In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:
As Opening Day near and the Astros are predicted to unseat Jay’s Red Sox to win the 2019 World Series, both lads are eternally hopeful for their hometown heroes. While debating this issue, they also take a look at some of this week’s top compliance and ethics stories which caught their collective eyes this week.
Tom Fox is the Compliance Evangelist and can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. Jay Rosen is Mr. Monitor and can be reached at jrosen@affiliatedmonitors.com.
For more information on how an independent monitor can help improve your company’s ethics and compliance program, visit our sponsor Affiliated Monitors at www.affiliatedmonitors.com.
Dunkirk and the leadership lessons can be drawn from the movie and historical events. If you have not seen it, I suggest you go to see what I believe is the summer’s top movie, Dunkirk. It is great cinema, has a good history, and presents the view of soldiers on the ground from the English perspective. It unfolds on land, sea, and air; in decreasing time frames of one week, one day, and one hour. I was lucky enough to see it on glorious 70MM widescreen, so the resolution was outstanding. I believe several leadership lessons can be learned from the British (and German) experiences at Dunkirk. Every business leader should study Dunkirk for key lessons on leadership.
Planning for Big Data – A CIO’s Handbook to the Changing Data Landscape”, by the O’Reilly Radar Team, featured a chapter by Alistair Croll, entitled “The Feedback Economy” which informs today’s discussion. Croll believes that big data will allow continuous improvement through the “feedback economy”. This is a step beyond the information economy because you are using the information that you have generated and collected as a source of information to guide you going forward. Information itself is not the greatest advantage but using that information to make your business more agile, efficient and profitable is. Croll draws on military theory to illustrate his concept of a feedback loop. It is the OODA loop, which stands for observe, orient, decide and act. This comes from military strategist John Boyd who realized that combat “consisted of observing your circumstances, orienting yourself to your enemy’s way of thinking and your environment, deciding on a course of action and then acting on it.” Croll believes that the success of OODA is in large part “the fact it’s a loop” so that the results of “earlier actions feedback into later, hopefully wiser, ones.” This should allow combatants to “get inside their opponent’s loop, outsmarting and outmaneuvering them” because the system itself learns. For the business leader this means that if your company is able to collect and analyze information better and you can act on that information faster. Croll believes one of the greatest impediments to using this OODA feedback loop is the surplus of noise in our data; that “We need to capture and analyze it well, separating the digital wheat from the digital chaff, identifying meaningful undercurrents while ignoring meaningless flotsam. To do this we need to move to more robust system to put the data into a more usable format.” Croll moves through each of the steps in how a company collects, analyzes and acts on data. The first step is data collection where the challenge is both the sheer amount of data coming in and its size. Once the data comes in it must be ingested and cleaned. If it comes into your organization in an unstructured format, you will need to cut it up and put into the correct database format for use. Croll touches on the storage component of where you place the data, whether in servers or on the cloud. A key insight from Croll is the issue of platforms, which are the frameworks used to crunch large amounts of data more quickly. His key insight is to break up the data “into chunks that can be analyzed in parallel” so the data can be considered and acted upon more quickly. Another technique he considers is “to build a pipeline of processing steps, each optimized for a particular task.” Another important component is machine learning and its importance in the data supply chain. Croll observes, “we’re trying to find signal within the noise, to discern patterns. Humans can’t find signal well by themselves. Just as astronomers use algorithms to scan the night’s sky for signals, then verify any promising anomalies themselves, so too can data analysts use machines to find interesting dimensions, groupings or patterns within the data. Machines can work at a lower signal-to-noise ratio than people.” Yet Croll correctly notes that as important as machine learning is in big data collection and analysis, there is “no substitute for human eyes and ears.” Yet for many business leaders, displaying the data is most difficult because it is not generally in a readable form. It is important to portray the data in more visual style to help convey the “dozens of independent data sources” into navigable 3D environments. Of course having all this data is of zero use unless you act on it. Big data can be used in a wide variety of decision making, from employment decisions around hiring and firing decision, to strategic planning, to risk management and compliance programs. But it does take a shift in compliance thinking to use such data. It advocates “fast, iterative learning.” Big data allows you to make a quicker assessment of the impact of measured risks. Croll ends his chapter by noting that the “big data supply chain is the organizational OODA loop.” But unlike the OODA loop, it is more than simply about the loop and plugging information as you move through it. He believes “big data is mostly about feedback”; that is, obtaining the impact of the risks you have accepted. For this to work in compliance, a company’s compliance discipline needs to both understand and “choose a course of action based upon the results, then observe what happens and use that information to collect new data or analyze things in a different way. It’s a process of continuous optimization”. The OODA loop coupled with the data that is available to you should facilitate a more agile and directed business. The feedback components allows you to make adjustments literally on the fly. If that does not meet the definition of continuous improvement, I do not know what does. [tweet_box design=”default” url=”http://wp.me/p6DnMo-3u4″ float=”none”]The OODA feedback loop allows you to make business adjustments literally on the fly. [/tweet_box]]]>
It took far too long but it is finally here. I am pleased to announce the premier of a new podcast on leadership. It is called 12 O’Clock High – A podcast on business leadership with Tom Fox. This podcast is hosted by Richard Lummis. I founded this new podcast because I have long been interested in the topic of leadership, a subject that was not, for generations, taught in law school. As a lawyer who worked in the legal department and gravitated to compliance, I saw a real need to bring the specific topic of leadership to those who want to move up to the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) chair. This is even more relevant for the CCO or compliance practitioner than a corporate legal function because in that position you have to work with and through a wider variety of corporate disciplines than the usual in-house lawyer.
