In this edition of Popcorn and Compliance, Richard Lummis and Tom Fox review the Best Picture-winning movie Schindler’s List. Highlights include:
Resources
10 Leadership Lessons from Schindler’s List
Oskar Schindler-a Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
The first 100 days. Franklin D Roosevelt’s first term is the standard by which all other Presidents are measured for their first days in office. Why? It is because not only did FDR hit the ground going full speed but also passed legislation, which changed the shape of America for years to come. While the first thing he did was declare a Bank Holiday to save the nation’s banking system, he also passed significant legislation to try to stem the effects of the Great Depression. These bills included the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and, finally, the National Industrial Recovery Act. He also enacted the Truth-in-Lending and Glass-Steagall Acts to help regulate the stock market, whose collapse had heralded the economic downturn. Even if these acts did not turn the tide of the Great Depression, it gave people hope because at least it appeared FDR was doing something to fight the economic calamity.
Now imagine that you finally have been able to secure a new position as Chief Compliance Officer in the compliance field. Every company believes that they are ethical and that they certainly do business ethically but what are some of the things that you can do in your first 100 days? Hopefully you will not be dropped into a corporate situation as dire as the one FDR faced for the US in 1933 but the reality is that many new heads are still judged on these mythical first 100 days.
One obvious thing to generate success in the corporate world is to have a good relationship with your boss. You should have important conversations around expectations, working style, resources and your personal development. To facilitate these discussions the following points are posited:
These first 100 days will be a time of very high stress. This may well be compounded by your travel schedule and working very long hours to try and fulfill the concepts. The right advice-and-counsel network is an indispensable resource. Use your outside network of mentors, coaches and friends which you have developed over the years, to discuss your part at the company and what you have been experiencing. The key is to use whatever resources are available to you during your first 100 days.
Just as FDR accelerated his actions during his first 100 days, a large part of his success was that he accelerated those around him. You should take this key component of FDR’s success to heart in your new role. Get your direct reports, bosses, and peers to accelerate their own transitions. The fact that you are in transition means they are too. The quicker you can get your new direct reports up to speed, the more you will help your own performance.
It is difficult to imagine today a harder situation than the country faced when FDR came to power in 1933. The task must have seemed overwhelming. Starting a new compliance leadership position at a new company can seem equally daunting. You need to not only think through your steps going forward but also how to execute them for maximum performance in this early part of your corporate career.
The first 100 days. Franklin D Roosevelt’s first term is the standard by which all other Presidents are measured for their first days in office. Why? It is because FDR not only hit the ground going full speed but also passed legislation that changed the shape of America for years to come. While the first thing he did was declare a Bank Holiday to save the nation’s banking system, he also passed significant legislation to stem the effects of the Great Depression. These bills included the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the National Industrial Recovery Act. He also enacted the Truth-in-Lending and Glass-Steagall Acts to help regulate the stock market, whose collapse had heralded the economic downturn. Even if these acts did not turn the tide of the Great Depression, they gave people hope because at least it appeared FDR was doing something to fight the economic calamity.
Now imagine that you finally can secure a new position as Chief Compliance Officer in the compliance field. Every company believes that they are ethical and do business ethically, but what are some things you can do in your first 100 days? Hopefully, you will not be dropped into a corporate situation as dire as the one FDR faced for the US in 1933, but the reality is that many new heads are still judged on these mythical first 100 days.
One obvious thing to generate success in the corporate world is to have a good relationship with your boss. You should have important conversations around expectations, working style, resources, and personal development. To facilitate these discussions, the following points are posited:
These first 100 days will be a time of very high stress. This may well be compounded by your travel schedule and working very long hours to try and fulfill the concepts. The right advice-and-counsel network is an indispensable resource. Use your outside network of mentors, coaches and friends you have developed over the years to discuss your part at the company and what you have been experiencing. The key is to use whatever resources are available to you during your first 100 days.
Just as FDR accelerated his actions during his first 100 days, a large part of his success was that he accelerated those around him. You should take this key component of FDR’s success to heart in your new role. Get your direct reports, bosses, and peers to accelerate their transitions. The fact that you are in transition means they are too. The quicker you can get your new direct reports up to speed, the more you will help your performance.
It is difficult to imagine today a harder situation than the country faced when FDR came to power in 1933. The task must have seemed overwhelming. Starting a new compliance leadership position at a new company can seem equally daunting. You need to not only think through your steps going forward but also how to execute them for maximum performance in this early part of your corporate career.
In this episode, we consider the presidency of the 10thPresident, John Tyler. Tyler was the first president to ascend to the position after the death of President in office, William Henry Harrison. This ascendency, as his presidency was fraught with difficulties and conflict. We consider the following:
In addition to the foregoing, Richard Lummis and I consider the leadership lessons from Tyler in the following areas:
Welcome to the Greetings and Felicitations, a podcast where I explore topics which might not seem to be directly related to compliance but clearly influence our profession. In this episode, I begin a two-part episode with John Aceti author of Profiles of Leadership. John talks about his long life or what he calls “from nothing to something”. Highlights include:
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is the thought leader and CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, a boutique future-of-work consultancy that helps tech and insurance executives drive collaboration, innovation, and retention in hybrid work. Currently, he is focusing on normalizing hybrid and remote work, which he further discusses in his book, Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams. Tom Fox welcomes him to this week’s show to talk about Elon Musk’s misinformed views on remote work and why working from home is better for productivity levels.
