Tag: compliance culture

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Trends in business compliance

Round-up on compliance issues with blockchain technology

One of the hottest topics of 2017 is blockchain. This advancing technology is seemingly the possible solution to every business problem conceivable. Companies across all industries – as diverse as banking to food production and seemingly everywhere in between – are experimenting with how they might be able to use blockchain to make their reporting and related processes more reliable or efficient. Many are even contemplating how they may take advantage of blockchain to market software applications to other companies, hoping to enter the profitable fintech (financial technology), regtech (regulatory technology), or suptech (supervisory technology) markets.

But what is blockchain? Most famously, it is the core technological component of the well-known cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Simply put, blockchain is an open list of records (which comprise the “blocks”) which are securely linked together with cryptography. As the blocks are all linked together and independently identified with references to their linked blocks, the data contained therein is extra safe from individual manipulation or alteration. This is a decentralized computing system which is incredibly useful for recordkeeping and records management activities, especially those where security is especially important such as identity management and medical records.

Due to the broad desirability of a secure and adaptable record maintenance technology, blockchain, which was initially developed only less than a decade ago, has been a disruptive influence in many industries already. Across all business areas, companies are looking to blockchain for possible benefits, all relevant to compliance, to their reporting processes.

  • Transparency for pension fund reporting is one major potential use of blockchain. Following the Madoff scandal and other highly-publicized frauds in the investment management industry, there has been more pressure than ever in expectations for investor protection and reporting disclosures. Many pension funds have balked at public and supervisory demands for increased transparency due to the cost concerns for implementing additional reporting mechanisms in balance with very low profit margins. This reaction does not help to enhance trust between investor clients and this fraud-vulnerable industry. Therefore the decentralized, secure nature of blockchain offers appealing opportunities for filling this confidence vacuum. Blockchain-based platforms can get investors access to their own pension information without fears of data manipulation or increased cost burden on firms: How Blockchain is revolutionizing fraud prone industries
  • On a related note, banks and other financial institutions have borne much of the competitive pressure blockchain has created with the advent of cryptocurrencies – but they also stand to benefit from this, if they can make the best of it. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are a compelling alternative to the centralized, traditional banking system for customers who desire extra security or anonymity. While cryptocurrencies have been traditionally depicted as a safe haven for illegitimate or even illegal payment activities, the mainstream attention on them has created a broader appeal and audience for them. As a response to the interest their customers have shown in cryptocurrencies, banks have started to delve into the potential for the blockchain technology. Some has invested in tech start-up companies concentrating on various blockchain applications while others have delved more deeply into relationships with fintech partners. At this point banks’ proprietary efforts have mostly been restricted to in-house research on potential use of blockchain, but inevitably competitive momentum will start to drive larger institutions toward developing their own projects in this space. These developments are likely to encourage efficiency, inspire leaner and more innovative business models, and serve the regtech and suptech goals of increasing cooperation with regulatory authorities. Ultimately this could help to modernize and improve the persistently staid and legacy-driven banking industry into a bolder and more transparent business model:  How banks and financial institutions are implementing blockchain technology
  • The advertising industry is newly subject to regulatory scrutiny with the upcoming EU privacy directive, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This law will apply to any organization doing business in, using technology in, or targeting the citizens of, any EU country, so it has a broad global reach. The GDPR will impose new requirements for handling and controlling private data, including protective and disclosure obligations. Therefore blockchain-based solutions, which can be both secure against manipulation or leakage, and distributed with open access so that users making disclosure requests can see the information directly for themselves. This will help to reduce the burden of this reporting as well as improve cost margins rather than coming up with expensive and vulnerable in-house solutions or outsourcing the reporting to third-parties with their own attendant risks: How Blockchains Can Help the Ad Industry Comply With the GDPR
  • Commercial aviation is another industry looking to blockchain systems to help with its risks – this time in cybersecurity management. Airlines and support companies rely a lot on IT systems to do everything from fly and direct aircraft to book and manage passenger travel. These systems are highly imperfect, as system outages and computer crashes that lead to flight cancellations and stranded passengers show in the news each year. They are also vulnerable to cybersecurity risks where intruders could breach personal data, disrupt airline operations, or corrupt and steal client and aircraft information. Storing and protecting this data within vulnerable or old/legacy systems poses many cybersecurity challenges. The concept of tamper-proof blockchain technology is therefore compelling to the aviation industry for these obvious reasons. Blockchain could help to keep operational data safe and protect companies from cyberattacks. More importantly, pressure to adopt it could drive aviation companies to make the difficult yet very important technological updates and improvements to their systems which will serve safety and regulatory concerns alike: How Blockchain, Cloud Can Reinforce Cybersecurity in Commercial Aviation
  • The pharmaceutical industry has long been vexed by inaccurate and unreliable supply chain tracking. It is especially vulnerable to stolen and counterfeit medication entering the supply chain untracked and finding its way to patients, putting their safety at risk. Tracking medicine with blockchain could change all this. A consortium of pharmaceutical companies, including major firms Genentech and Pfizer, are already collaborating together on a tool called the MediLedger Project, which seeks to manage the pharmaceutical supply chain and track medicines within it to ensure that drug deliveries are recorded accurately and transparently. This would take the current complicated and inefficient network of software management in the supply chain to the next level, securing the supply chain with an integrated and decentralized blockchain system. It could also enable sharing of essential information from companies to partners and customers without exposing sensitive business information, a challenge in the industry so far: Big Pharma Turns to Blockchain to Track Meds

