Even with this most turbulent year nearly at an end, we continue to lose many true greats. One of the greatest in baseball in the ‘60s and ‘70s was Richie (Dick) Allen. According to Tyler Kepner, writing in his On Baseball column in the New York Times (NYT), between 1964 through 1974, Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey, Frank Robinson, Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Harmon Killebrew, Carl Yastrzemski, Billy Williams, Reggie Jackson “were 10 of the top 11 hitters in the major leagues in on-base plus slugging percentage, with a minimum of 1,000 games. The unlisted name is Dick Allen. He ranked second in O.P.S. for that era at .940, just one percentage point behind Aaron. Yet Allen was never inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.”

According to his NYT obituary, Allen “hit 351 home runs in his 15 major league seasons, was a seven-time All-Star: three times with the Phillies, once with the St. Louis Cardinals and three times with the White Sox. He was named the National League’s rookie of the year in 1964, with the Phillies, and the American League’s most valuable player in 1972, with the White Sox. He batted over .300 seven times”. Yet he is best remembered for his turbulent relationship with the Philly fans in the ‘60s. According to Kepner, “he grew so weary of the fans that he scratched “BOO” in the dirt at Connie Mack Stadium and wore a helmet in the field.” Mike Schmidt was quoted in Allen’s obituary, “Dick was a sensitive Black man who refused to be treated as a second-class citizen. He played in front of home fans that were products of that racist era,” Schmidt continued, and alongside “racist teammates” at a time when there were “different rules for whites and Blacks.”

Such gestures can make a difference. Dale Carnegie is well known for his seminal work “How to Win Friends and Influence People” first published in 1936. I was somewhat surprised to learn that the text was largely drawn up as transcripts to lectures Carnegie was giving in New York City in the mid-1903s. Carnegie’s main thesis was to provide concrete steps on how ordinary people could help master the art of persuasion. While it has been some time since I read this book, what I recall is that to influence people, one has to listen to them. For me, the book was about how to become a better listener.

I cannot say enough about this skill for a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO). If you hear any long-term CCO speak about their job, they will tell you it is largely about listening to people, whether those people are employees, senior management or the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Board members. By listening to others, you not only hear, and hopefully will come to understand their concerns, but you allow them to come to decisions themselves and you are not in the position of telling them what to do. It is a skill that has served many CCOs very well for many years.

An unattributed article in the Financial Times (FT), entitled “Persuasion for the time pressed”, discussed Professor Robert Cialdini, the Regents’ Professor of Psychology and Marketing and Arizona State University. Professor Cialdini is one of the leading proponents of ‘persuasion science’, which draws upon various disciplines, including “psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics”. The Professor has been in this field for over 30 years and has been dubbed “The Godfather of Influence” based upon his work. One of his insights was that corporations should have a “chief persuasion officer” because such a person can help to bring influence upon others and “often it is the smallest changes that can make the biggest differences.”

In his work, entitled “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”, Professor Cialdini laid out what he believed to be six “universal principals of persuasion” which I have adapted for the compliance practitioner.

1. Reciprocity – Cialdini believes that people will feel obligated to return favors performed for them. But for the compliance practitioner, I think this means listening and using skills to help manage risk or even high-risk areas. One of the points of compliance is that unless a transaction involves bags of cash being paid to get a deal done, there usually a way to manage compliance risk. If you, as a CCO, can help an executive or your company to successfully manage a high compliance risk, this will be remembered.
2. Authority – Cialdini believes that people look for experts to show them the way. The Department of Justice (DOJ) expects a company’s compliance experts to have subject matter experts (SMEs) on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) anti-corruption compliance programs. This is made clear in the FCPA Guidance, in the Ten Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program. For the CCO, Cialdini’s insight is that you or someone on your staff must be able answer the day-to-day questions that come up on doing business not only in compliance with the FCPA but your company’s compliance regime.
3. Scarcity – Here Cialdini takes a slightly different tack by noting that the less a resource is available, the more people want it. For the CCO, I think this translates to the scarcity of your time. A good chunk of your time must be spent at the corporate office but a large amount must be spent out in the field. Your employee base will respond to you more often and with a deeper symbiosis if you can get out into the field and meet people.
4. Liking – Noting the self-obvious Cialdini says that the more people like you, the more they want to say yes to you. However, as noted in point 3 above, for the CCO I think this means getting out into the field, training employees who want to do business the right way on how to do so and simply meeting and talking with them. In my corporate life I put on contract and transaction law training across the world for the company’s business units and the universal response was along the line of ‘thank you for coming out here to talk to us.’
5. Consistency – Here Cialdini intones that people want to act on concert with their values. I believe that most people do want to conduct their business ethically and in compliance with anti-corruption laws such as the FCPA. By providing them a way to do so, you can help them do something they were inclined to do anyway. I once had an employee in the Far East tell me that there was more than enough business for the company to garner in the middle of the road. He did not see the need to even get close to the line of bribery and corruption. With that type of attitude, a CCO can almost be a facilitator.
6. Social Proof – This can be a tricky one for a CCO. Cialdini believes that people will look to others on what to do to guide their own behavior. This means that a compliance program must have sufficient incentives to get the message of compliance through middle management and down to the troops. Simply put, if employees see a high revenue producer get bonuses and promotions for conduct which may violate your company’s Code of Conduct; they will come to believe in short that management is much more concerned about the bottom line than doing business ethically and in compliance.

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