Dangers of the compliance culture: six lessons for leaders
The opposite of compliance is chaos. Considering the title of this blog, is that statement not a contradiction in terms? Not at all. The fact is that the healthiest organisations have well-functioning compliance systems and processes that ensure their efficient and effective operation.
Put it this way, if you don’t provide your bank details, you won’t get paid and if you don’t leave the building when the fire alarms sounds, then don’t expect to survive. Like almost anything, deployed in the right moment and appropriate measure, compliance is good. Even very good.
The problem and dangers arise when organisations adopt a culture of compliance as a default. This is perhaps the most dangerous form of business climate for leaders, the wider workforce and organisation at large. In such an environment, natural inquisitiveness, freedom of thought and reasonable variation are seen as threats and those willing to espouse such positions are not just non-conformist, but insurgent.
So, that is the context. Described below are: ‘dangers of the compliance culture: six lessons for leaders’.
1. The deception of discipline
The most insidious deception of the compliance culture is that it eventually produces discipline. Does compliance masquerade as discipline? Yes, of course. But are compliance and discipline the same thing, not even close. Compliance is the performance of whatever an individual or group are asked to do. Discipline is the performance of that which an individual or group chooses to do. If only for this reason, no amount of compliance can produce discipline. When organisations feel compelled to lead with compliance, it speaks to their inability to nurture a culture of discipline.
2. High maintenance
Although ‘cheap’ to deploy at the start, a compliance culture is ‘costly’ to maintain in the long run. As easy as it may be to issue top-down directives, following these through to completion often requires a disproportionate investment of leadership effort and an impulse towards micro and over-management. This situation will almost certainly result in critical resources being diverted away from areas where they are needed most. It is also likely to produce sub-optimal recruitment decisions, requiring more people to do the work of less, further compounding over-management.
3. Fetters discretion
Nothing will choke off enterprise or shrink capacity for localised problem-solving as rapidly as compliance. Under its weight, independence of action is squeezed or becomes redundant as decision-making is centralised. Over time, organisations experience ‘knowledge atrophy’ as subordinates, disincentivised to act on their own initiative become de-skilled. As rigidity and an unhealthy fixation with ‘following orders’ take hold, organisations are left vulnerable in environments where the capacity for adaptability and improvisation are required for survival.
4. Undermines leadership character
Ultimately, compliance promotes a lazy and delinquent approach to leadership. At best, the leadership cadre will be conditioned to believe that organisational effectiveness can only be achieved through the means of instruction and direction. At worst, it will foster a dangerous predilection towards coercive control. Compliance nurtures unhealthy bonds that are borne out of subservience, fealty and distrust of subordinates. Far from strengthening the leadership hierarchy, it serves to weaken it by narrowing rather than widening circles of opportunity.
5. Lowest common denominator
Too often, compliance teaches leaders and managers to travel the path of least resistance in search of the lowest common denominator. Invariably, this leads them to instruction and direction, as both set an expectation of obedience without the necessity for consultation or consent. Whilst commands and directives clearly have their place, even in well-functioning organisations, under no circumstances should they be the prevalent culture in any organisation. Therefore, when hierarchies adopt this posture, it may imply a desire to circumvent accountability or side-line dissenters.
6. Box ticking
The term ‘box ticking’ implies the routine of going through the motions. It suggests a disconnect from activity, a lack of personal investment and an absence of collective ownership. Take this logic to its inevitable conclusion and it is clear to see the harm it can wreak. However, what is little appreciated about ‘box ticking’ is that it is a ‘malaise of the mind’ as much as a pattern of behaviour. Signs of this condition can often be an indicator of early onset apathy. This is particularly worrisome because deadlines met, can mask apathy just as effectively as deadlines missed can expose it.
Perhaps the best way to think of compliance is like an organisation’s ‘bone structure’. We see it in policies, procedures, protocols and other aspects of organisational ‘hardware’. Nevertheless, as important as ‘bone structure’ is to organisational survival, it is but one part of a complex entity that comprises other parts of equal and even greater importance. The proposition, therefore, is not that compliance is unimportant. Rather, it is the danger that arises when compliance commands unmerited importance.
Paul Aladenika is host of the 11th Thing Podcast