There are many potential advantages from a compliance perspective to blockchain, which has the potential to enhance transparency, protect privacy, address various process-driven risks, and strengthen cybersecurity controls, among other benefits. As the technology advances time will tell how broad the applications of blockchain may be across these diverse industries with similar needs for compliance risk management.

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Compliance and ethics business case studies

Profiles of ethical leadership in sports coaching: Johan Cruyff

This is the second in a month-long series of five posts that discuss successful sports coaches in terms of their ethical leadership qualities. Last Wednesday’s post was about John Wooden, the visionary UCLA basketball coach. Today’s post will focus on Johan Cruyff, the acclaimed Dutch footballer and manager of Ajax, Barcelona, and Catalonia football clubs. Next week, the profile will be about Jim Valvano’s leadership ethic as expressed in the famous speech he gave at the ESPY Awards in 1993, two mere months before he died of cancer. On November 22, the post will be about Vince Lombardi, the NFL Hall of Fame coach, and clues about how he saw ethical leadership based on some of his most famous public statements. The fifth post in this series, on November 29, will study Gregg Popovich, a current NBA coach with a progressive view toward developing his team as both players and people.

Johan Cruyff is widely thought of as one of the greatest football players of all time, having won the Ballon d’Or three times and playing many extremely successful seasons for Ajax (1964-1973) and Barcelona (1973-1978) in club play and the Netherlands (1966-1977) in international play. Cruyff is equally regarded for his impressive achievements as a club manager. His innovations while at the helm of Ajax and Barcelona football clubs laid the generational foundations of coaching philosophy that continue to shape the directions of those teams and their youth academies, as well as those of many others.

To learn more about Cruyff’s life and accomplishments as a player, read this profile from The Guardian published after his death in March 2016.

Cruyff, regarded by many as a technically perfect football player, was able to devote his energy to creative organizational strategies to make the game more cooperative and dynamic. From his perspective, technique went far beyond fundamentals of football that could be learned from rote practice of drills. Rather, real playing ability came from having a fluency and versatility with the game that allowed players to connect to one another and work in an instinctive and flexible system together on the pitch.

Cruyff also receives special mention for his approach to the game that emphasized morality via simplicity of play. While regarding football as a beautiful game, this was not merely based on entertainment value or competitive stakes that might be exciting, but also on efficiency and mental strategy, where the mind’s plan facilitates the body’s actions. This is a powerful consciousness that elevates a deeper existential, internal success over the fleeting external recognition of a win-lose result that was not achieved by a personal commitment to greatness via integrity and discipline.

Cruyff’s strong values toward the game and life are most poignantly embodied in his “14 rules,” which are displayed in each of 200 Cruyff Courts set up in countries all over the world for children to use freely to play football together.   These 14 basic rules are fundamental for all players in football match to follow, but they also provide a guiding philosophy for a values-based approach to life. Applying these as both personal and business management principles allows an individual to seek inner satisfaction and success via connections to and cooperation with others, personal accountability, authenticity, and informed ambition.

Cruyff’s 14 rules, annotated with suggestions for their application to corporate cultural principles in interests of promoting organizational and employee integrity, are as follows:

  1. Team player – To accomplish things, you have to do them together. – True success is achieved by focusing on collaboration and cooperation, not making isolated decisions in disconnected processes.
  2. Responsibility – Take care of things as if they were your own. – Individual ownership of risks and recognition of each person’s role in their management is fundamental to any defense strategy as well as necessary for a genuine culture of compliance at all organizational levels.
  3. Respect – Respect one another. – Businesses must have zero tolerance for non-inclusive or abusive behavior; incidences of it must be addressed seriously and mitigated or prevented from reoccurring when possible.
  4. Integration – Involve others when possible. – Work together to share responsibility – invoking praise when duly earned, and liability when risks are not managed.
  5. Initiative – Dare to try something new. – Foster and contribute to a culture of speaking up and out. Challenge heuristics and routines which can drive unethical decision making and narrow cognitive frameworks.
  6. Coaching – Always help each other within a team. – Regard the organization as an interdependent unit to support an integrated style of decision-making and working.
  7. Personality – Be yourself. – People should maintain their personal code of ethics and sense of right and wrong that they have in life, at work. Good people should not be afraid or unable to do good things.
  8. Social involvement – Interaction is crucial, both in sport and in life. – Be active champions for ethical processes and work together to promote them. Isolation is toxic to collective integrity.
  9. Technique – Know the basics. – Have or get the information needed to remain in constructive compliance with rules, regulations, and laws. Stay up to date or in front of them.
  10. Tactics – Know what to do. – Have a strategy that is flexible but driven by defined values and a thoughtful understanding of risks. Prepare work based on a plan and in agreed terms.
  11. Development – Sport strengthens body and soul. – Stay up to date or in front of the guidelines that form the controls framework. Feed-forward ideas, letting future productivity benefit from past performance.
  12. Learning – Try to learn something new every day. – Be open to and informed about different perspectives and opportunities. Seek knowledge and evaluate strategy based on it, not based on what is easy or fast.
  13. Play together – An essential part of any game. – Share values and manage risks by working together. Don’t be solicited for advice or seek an opinion; have an evolving and ongoing relationship.
  14. Creativity – Bring beauty to the sport. – Be passionate and on the lookout for novel approaches that will provide elegant solutions to dilemmas.

Cruyff’s 14 rules are about so much more than football or sport. These rules are succinct, relatable suggestions for how to live a moral life in harmony with others and in pursuit of self-sustaining accomplishments. This emphasis on values drives intellectual curiosity, physical effort, mental development, and individual accountability. These powerful principles promote integrity in all areas of life and work.

To learn more about Johan Cruyff and his undeniable legacy in football and leadership, check out this Football’s Greatest feature on him:

Also, make sure to read next Wednesday’s post, when this series continues on to look at Jim Valvano, a famed NCAA basketball coach and, later, broadcaster and motivational speaker, and his legendary speech at the first ESPY Awards in 1993 which makes a powerful, simple statement on integrity and internal success.

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Compliance in current and historical events

Whistleblowers in the pharmaceutical industry

This is the second of a three-part series profiling whistleblowers in different industries. This started with October 24’s post looking at the financial services industry, including UBS, HSBC, and Citigroup. Today’s post will be focused on the pharmaceutical industry, looking at whistleblowers who exposed fraudulent sales and marketing practices, ethical issues in the development and research phase, and more. The third and final post in this set on next Tuesday will be about whistleblowers who exposed high-profile corporate fraud in major companies such as Enron and General Electric.

Whistleblowers in the pharmaceutical industry make an important contribution to protecting consumer safety when they come forward to raise concerns about business practices in their organizations. Corporate misconduct in this industry has direct impact on patient care and individual health. Therefore the actions of whistleblowers can serve to not only shed light on fraudulent or abusive actions by organizations or individuals within them, but also to prevent future harm to scientists and researchers working in the business, third party partners within their supply chain, and end-user consumers.

