You’d be forgiven for thinking that “Tuesdays With Bernie” was produced by and for people in finance. After all, it’s set in a company that sells a commodity, rich with characters who work in the trading field.
And, to be fair, that’s sort of how we thought about it. There were a few “ums” and “erms” and we probably stopped to think about lunch at some point. Our thoughts are prone to wandering that way.
But we felt that many compliance issues – and especially the big ones, the headline generating ones – originated in finance. So, we populated the cast with traders and set it in a brokerage house (when we weren’t in prison) and we followed the money. Both literally and figuratively.
Then we remembered this joke. A little boy asked his father, who was a lawyer, “Daddy, what are ethics?” The father thought about this and said, “Okay, let’s say an old lady comes in to pay her bill and let’s say she owes £200. However, she accidentally makes the check out for £2,000. Well, my son, ethics come into play when you’re trying to figure out whether you should tell your partner.”
And that’s when we remembered that compliance affects everyone. Duh. Just because you don’t deal in money doesn’t mean you won’t face the possibility of bribery. In fact, the number of business categories that are affected by compliance and ethics is so great, it would take us far less time if we just read the list of business categories that aren’t affected. A list which, surprise, surprise, is blank.
From professional (and amateur) sports to municipal government to petroleum and energy, wherever money is changing hands there’s always the possibility that money is changing hands under the table.
What we want to know is how does your team talk about compliance and ethics issues? What are you doing to inform your teams of these problems? Have you been able to create a compliance-ready culture? Or does management feel there’s nothing to worry about?
We want to know where your challenges lie and where you’ve found success. With four seasons under our belts, we’ve managed to cover a broad range of topics and generated some solid conversations. Heck, one of our most successful customers has been a major international hotel chain. But we want to keep the conversation going and expand it a bit. Into other categories and other issues.
We look forward to hearing from you. And once we do, we promise we’ll tell our partners.