Explaining Ethics and Compliance to a Football Fan

Caveni Wong — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 22:41:05 +0000

Explaining Ethics and Compliance to a Football Fan
Principle Compliance

(First published on LinkedIn)

A few months ago I offered tips on How to Talk About Ethics and Compliance at a Cocktail Party. Here, I offer a way to explain it to a football fan.

The opening game between the Charlotte Panthers and the Denver Broncos was mired in controversy after Cam Newton, the Panthers’ quarterback, suffered a few hard hits to his head without invoking the NFL’s new “concussion protocol.”

Under the protocol, a player with a suspected head injury would be evaluated for signs of concussion before being allowed to continue playing. In this case, medical personnel failed to examine Cam Newton directly, but concluded that he was OK to keep playing after reviewing only video footage.

The question is – did the league ignore the protocol because it didn’t want to interrupt the game, which may hurt television ratings? It was the opening game of the season, a tight rematch of the Super Bowl teams, and one of the hits occurred with only 30 seconds left in the game. If the quarterback were pulled out, it would have made for a much less exciting show.

In the wider corporate setting, the concussion protocol is akin to corporate policies. The question is how well these policies are enforced. Are they enforced only when convenient and ignored when some other business priority – such as signing a big contract – is at stake?

An organization with a strong ethical culture would enforce the policies consistently; one with a weak ethical culture may not. When employees perceive that policies are applied inconsistently, the policies become ineffective and the corporate culture deteriorates even more.

Then there’s the question of the timing of the concussion protocol. After decades of aggressively denying that there is a linkage between repeated concussions and brain damage later in life, the NFL has now begrudgingly admitted that there may possibly be a connection. But this did not happen until after public pressure mounted, a Congressional hearing compared football to the cigarette industry, a PBS/Frontline documentary aired and a hit Hollywood movie starring Will Smith was made.

Similarly, many companies only truly invest in and elevate their ethics and compliance programs after being caught red-handed in an ethics scandal. Tyco and Siemens come to mind, and Volkswagen and Wells Fargo may very well follow.

As for whether or not the NFL deliberately ignored the concussion protocol at the Panthers vs. Broncos game, the jury is still out. Either way, the public has now put the NFL on notice.

Explaining Ethics and Compliance to a Football Fan
Caveni Wong

Just Because a Policy Exists Doesn’t Mean There Is Compliance

Caveni Wong — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 10:34:43 +0000

Just Because a Policy Exists Doesn’t Mean There Is Compliance
Principle Compliance

Ethics and compliance professionals have long been aware that a policy by itself is useless. A policy is a simple and necessary first step to set the standard, but it’s the sustained efforts to implement and enforce the policy that leads to actual compliance.

A company may draft a policy, house it somewhere that employees can’t easily find, send a mass email announcement, then consider it “implemented.” This approach may be good enough to satisfy external stakeholders by having something to share with clients or auditors, but does nothing to impact behavior in real life. A sustained implementation effort requires time and resources beyond sending the occasional mass email, an investment that budget holders may not be willing to make. However, without such investment, it’s like establishing a destination but not providing the path to get there.

This happens in law as well. For example, in India, despite its Constitution and subsequent laws over many decades prohibiting discrimination, lower caste Indians are still attacked – beaten, killed, stoned – for wearing the wrong shoes, riding a horse, sitting cross-legged, or changing a name on social media, as reported several years ago by the BBC. Perpetrators often walk away scot-free.

In China, despite various agreements and laws since 1979 protecting intellectual property, enforcement has been (deliberately and strategically, some would argue) lax and uneven. Only recently, perhaps because international pressure has mounted and China has developed enough of its own IP to protect, enforcement is seen as improving.

Of course, having a policy or law is better than having nothing. But it’s only the first step if desired behaviors are the goal. Employees shouldn’t be expected to find themselves to the desintation on their own, and ethics & compliance professionals shouldn’t be expected to bushwhack a path. As corporations declare their strong values and ethical standards, they must also commit to the efforts it takes to support those statements.

What is your company doing to align behavior and culture with policy?

Contact Principle Compliance if you wish to improve the effectiveness of your company’s policies.

Updated from post first published on June 20, 2018

Just Because a Policy Exists Doesn’t Mean There Is Compliance
Caveni Wong

Standards & Procedures – Principle Compliance

Explaining Ethics and Compliance to a Football Fan

Just Because a Policy Exists Doesn’t Mean There Is Compliance