  • Jim Wetta, AstraZeneca: Jim Wetta was a sales employee at AstraZeneca who blew the whistle over misleading marketing practices for the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. AstraZeneca had been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration only for treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, the company took on a major sales effort to market Seroquel for off-label use by children under the care of psychiatrists and elderly people suffering from dementia. The company used continuing education seminars, mandatory for doctors to maintain their licenses to practice medicine, to market the off-label uses of the drug which were not previously approved by the FDA. In 2010, AstraZeneca settled with the Department of Justice for $520 million and faced thousands of product liability claims over the marketing of Seroquel. Check out this New York Times article for more information on what happened in this drug marketing case. 
  • Robert Rudolph, Eli Lilly: Robert Rudolph also worked in sales, in his case Eli Lilly. Along with eight other whistleblowers, he went to the federal government with evidence of illegal sales practices by Eli Lilly in the marketing of Zyprexa, a drug approved, like Seroquel, for use in treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In 2001, the company began to market Zyprexa for a variety of off-label uses, especially in the elderly. Apart from this marketing process, Zyprexa representatives also took names from patient lists at doctors’ offices to try to get them to switch to Zyprexa, a blatant privacy violation. Further, throughout this time the company inflated the stock price by counting drug samples as sales. Rudolph, a long-time employee at Eli Lilly who was at the end of his career, saw the corporate culture changing in a bad way and felt that the pervasion of these practices into the business needed to be stopped. In 2009, Eli Lilly agreed to a $1.4 billion fine in a DOJ settlement. For an idea of the reputational risk this case caused Eli Lilly, take a look at this 2009 opinion piece on the dangers of the company’s practices to society.
  • John Kopchinksi, Pfizer: Like Wetta and Rudolph, John Kopchinski was a sales representative, in his case at Pfizer. In 2003, Kopchinski filed a “qui tam” lawsuit under the False Claims Act, which allows whistleblowers to aid the government in recovering money stolen in frauds that resulted in the government losing money. Kopchinski exposed evidence that Pfizer was promoting 13 drugs, most prominently the arthritis drug Bextra, for off-label uses that the FDA had previously rejected and unapproved doses. Kopchinski was fired by Pfizer after reporting his claims, but continued with the lawsuit until 2009. Pfizer went on to settle with the government for $2.3 billion. For more about Kopchinski’s legal battle with Pfizer, read this 2009 NPR piece.   
  • Adam Resnick, Omnicare: In another qui tam lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act, in 2006 Adam Resnick sued Omnicare, a pharmacy providing drugs to nursing homes, for Medicare and Medicaid fraud carried out in a series of kickback schemes with nursing home operators. This corrupt practice could potentially lead nursing home administrators to make decisions about what kind of drugs they give to residents not based upon patient care, but rather based upon what pharmaceutical supplier has enriched them in exchange for their continued business. Omnicare and the involved facilities settled their cases with the government in 2010. Resnick himself has a challenging past: he was a compulsive gambler who went to prison for check-kiting which led the collapse of the bank where he worked. As part of his rehabilitation from engaging in fraud he dedicated himself to exposing it instead. For more information on the Omnicare case, look to this 2010 article from the Chicago Tribune.
  • Cheryl Eckard, GlaxoSmithKline: Cheryl Eckard was a quality assurance manager for GlaxoSmithKlein. In 2002, she reported evidence that the company was selling defective and mis-identified drugs from its Puerto Rico plant. Eckard lost her job in 2003 after repeatedly complaining, but the FDA and DOJ found so many issues in the plant that GlaxoSmithKlein became an example for other pharmaceutical companies for what not to do. Due to products being mixed up in the manufacture and distribution process, the antidepressant Paxil and diabetes medication Avandamet were tainted. Some of the pills fell apart while others did not have the active ingredient required for them to be effective treatment. The factory where they were made did not have an effective quality controls framework in place. GlaxoSmithKline paid $750 million to the DOJ for their oversight shortcomings. For more information on the production problems Eckard exposed, read this 2010 article from the Guardian.

The process for creating, manufacturing, and distributing pharmaceutical products is long and complex, with many decision points where individuals may make choices in a narrow ethical frame or a limited context which prevents them from seeing the consequences of unethical actions or even the existence of better possible choices. Whistleblowers can help to demystify this process and illuminate for public scrutiny the problems in the design of the system that may cause good people to make bad decisions.

Check back next week, Tuesday November 14, for the final post in this three-part feature on whistleblowers in historical events. Next Tuesday’s post will discuss individuals who exposed fraudulent business practices in landmark cases of corporate fraud and bad business practices.

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Best Practices

GRC for compliance professionals

Compliance as a function is sometimes subject to varying definitions. Across different companies, industries, and cultures, organizational perspectives on the purpose and scope of a compliance program can vary. Some see compliance as an alternative to or close relation of the legal department, while others position it much more independently, perhaps as an intermediary between the business lines and audit. Still others may see compliance as the depository for risk-based support activities that do not otherwise fall cleanly into any other established unit.

As previously discussed on this blog, and as this blog will continue to ensure to express, the autonomy and visibility of compliance is integral to the integrity and sustainability of an organization’s employees and business strategy. Compliance blends a rules-based approach with a values-based approach to reconcile ethical expectations with legal obligations and technical requirements.

Professionals who work with interpreting legal and regulatory guidance and implementing these into business practices will likely recognize the acronym “GRC.” GRC stands for governance, risk management, and compliance. This umbrella term integrates these functions to describe the operational activities undertaken by an organization to execute plans, manage risk, and encourage integrity.

The GRC model refers to process themes, not necessarily functional units of an organization. Indeed, the three themes of GRC may be included in operational tasks and across numerous independent departments, including HR, finance, IT, audit, and at the board level, in addition to the obvious areas such as risk, legal, and compliance.

GRC can be seen as a discipline that seeks to coordinate the flow of information and ownership of risk so that the activities and processes it encompasses are effectively and efficiently incorporated. As organizations become bigger, this discipline becomes all the more important for keeping channels of communication open and clear, both up and down silos as well as across business areas.

