US Organizational Sentencing Practices is to ensure compliance is operational and more than a fictional program on paper.
Businesses that want to strategically operationalize compliance should:
Considering how technology can help boost organizations’ compliance performance, it is incredibly wise that business leaders choose a robust compliance software to operationalize and automate their compliance processes.
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