by Carrie Penman, Vice President of Ethical Leadership Group, a Global Compliance Company

Many may remember the character Rosanne Roseannadanna from Saturday Night Live. The late Gilda Radner played the confused news reporter who always mixed up the wording of an issue. She ranted on about her confused issue until someone finally corrected her. At that point, she always ended her remarks with a quiet “Nevermind…”

Well, that is what I felt like today listening to the press conference given by the new Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, at the White House daily briefing. He gave a lengthy statement about the ethics scandals that rocked his organization, the investigations he was planning to conduct, and the corrective actions that would be implemented. He stated his commitment to ethics and accountability and related these efforts to President Obama’s focus on issues of integrity and accountability in government. Then he opened the floor to questions from the media.

The first question, the second question, and then the third question were about things like the agency’s plans for offshore drilling. Huh? Even the Secretary looked confused. He was prepared to answer questions about ethics and doing the right thing. After all, he had just discussed the juicy issues the media loves to cover – sex, drugs, and inappropriate relationships with the companies the government is supposed to regulate. It wasn’t until the very last question that a member of the media finally asked him about his actual remarks.

Why is this? I was already amazed this week at how Illinois Governor Blagojevich became a rock star on the major networks that helped him spin his story. Good Morning America, The View, and Larry King Live gave him plenty of air time. Joy Behar even played with his hair!! Has everyone, including the media, given up any hope of ethics and accountability really happening in government or the private sector? Is it just becoming a big joke? Is the media accepting this stuff as status quo? Is it just how business is done??? Or is it, as Rosanne Roseannadanna would say, always something?

What’s all this talk about ethics? I must be mixed up. Nevermind.

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by Steve Priest, President of Ethical Leadership Group, a Global Compliance Company

This is a terrific day for America. E pluribus unum indeed.

That’s enough basking. True to the spirit of President Obama’s speech, let’s get to work. No work in America—or the world—is more important right now than business ethics. We face a financial crisis in large part because of a failure by many—lenders and borrowers and those who aided and advised them—to take responsibility for making prudent choices.

And our crisis continues because now we have a lack of trust. Lenders and investors and suppliers don’t know if they can trust the person or company on the other side of the transaction. And without trust, the economy grinds to a halt.

As ethics and compliance professionals, our ultimate job is to build trust. President Obama gave us at least two lessons today on how to do so.

First—deliver the bad news. It was striking how direct our new President was about the difficult conditions we face. Many business leaders choose to give only positive messages, and when they deliver bad news, others are to blame. President Obama didn’t blame solely the greedy and irresponsible for our economic state—he assigned responsibility to all of us.

Second, he focused on the values we share as a way to bind us in pursuit of a common objective. Consider these words from the Inaugural Address. Substitute “company” or “organization” for “government.” Think about how messaging consistent with this might serve your organization—and your ethics and compliance program—in the weeks and months ahead.

"For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. . . . Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

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by Mary Bennett, Vice President of Ethical Leadership Group, a Global Compliance company

I am a movie buff. As a compliance training professional, I love films because I think they tell us much about human behavior without the boring, preachy stuff we sometimes find in formal ethics and compliance training programs.

Over the holidays, I rented the HBO mini-series “Rome,” season one, which tells the supposedly historically accurate story of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire from the perspective of two Roman soldiers. What struck me was that the wide-spread bribery, fraud, violence and general immorality portrayed in the episodes could have taken place anywhere and anytime in human history. And the bigger the kahuna, the bigger the impact of his or her actions. But also, in the midst of cultural depravity, Rome still progressed largely on the back of its disciplined army.

So how does this tie into the ethics and compliance profession? I can think of three ways. First, it points to the timeless importance of culture. People in a society or organization will behave according to the most widely accepted common denominator – modeled by those at the top. The E&C takeaway is this: we must train and communicate with our leaders ad nauseum so they get this.

Second, human behavior is motivated by the carrot and stick. Roman soldiers got paid if they followed the rules; they got executed if they did not - elegantly simple and effective. We may not be able to adopt this approach verbatim in our E&C efforts, but there is a corollary: Reward good behavior (yes, there are a number of non-monetary ways) and discipline bad behavior. Do both consistently.

Third, human nature being what it is, good controls are a must. The Roman army minimized its risks through clear rules, repeated training, and swift reinforcement with the carrot and stick. What worked in Rome can work in your organization through your E&C efforts.

Rome eventually fell, but our organizations don’t need to – as long we remember that human behavior hasn’t changed in thousands of years. This may be a little depressing, but it’s also an exciting E&C challenge for the new year.

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