Ethical decision-making thrives in an integrated system where objectives are clearly expressed and information-sharing is transparent and relied-upon.   Elevating a coordinated GRC discipline can foster a communication regimen in an organization where reasonableness and feedback rather than heuristics and routine dominate. Equity and integrity can thrive if actions are taken openly and cooperatively rather than in isolation.

In the ever-changing regulatory landscape of modern business, it is so important that an organization’s GRC activities be coordinated so that work is not duplicated or wasted and gaps are filled rather than passed over with tunnel vision. These functions share stakeholders and objectives, and therefore should share information to maximize meaningful impact and minimize redundant effort.

The basic concepts of the GRC approach are all useful for a compliance officer or other professional to consider:

  • Governance: This refers to the management control framework used by an organization’s senior leadership, relying on management information from across the organization in order to direct and control the overall strategy and operation of an organization. This concerns major existential questions for the organization, such as – what are the roles of leaders at all levels? What are the reporting mechanisms and what checks and balances exist for these? How does business strategy translate into directions to various business units and how are these instructions communicated to employees? Having an informed perspective on the organization’s governance objectives is very important for a compliance officer because this gives insight to the tone at the top and the mechanism through which these critical values become concrete practices.
  • Risk management: Risk management is the identification, assessment, and response to risk factors which may have an impact on an organization’s activities. This also includes considering risks which do not have an impact and ascertaining that this evaluation remains correct and current as fluid business objectives and conditions may change. All organizations are subject to some risks, such as operational risk, technological risk, and financial risk, while others may be determined by the industry in which they operate, such as market risk, liquidity risk, political risk, third-party risk, and product-specific risks. Risk management entails planning and implementing controls in order to address these risks, either by mitigating them, changing strategy or practice to eliminate them, accepting them, or transferring them to a service provider or partner who is positioned to best respond to them. Legal, legislative, and regulatory risks are of particular interest to compliance officers, as are compliance-centric risks such as reputational risk. Compliance officers should take risk identification and assessment well into account when planning compliance program objectives so that these can be fine-tuned to the emergent and most important needs the business faces in this area.
  • Compliance: Of course, staying in good standing with supervisory authorities and ensuring that business practices and procedures meet standards and requirements set by external laws and regulations as well as internal policies and procedures, ensures that the work done in governance and risk management activities is properly directed and sufficiently supported. An on-going assessment and prioritization of the compliance program’s effectiveness and appropriateness is necessary to ensure that the controls in place are up-to-date and working as intended.

The themes above are all germane to the objectives of a compliance program and can be referred to in seeking buy-in from senior management or supervisory board members, with whom ultimate responsibility for establishing and executing these systemic processes rests.

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This week preview

This week on Compliance Culture

Be sure to visit Compliance Culture this week for posts on these topics.

  • Monday: What is “GRC”?
  • Tuesday: Pharmaceutical industry whistleblowers
  • Wednesday: Johan Cruyff’s ethical leadership
  • Thursday: Blockchain and compliance
  • Friday: Starbucks and cultural respect in Kyoto

Don’t miss it!

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Last week round-up

Last week on Compliance Culture

Check out last week’s posts on Compliance Culture, in case you missed or want to revisit them.

Many thanks for reading!

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Compliance in popular culture

Selected TED/TEDx talks on bioethics

The study of bioethics is rich and varied, always growing in diversity as emerging technologies advance. Bioethical issues have their root in decision-making about research methodology, where academics struggled to define propriety in humans’ exploitation of the natural world – plants and animals – to further science for their own benefits. Bioethics maintains this same ethos today, centered on the link between human interests in and relationship to the sciences, notably including biology and medicine. The inquiries of bioethics extend to a huge swath of topics in within health and human sciences, reflecting the deep reach technological innovations have into everyone’s lives.

First, a word on the relationship between science and morality. In Science can answer moral questions, Sam Harris suggests that the values humans rely upon to define their ethical obligations and moral choices can be seen as facts, which are the foundation of science:

 

 

Harris is a neuroscientist and philosopher who seeks to define the way that ideas about human life are shaped by the physical world in which people live.   People often presume that science cannot answer the existential questions humans consider most compelling, like – what is the meaning or purpose of life? This modern world is continually impacted by technological change, but does science just provoke moral issues, or can it indeed be a force for addressing or solving them? Science is fact-driven and so too can be people’s practical assessments about right and wrong in real life. Therefore science can and should be an authority in the domain of objective fact rather, than only basing these considerations solely on non-concrete intuitions or opinions.

Building upon this presumption that science and ethics do indeed have a powerful mutual dependency, bioethics asks many moral and existential questions germane to this relationship. Animal rights, gene therapy, patient care, bio-engineering, and research methodology are just a few examples of areas where bioethical issues and debates commonly arise. The below TED/TEDx talks are a sampling of how scientists, technologists, and academics confront these challenges in their work and expect that the relationship that science and technology have with law and philosophy will continue to impact human life and society.