Remote Work v. Working From the Office
Tom asks Dr. Gleb what drove him to write the article entitled, Elon Musk’s back-to-the-office order will undermine Tesla’s future. It was his response to Musk’s announcement to abolish remote work on the grounds that it made his employees unproductive, Dr. Gleb tells Tom. He has been researching hybrid remote work since the beginning of the pandemic, and found that remote workers are much more productive. A study at Stanford determined that productivity improved by 5% as office workers worked remotely. “They [workers] don’t have to do the unpaid labor of the commute and they can focus more on productive activities because they’re not interrupted,” Dr. Gleb explains.
Authoritarian Workplace
Tom asks Dr. Gleb if he believes a top-down command and control approach to leadership would work in 2022 and beyond. Dr. Gleb replies that this kind of leadership can only be successful in narrow environments. He believes that it is most successful in environments like warehouses “where you don’t need to be skilled, or a kind of manufacturing job where …you don’t need to do much innovative work.” However, since Tesla is an innovative company, command and control will undermine Tesla’s future. It is a company that requires knowledgeable and creative thinkers and those types of people would suffer under micromanagement. He also points out that demanding his employees to return to the office because he believes they are not working remotely, signals a lack of trust which is a very dangerous corporate culture.
The Fate of Tesla
Many of Tesla’s employees are innovators and creators; these include research and development staff and software engineers. Throughout the pandemic, these employees have been successfully and productively working from home, but now they are being forced to go out to the office. Naturally, these accomplished innovators would seek employment elsewhere, where they have comfortable working conditions. This leaves Tesla with employees who are conformists, who are okay with the authoritarian culture being imposed on them, and these people are less creative and innovative. Over time this will cause Tesla to lose the edge that makes them unique, Dr. Gleb argues.
Resources
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky | LinkedIn | Twitter
Disaster Avoidance Experts | Book – “Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams”
In this episode of Trekking Through Compliance, we consider episode I, Mudd, which aired on November 3, 1967, and occurred on Star Date 4513.3.
The Enterprise finds Harry Mudd (Harcourt Fenton Mudd) on a planet and the “ruler” of 500 robot women. Mudd is being studied by the robots, who are accommodating but refuse to let him go. The androids tell Kirk people from the Andromeda galaxy built them. However, the civilization that constructed them was destroyed by a supernova, so the androids were left without supervision. Now they have found a new purpose in Mudd. Spock makes inquiries and discovers that there are 207,809 androids and, most importantly, that they seem to be controlled by some central coordinating power.
The robots find people too destructive and plan to take over and “serve” all humans in the galaxy to control them. Kirk leaves Harry on the planet with his attendant robots to serve as an example of human failure to them. The robots are also reprogrammed to carry out their original task of rendering the planet fit for human life. As a final blow to Mr. Mudd, Kirk also leaves behind several android copies of his shrewish wife, Stella.
Compliance Takeaways:
Resources
Excruciatingly Detailed Plot Summary by Eric W. Weisstein
MissionLogPodcast.com
Memory Alpha
Welcome to the GalloCast. You have heard of the Manningcast in football. Now we have the GalloCast in compliance. The two top brothers in compliance, Nick and Gio Gallo, come together for a free-form exploration of compliance topics. It is a great insight on compliance brought to you by the co-CEOs of ComplianceLine. Fun, witty, and insightful with a dash of the two brothers throughout. It’s like listening to the Brothers Gallo talk compliance at the dinner table. Hosted by Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance. Topics in this episode include:
Resources
Nick Gallo on LinkedIn
Gio Gallo on LinkedIn
ComplianceLine
In this episode, Richard Lummis and Tom Fox consider the leadership lessons from the Presidency of US Grant. The lessons include:
1. Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Acts, leading to the passage of the 15th Amendment;
2. Appointment of minorities to his cabinet and other top government positions;
3. His Indian peace policy. At the start of his administration, there were 370 separate treaties with Native Americans. Grant streamlined this process and appointed a Seneca Indian as head of the BIA; and
4. Foreign Affairs. We consider Grant’s leadership in the dispute with Great Britain over claims against the Confederate raider Alabama.
As the Compliance Evangelist, I am pleased to announce the release of the Compliance Handbook, Third Edition. It is published by LexisNexis.
This edition is an update of the Compliance Handbook, 3rd edition handbook is a must read for all ethics and compliance professionals. The Third Edition provides practical and helpful solutions on important ethics and compliance issues. It is comprehensive, accessible and a must-have for every ethics and compliance professional.
Once again, I have teamed up with the top legal publisher, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, to lead its series of compliance offerings. The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition, is designed to provide the seasoned compliance professionals, and those new to the profession, with practical, actionable guidance and tools needed to design, create, implement and continually enhance a best practices compliance program.
The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition provides an in-depth look at the latest thinking and trends for the full range of critical compliance topics, including:
The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition also takes a close look at the role of all professionals with compliance responsibility, from Compliance Officers and Boards of Directors, to Human Resources to Internal Audit and Internal Controls and Communications and Training professionals. Understanding compliance responsibility across the organization continues to be a key theme of both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). With this 3rd edition, I expand on the concepts articulated in the original editions of operationalizing your compliance program.
What’s new for the 3rd edition?
The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition incorporates the most current government pronouncements governing best practices compliance programs including the 2019 Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs released by the DOJ Fraud Section and its 2020 Update; the updated FCPA Resource Guide 2nd edition; the Framework for OFAC Compliance Commitments; the 2019 DOJ Antitrust Division’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs in Criminal Antitrust and most significantly the speech by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, reinstituting the requirements from the Yates Memo, the renewed use of monitors, all encapsuled in the Monaco Doctrine.
The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition is available in both print and eBook editions. LexisNexis Legal & Professional is giving a discount of 20% for any presale purchase. Use the code FOX20 and go here.
