Tone at the Top - Lessons Learned

What does your company do when bad decisions are made?

Wall Street Journal - May 14, 2007
At the Pentagon, An 'Encyclopedia Of Ethical Failure'
By Jonathan Karp
Word Count: 1,295

WASHINGTON -- Government workers who are caught misbehaving often are suspended, fired or prosecuted for their misdeeds. Then, when all that is done, they face one last humiliation -- a virtual dressing down at the hands of Pentagon lawyer Stephen Epstein.

Mr. Epstein, the director of the Pentagon's Standards of Conduct Office, is mounting an ethical cleansing offensive from inside the corridors of power. His weapon of choice is the "Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure," a hit parade he publishes on the Internet to regale bureaucrats with tales of shenanigans and shockingly bad judgment that have shot down the careers of ...

Do your Incident Management practices improve your future?

Companies have strong opinions regarding the internal, let alone, the external disclosing of employee wrongdoings. Some see it as a valuable learning tool to build training materials around. Yet others rather see it quietly slip away in the dark of night. In today’s age of self-reporting and full disclosure, perhaps reconsideration of keeping these situations under wraps is in order, so you can benefit from these valuable lessons learned.

If a company continues to keep these dirty little secrets, what does this say about the tone at the top and a culture of compliance? Obviously, there needs to be good judgment and thought used in handling these issues, but just pulling down the shades is probably not taking it as far as you should.

I’m not suggesting that companies take the same actions as the Pentagon, but examining these problems and identifying what went wrong and what could be done to prevent or detect similar problems in the future includes communicating with your workforce.

What better training than real life, in your own backyard lessons could you come up with to help your workforce, your company and your public image?