How Silicon Valley approach would disrupt broken Compliance

Compliance is broken beyond repair. We spend tens of billions of dollars every year on ‘compliance’, sapping employee’s time and motivation while making them indecisive and risk averse. Even worse, the large scale efforts do not even work as evidenced by the continuous string of corrupt practices, subprime mortgage misselling, emission scandals, Libor manipulation, oil spills and sham bank accounts, just to name a few.

Wait. What was ‘compliance’ there to do in the first place? Well, simply to align behaviour with good standards of conduct. Nothing more. And given that most people like to be treated fairly, even in business, the problem is not the purpose but the means. Compliance was invented to do the job and turned it into a bureaucratic monster with heaps of rules and controls driving tremendous agony and costs even resulting in people ‘outsourcing’ own ethical judgments to a heavily staffed function. Oh yes, it has created jobs. Thousands of lawyers and auditors have seen hockey-stick career paths, while large international law firms and consultancies have been licking their lips for more than a decade.

What would we do if parachuted in from another planet – or Silicon Valley for that matter – with the task to simply ensure such good conduct, assuming no knowledge of how it is tried and failed today? Would we spend years developing hundreds of long, legalistic paper policies and put employees through hours of dull training as well as require them to certify adherence to loads of documents they haven’t read? Would we get to ‘know our customers’ by requiring them to sign papers to confirm they are not cheating on taxes? No way. Ok. So everyone hates it, it costs billions and it doesn't work. Sounds like a good basis for disruption.

Why not place razor sharp focus on the crux of the issue: improving people’s judgments and the context that supports it? We would provide insightful, principles-based guidance given people’s short attention spans and make it instantly accessible on their mobile devices. We would leverage technology to strengthen

people’s judgments by crowdsourcing opinions from peers and experts and use machine learning to recommend meaningful options; not by deciding for them, but through deriving patterns and offering suggestions, similar to how artificial intelligence provides search results and traffic predictions. We would nudge people to apply a moral compass at the very moments they make critical judgments, such as during meetings; in the afternoon (people’s morals decline throughout the day); in risky geographies; or when under pressure – triggered by calendar reads, time of day, GPS and pulse deviations respectively. But why? Because behavioural economics research has shown that nudging people with moral reminders at the moment of decision-making leads to far more ethical behavior: students don't cheat on tests and people report more honestly on insurance claims when ‘nudged’ to sign before, rather than after completion.

We would then make leaders mandate the moral reminders to ensure people act on their improved judgments, thereby countering any ‘deliver at all costs’ pressures. We would measure decisions against ethical expectations using frequent technology-enabled performance feedback. Hold on. Why reward something that is simply expected? Well, in the end we reward what we believe is important. If we want people to conduct business responsibly, we must reward it.

This cutthroat focus on decision-making is hardly rocket science, even if may seem light years from today’s approach. Nor is it an attempt to sidestep regulation. On the contrary, it serves acutely to drive good behaviour but with compliance as the outcome not the vehicle. In the process, we save colossal pain and resources, keep companies from ethical breakdowns and offer a means to speed up decision-making and unleash creativity.

Blog Post Title Two

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.