  • It’s time to re-evaluate our relationship with animals (Lesli Bisgould) – Human relationships with animals are more morally and legally complicated than many people might realize. Living with companion animals is very common and most people would say that they have compassion for animals and feel they should be treated with respect and dignity. However, humans draw unconscious lines between animals they feel are household pets, such as cats or dogs; captive animals they may think exist for educational or entertainment purposes, like whales and dolphins; livestock animals that are part of the industrial food manufacturing supply chain, like cows and chickens; and wild animals that are hunted or poached, like elephants and lions. Why do we make these distinctions and do they have some objective basis in a moral universe? What is the responsibility and response of the law?

 

 

  • Gene Therapy – The time is now (Nick Leschly) – Gene therapy could enable the repair of diseased or damaged cells. With applications from this technology, doctors could cure illnesses and fix injuries for good instead of requiring a lifetime of preventive and prescriptive treatment. This is an advancement that could change medicine forever. However, major funding has historically been hard to attract for research and development in gene therapy because of ethical and religious uncertainties, not to mention the resistance of some individuals and institutions within the traditional medicine establishment. Moral fear, some concrete and others more esoteric, about the dark side of where this technology could take society, even if scientists enter with the best intentions to control against that, have been a financial and ideological barrier to progress.

 

 

  • Transparency, Compassion, and Truth in Medical Errors (Leilani Schweitzer) – The Alexander Pope proverb goes “To err is human, to forgive, divine” – but what about when the human error results in the death of a loved one? How does one forgive when the mistake is that of a professional – such as a doctor? The legal tort system and medical malpractice insurance certainly do not inspire a reaction of kindness from the survivors. However, perhaps truth is the essential element in handling a tragic event such as a medical mistake that leads to catastrophic injury or death. Truth in medicine is important when the mistake occurs, in the form of transparency, accountability, and honest communication. Truth is also important in recovery by the survivors after the mistakes – remedial care, openness, and radical candor that can lead to emotional healing and inspire advocacy. Admitting and facing mistakes is a powerful act of integrity that can never be supplanted by the legal and administrative system in defining patient care responsibilities.

 

 

  • It’s time to question bio-engineering (Paul Root Wolpe) – As this blog often espouses, the best time to address moral or integrity questions and consider implementing a code of ethics that will be sustainable for the future, is universal: as soon as possible. There’s no time too soon to think about the foundations of integrity in any area of society, especially when it comes to science and developing technology. In the field of bio-engineering, technology has already advanced quite far to do things like selective or hybrid breeding of animals, modification of food products, and the creation and manipulation of artificial cells. Regulation has become controversial as an obstacle to advancement. The presumption goes that making rules or laws that cover the scope of people’s work in a scientific area will stifle their innovation. This does not have to be true if a moral code is built into the knowledge acquisition process from the beginning. Progress and ethics are not naturally at odds and do not have to be positioned as antagonistic to each other in pursuit of scientific discovery, but to let either take dominance over the other is short-sighted and dangerous.

 

 

  • Trust in research – the ethics of knowledge production (Garry Gray) – The work of research scientists weighs heavily on consumer and public safety. Most of the goods people use on an everyday basis have been the product of a prolonged research and development process, which laypeople assume has been conducted with accuracy as the principle interest and free of biases. However, this is far from true in practice. Corporate funding and institutional agendas all have great influence on scientific research. People are well aware of the possible danger of these influences, which are nevertheless necessary for work to be done, but the deeper problem is that the researchers themselves may believe they are able to naturally maintain independence as a function of their expertise. In reality, no conflict of interest risk management mechanism can be effective if it only exists within a person’s head. Sensitively and sensibly managing these conflicts and the biases they create is very important work that must be responsively and proactively done to support research scientists in their endeavors.

 

 

Check back in the coming weeks for further posts on bioethics, including a look at current trends in corporate compliance issues arising from bioethical debates in the scientific research and medical fields, further discussion of bioethics as it relates to artificial intelligence, and insights on the larger interrelationship between technology and ethics of knowledge acquisition, engineering, and design.

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Trends in business compliance

Round-up on evolving role of central banks

Central banks may have once been quite remote in their workings to the average person, relegated to seemingly academic and technical tasks of interest rate management and currency market machinations. Perhaps many people had only ever heard of the Federal Reserve and had no perspective on the worldwide system of international and supranational central banking.

