Perfectionism in a Time of Imperfect Choices

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Perfectionism in a Time of Imperfect Choices

Quick show of hands: do you consider yourself to have a Type A personality? I see your hand up. How do I know this? Nearly everyone in the compliance profession is a Type A personality. People drawn to the compliance profession are frequently perfectionists who hold themselves to a very high standard. After all, our job is to set, maintain, and enforce standards, and this includes enforcing standards upon ourselves. While having high personal standards can be a good thing, too much pressure to be perfect can be counterproductive, causing paralysis in decision making and uncontrolled anxiety.

Anxiety is rampant in our profession right now, and for good reason. Many compliance officers are locked in their houses, working away from their offices, where they don’t feel as connected to the business. The Wall Street Journal ran an article today stating that many companies are reducing headcount and/or budget in compliance departments. And of course, nearly all people are fearful of getting sick.

According to psychologists, when these fears move from fleeting to constant, they can lead to anxiety. Many Type A people try to control anxiety by being “perfect.” If you’re dealing with perfectionism or profound fear of getting it wrong, here are some ways of escaping the fear loop.

No 1: Acknowledge and Accept that there may not be a Right Answer

Fear of being wrong often leads to paralysis and the inability to commit to a course of action. This is especially true when difficult decisions need to be made that aren’t binary right and wrong. For instance…

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Are you Leading or Managing? (and why it matters)

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Are you Leading or Managing? (and why it matters)

Pop quiz: Which is more important, leading or managing? Ah, this is a trick question. The answer is both, but not at the same time.

People use the word “leader,” “manager,” and “boss” interchangeably. Each of these words can be formed as a noun or a verb. For instance, a leader is a person (noun) who leads (verb). A manager is a person (noun) who manages (verb). And a boss is a person (noun) who bosses around (verb). Although these words have much in common, they are not the same.

Leading is not Managing, and Managing is not Leading

“Management is the sorting of tasks to be done. Leadership is recognizing which tasks are important,” advises Douglas Vermeeren in his book Personal Power Mastery. To be an effective compliance officer, both leading and managing are critical skills. But to be the most effective compliance officer you can be, you must learn to differentiate between leading and managing, and consciously choose which role you are embodying during important interactions.

The Tasks

As leading and managing are both verbs, both indicate actions. The actions associated with leading and managing are different. Leading involves:

  • Determining the vision

  • Seeing the big picture

  • Describing the vision or big picture to others

  • Choosing between outcomes

  • Choosing between possible paths to an outcome

  • Choosing what to value

  • Making hard choices

  • Delivering bad news

  • Delivering good news

  • Taking responsibility for outcomes

Managing involves taking the vision of the leader and then:

  • Delegating and assigning tasks to achieve the leader’s vision

  • Overseeing timelines and deliverables

  • Ensuring that the team is on track to meet deadlines

  • Keeping him/herself on track, as well as the team on track

  • Reporting back to the leader about the status of tasks

Both are Important

Visions don’t get accomplished without the underlying steps being taken successfully. Likewise, managing without a vision creates stagnation instead of movement. You may move between being a manager, leader, and worker throughout the day. The trick is to thoughtfully determine who you need to be in each moment.

This applies strongly in compliance. For instance…

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How to Stop Friction from Burning Down Your Program

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How to Stop Friction from Burning Down Your Program

Friction is “the action of one surface or object rubbing against another.” In many circumstances, friction is critical. Without it, brakes wouldn’t slow a car in motion, and striking a match wouldn’t create fire.

In business, however, friction is bad. We see this in online shopping. How many times have you abandoned a purchase after you’ve been asked to create an account, verify your email address, fill in another form, add a password, then re-login? The number of steps required to complete a sale is called “friction” in the entrepreneurial world. The more friction, the less likely the business is to get and keep customers.

Identifying Friction in Your Program

Unfortunately, compliance processes often cause friction in the business. Sometimes this is inevitable. After all, we need to slow down the contracting process with distributors to ensure proper due diligence is completed. But other times friction is unnecessary. Consider the following areas where friction may be present for employees:…

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Where to Hold the Line

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Where to Hold the Line

Realistically, something’s gotta give. Whether you’re a compliance officer at one of the companies thriving in these unprecedented times (hello Zoom and Amazon), one in a company full of furloughs and layoffs (hello airline and hotel groups), or one in a company somewhere in between, the tension is palpable. Generally speaking, right now business leaders aren’t overly concerned about compliance initiatives or compliance concerns. The focus isn’t on compliance – it’s on survival.

But compliance can’t be complacent. As David Fuhr, Assistant Chief of the US Justice Department’s FCPA unit said on April 23, 2020, “Prosecutors are trying to be reasonable given the conditions companies face as a result of the pandemic, but compliance has to continue.”

In this time of challenge and change, we must be willing to bend but not break. Where can we bend to be team players responding to the crisis? And conversely, where do we hold the line in the various areas of risk? As always, your risk assessment is the place to start, because every business is different. However, there are some general places where the rope can be relaxed, and others where you shouldn’t give an inch.

Bribery and Corruption

Bribery risk escalates exponentially in times of crisis. The seeds of prosecutions in 2022 – 2025 are being planted now. However, not all bribery risk is the same. This is a time when gifts giving and hospitality provision have likely fallen off a cliff at your business. Training on the Gifts and Hospitality policy isn’t as useful now as it could be later in the year. Likewise, with most budgets constricting, your company may not be giving charitable donations. Hold the line on:…

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