In researching this topic over the years, I have always been struck by the basic question of how one can strive to be a leader in business. Many in businesses think that if you are not born with the right leadership traits you can never successfully lead. The opposite is actually the truth. Leadership skills CAN be learnt, and in each episode we will explore the techniques of leadership, how to incorporate them into your own business strategy and help you become a more powerful leader in business. This podcast will help fill in skills.
Why the name 12 O’Clock High? It is because it is one of the most powerful movies about World War II (WWII), leadership and its effects on men I have ever seen. It starred Gregory Peck and was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning two Oscars. It was one of the first films about the war to focus on the human toll rather than on the military aspects of leadership during combat. I was drawn to the leadership skills demonstrated by the protagonist, General Frank Savage, played by Gregory Peck. Peck demonstrates a range of leadership skills as the Commanding Officer of the fictional 918th Bomber Group. He uses a range of leadership skills, such as tone from the top, influence, persuasion, self-sacrifice, listening and communicating, all to rebuild his unit. I was always fascinated by Peck’s portrayal and have wanted to use it as a guide for today’s leaders and to honor my father’s generation.
This podcast is a bit different from my other podcasts as I am being hosted by Richard Lummis. I asked Lummis to host because he has faced many of these issues in his business career. Like myself, he began his professional career as a lawyer but he later moved into the business side. He has run a series of companies ranging from energy concerns to recording studios. He had to learn many of the same lessons on leadership that I was required to learn in my corporate career. His experiences allow him to bring a unique and differing perspective to leadership and I hope you will enjoy his hosting this new podcast as much as I have in recording the episodes with him.
I begin this new podcast with three episodes up and available for your review. In Episode 1, I discuss the seven steps to greater influence better decision-making within an organization. Here Richard and I explore those steps, provide thinking behind how and what to do, and who is responsible for each. I challenge you to examine your own leadership skills and ask, as a leader, or aspiring leader, how do you compare against these steps?
In Episode 2, I discuss leadership lessons from running a family business. I take as my starting point an interview by Adam Bryant of Brooke Denihan Barrett about leadership lessons. She is the co-chief executive officer of the Denihan Hospitality Group, a 50-year old family business in the hospitality industry who has four key leadership principles. Through our dialogue Richard and I explain why her four lessons are important if you want to build a collaborative team.
In Episode 3, we discuss the psychology of persuasion. We use, as a staring point, the work of Robert Cialdini. In his book, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”, he laid out what he believed to be six universal principals of persuasion that can be used to hone your leadership skills. Lummis and I use this work to explore those principals and provide feedback on how you can incorporate them into your leadership style going forward.
I plan to post a new podcast at noon on Tuesday of each subsequent week. Upcoming topics include the lessons that can be drawn from entrepreneurial leadership; how to conduct your first 100 days as a new business leader; the always difficult and tedious tasks of managing both meetings and talent; and we also explore the legacy of former Chesapeake Energy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Aubrey McClendon who died in a car accident the day after he was indicted by a federal grand jury with conspiring to rig bids for oil and natural gas leases. We explore the allegations around McClendon’s conflicts of interest when he was CEO, the issue of reputation and leadership and what is CEO self-dealing.
As an added benefit I will show notes for each episode that you can use as a reference and benchmark for your own leadership journey. I hope you will go over and check out my newest podcast 12 O’Clock High – A podcast on business leadership with Tom Fox and that you get as much out of it as I have garnered researching, recording and producing it for you. The podcast is also available on iTunes and you can access by clicking here. So please go over to iTunes, take a listen and if you like what you hear rate this podcast in iTunes or better yet, leave a review.
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A new podcast will give you insight into leadership in business-12 O’Clock High, a podcast on business leadership with Tom Fox.
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This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.
© Thomas R. Fox, 2016
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In this episode of Trekking Through Compliance, we consider the episode For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky which aired on November 1, 1968, Star Date Unknown.
McCoy calls Kirk to sickbay and informs him that the ship’s Chief Medical Officer (himself) has contracted an incurable fatal disease called xenopolycythemia and has only one year to live. However, McCoy assures Kirk that he will still be able to do his job until the end.
Suddenly, the Enterprise is attacked and diverts and determines their point of origin, an asteroid 200 km in diameter, which is actually a nuclear-powered spaceship on a collision course with planet Daran V. The inhabitants do not know that they are on a spaceship, except for one old man who had climbed a mountain when he was young and intones “For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky.” After uttering this, the oracle punishes the old man with death by means of a subcutaneous “instrument of obedience.”
They are able to put the ship back on course. They also discover databanks of the Fabrini containing a great deal of medical knowledge, including the cure for McCoy’s xenopolycythemia.
Compliance Takeaways:
1. How do you manage?
2. Executives having skin in compliance.
3. As a compliance professional, do you have empathy?
Resources
Excruciatingly Detailed Plot Summary by Eric W. Weisstein