The 2008 global financial crisis, however, thrust central banks worldwide into the spotlight. Economic news since that time garnered a lot of attention in the media as countries attempted to recover from the economic crisis and re-defined their financial systems to be more resilient and guided by a more effective controls framework. This effort has been one that started with a focus on free-wheeling rescue and stimulus and subsequently has morphed to still include those objectives, with somewhat more restraint when possible, but now also to visibly impact many other areas of the financial system and markets.

In this process, central banks around the world have found themselves in a bit of an existential quest to determine what their engagement level and scope will be. Technological advancements and changes in post-crisis regulatory and legislative priorities have pressured central banks to decide whether they will contribute to certain markets and identify the extent of their own autonomy within their national systems.

  • Bank of Russia is facing a possible national banking crisis, as two major banks have needed rescue due to liquidity problems in just a month’s time. In August, there was a run on deposits at Bank Otkritie FC. In September, B&N Bank asked for a bailout to increase liquidity. The current problem could stem from the central bank’s efforts to rejuvenate Russia’s banking industry in 2014 on the heels of financial troubles in the industry from falling oil prices and international sanctions. At that time, Bank of Russia offered inexpensive loans to major banks to encourage them to take over smaller ones that were not doing well.   This consolidation caused the large banks to take on the troubled assets of the small banks, which are now creating the current liquidity pressure. Otkritie even has alleged that the assets it acquired were fraudulently represented in the purchases. This suggests issues with Bank of Russia’s supervision of those entities. If these early bailouts cannot contain the problems then a privatization trend could take hold:  Russia to Bail Out Second Major Bank in Month as Troubles Spread
  • The Swiss National Bank is publicly listed on the Swiss stock exchange, with 48 percent of its shares privately owned. Some other countries do have central banks with private shareholders, but this year, the share price of the Swiss National Bank has almost doubled. This trading activity is an interesting anomaly, as shareholders do not stand to benefit from the Swiss National Bank’s interventions in the foreign currency markets to keep the value of franc down. It’s possible that some investors are speculating on this thinly-traded stock in order to profit from price volatility that is not hard to generate with fairly moderate-sized transactions. Other motivations could be shareholders hoping for a public-to-private buyout by the bank or a flight to quality:  The mysterious rise in shares of the Swiss National Bank 
  • South Africa’s central bank Reserve Bank claims its independence is under attack as the South African government has been encouraging lawmakers to redefine the mission of the bank from inflation management to promoting socioeconomic benefits for South Africans. The Reserve Bank has been targeted by the Public Protector who is charged with investigating a bailout by the central bank from 1992. Far from a neutral process, this investigation has been controversial and politically-charged, and it has been seen as seeking to undermine the independence and reputability of the central bank. This very public reputational dispute begs the question of how central banks worldwide may be blamed disproportionately for their country’s economic problems or pressured politically to adopt agendas contrary to their essential purpose:  South Africa Central Bank Says Anti-Graft Head Met Zuma Team
  • The hot market this year has definitely been in cryptocurrencies, and questions have abounded about how national supervisors would react to a proliferation of trading exchanges and market offerings in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC), China’s central bank, has issued probably the strongest regulatory challenge to the market for cryptocurrencies so far. The PBoC first banned initial coin offerings (ICOs), the IPOs of the cryptocurrencies market, and then ordered all trading exchanges in Beijing to cease trading cryptocurrencies and quit allowing new users to register. China’s relevant industry regulator, the National Internet Finance Association of China, fell in step with the PBoC to condemn cryptocurrencies as illegal, linked to illicit activities, and too risky for market stability and investor protection interests:  China Is Shutting Down All of Beijing’s Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Exchanges
  • However, not all central banks have had such an allergic reaction to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Taking in stride the possible risks and undesirable associations, others are contemplating whether the way to manage speculative trading in their own currency markets might be to join in issuing cryptocurrencies as well. This “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach has been suggested by the Bank for International Settlements, a consortium of national central banks based in Switzerland. Some central banks, including the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, are already experimenting with blockchain technology for interbank payment systems. The Reserve Bank of India is also looking into blockchain and even considering issuing its own cryptocurrency, as is the Estonian Ministry of Finance (to the disapproval of the European Central Bank). The overall verdict is that central banks need to take more time to consider their own interests before becoming enthusiastic cryptocurrency offerors, but the enticement of participating in the market in hopes of stemming potential risks to the financial system and their own monetary policy may prove too much to resist:  The Bitcoin Bandwagon: Central Banks Consider Their Own Cryptocurrencies

As the global economy continues to deepen in complexity and interconnectedness, inevitably bouncing between financial recovery and relapse, the role of central banks in this worldwide system will also keep evolving. Systemic changes in the market and transformative advancements in technology both represent threats to, but also opportunities for, the traditional central banking system.

