In what feels like a lifetime ago, I served in the U.S. Army, including in Afghanistan during the 2010 surge. Later, I helped train foreign militaries in Cambodia and Mongolia as a part of Special Operations. I eventually left military service in 2016 and went on to co-found Ethena. 

It’s admittedly a circuitous route to compliance, but I remain incredibly proud of my time in service and find that occasionally, lessons from the Army inform both the way I build Ethena’s company culture as CEO, and how I approach serving the thousands of clients that Ethena supports today.

One observation that’s stayed with me is the danger of proclaiming you have a speak up culture. In uniform, I noticed that leaders who emphasized, for example, that they had an “open door” policy were typically leaders who actually didn’t want to learn about misconduct happening in their unit. They knew that they were supposed to say they had an open door policy, but then they checked it off their list, as if speaking it made it so.

Their actions directly contradicted their words, and like any parent will tell you, employees, soldiers, and kids pay far more attention to actions than they do words.

I’ve since taken my military experience into co-founding Ethena, which helps companies build ethical and inclusive cultures through compliance training and speak-up hotlines. I’m always surprised when my military insights translate into a world very different from the Army, corporate compliance.

Then, I read one of Ethena’s recent blog posts by the great Susan Divers and realized that a similar phenomenon happens in corporate compliance! Susan wrote an article on ethical culture that cites recent research from the Journal of Business Ethics: the researchers found that “companies using words such as ‘ethics’, ‘fairness’, ‘honesty’, ‘integrity’ or ‘trust’ in their 10k filings tend to have more of these negative outcomes.”

This is exactly what I observed in uniform! There’s basically an inverse correlation between talking about having an ethical culture and actually having one. And while the mechanism is unclear, my theory is that there’s a danger in thinking that by communicating your ethics or commitment to a speak-up culture, you inadvertently think you’ve built that culture, and then check it off your list.

While that might be a rather depressing conclusion to reach, I’ve found comfort in knowing there are actually many things you can do to build a speak-up culture. They’re just not as easy as grabbing a bull horn and declaring, “Our organization is ethical! We want you to speak up! Now go back to work.”

Building a speak-up culture: 2 key things to remember

There are many things you can do to build a speak-up culture, but I’ll focus on two tactical tips today. 

1. Design matters.

Employees are incredibly perceptive to how something is designed, even if they don’t realize it. Think about all of the tools you use at work – the ones that are key to a business functioning are typically well designed. They’re sleek, modern, and easy to use.

I’d encourage you to take a critical look at the places where you encourage employees to speak up, whether that’s your company whistleblower hotline or other employee portals.

Do your pages look like they’re coming from a fax machine? If so, employees will use them about as frequently as they use fax machines! In the Army, there was an Inspector General’s complaint box that was apparently somewhere on the military bases, and I think you were meant to physically put your concerns in that box (this was years ago, so presumably/hopefully things have improved.) As a junior officer, this signaled to me that the box wasn’t actually intended to be used.

2. Managers will make or break your speak-up culture.

Research from Ethisphere’s Ethical Culture Insights shows that the majority of reports (64%) happen at the manager-level rather than through more formal channels, like a hotline. Because managers will be receiving the majority of your reports, it’s crucial they get trained on what to do when an employee raises a concern, like harassment.

Managers also need guidance on how to continue working with a direct report who has raised a concern; according to Ethisphere, an employee who reports something to a manager and is not satisfied with the response is twice as likely to cite isolation as one of the reasons for their dissatisfaction.

Still, compliance training isn’t a one-and-done activity. It’s something that needs to be continually refreshed to mirror new ways of working. For example, if your company is hybrid, your managers should be seeing Zoom-based scenarios where an employee is bringing up a report.

Finally, it’s crucial that this training looks and feels modern. Adding to my first point, if the training looks cheesy and outdated, the lackluster design will signal to managers that building a speak-up culture isn’t a priority. This is especially true if other training your company runs, say Sales training, is high-quality and modern. Employees will pick up on the message that Sales matters, but ethics is nothing more than a box to  be checked.

The bottom line

Measuring ethical culture is the first step towards strengthening it. The DOJ’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (ECCP) poses questions in this area for companies seeking regulatory leniency and those committed to an effective ethics and compliance program to consider:

  • How often and how does the company measure its culture of compliance?
  • How does the company’s hiring and incentive structure reinforce its commitment to ethical culture?
  • Does the company seek input from all levels of employees to determine whether they perceive senior and middle management’s commitment to compliance?
  • What steps has the company taken in response to its measurement of the compliance culture?

While it’s humbling to realize that the more companies talk about ethics, the less ethical they may actually be, remember that there’s still plenty you can do to create a speak-up culture that lays the foundation for trust between a company and its employees.