Categories
Compliance and ethics business case studies

Profiles of ethical leadership in sports coaching: John Wooden

This is the first in a month-long series of five posts about historically significant sports coaches as exemplary models for ethical leadership values. Today’s post will focus on John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach. November 8th’s post will analyze the famous “14 rules” of Johan Cruyff as business values to promote organizational and employee integrity. On November 15, the profile will be about Jim Valvano and the inspiring speech he gave at the ESPY Awards only two months before his untimely death in 1993. Vince Lombardi, the NFL Hall of Fame coach, and his insights on the ethics of leadership and performance will be the focus on November 22. Finally, on November 29, a contemporary coach will be the final profile along with the previous leaders from sports history, with the focus on NBA coach Gregg Popovich.

These coaches are all beloved, legendary figures whose importance in society extends far beyond their teams, and for good reason.   Beyond inspiring players and other coaches who develop with them or work alongside them, the ideas coaches share about motivation, personal growth, attitude, and performance can easily translate from the court, pitch, or field to all areas of life.

No discussion of legendary coaches in sports history is complete without mentioning John Wooden, so it is logical to start this inquiry with him. John Wooden was the head basketball coach at the University of California Los Angeles from 1948 until 1975. During that time, he coached the team to ten NCAA national championships in 12 years, seven of those in a row. For his many storied accomplishments at UCLA, Wooden was named coach of the year six times.

Apart from his winning record, Wooden is renowned for his popularity among his former players, many of whom recognized him as having shaped their lives positively. He is well-known for his organizational leadership and insights which have been translated as tips for success in life in general, often relying on simple and straightforward inspirations for positive behavior and attitude. Wooden defined many leadership and performance principles to inspire his players to achieve their best in basketball and life. These were embodied by, for example, his Seven Point Creed, which included being true to yourself, helping others, building relationships, seeking advice, and being thankful, and the Pyramid of Success.

The Pyramid of Success describes 15 blocks which, when considered in performance and strategy, support competitive achievements which can be reached through a values-based approach. These 15 qualities are: (1) industriousness, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, and enthusiasm; (2) self-control, alertness, intitiative, and intentness; (3) condition, skill, and team spirit; (4) poise and confidence; and, culminating in, (5) competitive greatness. These are supported by, on one hand, from bottom to top: ambition, adaptability, resourcefulness, fight, and faith; and on the other hand also from bottom to top: by sincerity, honesty, reliability, integrity, and patience.

This balanced approach demands that any individual hoping to reach competitive greatness must take into consideration the personal qualities and resilience that are required to get there. In this model, quick wins or external satisfaction are not emphasized; instead, building character ethic and cultivating a measured path to the desired achievement.   These values are not special to basketball or sport. They are also not mere business principles. They are a life philosophy and paradigm which an individual can consistently carry though all of his or hers endeavors. The hard work a person devotes to the dual goals of sustaining faith and patience provide the momentum for the culmination in success.

For an interactive look at this, check out the website memoralizing him, which has a section devoted to the Pyramid of Success.

The key takeaway from the Pyramid of Success, and many of Wooden’s finer management and development insights, is that success and winning are not synonyms. A person can reach competitive greatness, the ultimate stage of the Pyramid of Success, but that does not mean the result will be winning every time thereafter. By the same token, an individual game or effort can result in a win, but that does not mean intrinsic success has been achieved in a sustainable, credible way.

In Wooden’s words in his 2001 TED talk (linked below), success is defined as “peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.” This is not something others can judge or define and does not come from an external performance or perception. This sense of self-accomplishment, win or lose, prevail or fail, can only be reached through hard work, the commitment to which is supported by equal doses of patience and faith.

Watch and read Wooden’s TED talk, “The difference between winning and succeeding,” here.

Having a commitment to this internally-motivated model of success is powerful for determining that the results of one’s effort will be about the integrity with which it was made. Individuals and organizations can inspire a values-based approach to work from this management mechanism. Getting there is the most important part of the process of “being” there. If the emphasis is on winning, competition, profit, attention, and external accolades, then the internal values will be missing to sustain the accomplishment. But, if the emphasis is on growth, hard work, relationships, learning, preparing, and internal satisfaction, then the greatness achieved will last long enough to get the win and keep much more after that.

For a great study of the enduring legacy of John Wooden, check out this Sports Illustrated article by Seth Davis from March 2017.

Also, don’t forget to check back next Wednesday when this series continues on to look at Johan Cruyff, legendary Dutch footballer and manager whose coaching philosophy is credited with revolutionizing the game of football.

Categories
Administrative

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Compliance Culture!

In honor of the holiday, check out this round-up from American Banker on the scary regulatory outlook for the banking sector:  Here’s what bankers are fearing this Halloween season.