How are you serving compliance?

Compliance, we all know what it is… conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law.

For those who manage compliance, let’s be frank – Compliance just isn’t sexy!

It’s not like Governance, where everything is big and it’s all about policy and everyone feels like a leader.

It’s not like Insurance, where everyone gets it or knows they should have it.

It’s not procurement, where you get a car and you get a car, everybody gets a car!

And it’s definitely not sexy like Enterprise Risk. Where everyone who sits down to play ‘Risk’ feels like a high-roller in Vegas.

In thinking about the value proposition for a Compliance Manager, I started to think about what compliance means to people. I came up with two things.

First, compliance is awkward. It is a bit like a school uniform. At first, it is stiff and uncomfortable and you only wear it because you have to. It the law! But then after a while, you become used to it and you realise that rather than fight it is easier to just wear it.

And the second thing is Compliance is based on fear. If you owned a car like this (and who wouldn’t want to?) you have a choice to make. You can be compliant with laws and follow the speed limits or not. No matter what car you own, we all choose to follow the speed limits, because we are scared of being in a crash, being caught by police and getting a fine or losing our licence.

Comfort and fear are feelings and only people have feelings, not policy.

So, in building a system to manage compliance, I feel it is important that we consider the people and not just the law. That the compliance system enables and provides opportunity for the people and doesn’t just place conditions or constraints on them.

Recently in describing and presenting on Compliance Management, I took a different approach. I created…

Compliance Bento

Now if you are not familiar with Japanese cuisine, a bento is a traditional meal in a box for an individual. However, it isn’t all thrown in and mixed up like a messy stir fry. A bento has compartments which organises and contains the food.

Bento means ‘convenient’, so I have used the bento to symbolise that compliance should not be awkward, it should be convenient and organised neatly in a system for people (and nothing to fear). The box itself represents the organisation and its culture. With a vision to…

‘Embed compliance in the culture of the organisation and in the behaviour and attitude of the people by considering their needs and expectations’.

To achieve this vision, the value proposition of the Compliance Manager is to:

  • Help people comply – so they know their obligations and how to meet them.
  • Help demonstrate compliance – through ownership and a system to maintain compliance obligations.
  • Help leaders govern – providing assurance that we are meeting our obligations and inform decision-making where we are not compliant.

Inside the bento is the Compliance Framework. It is pretty self-explanatory, so rather than explain the model, here is a picture.

Leadership commitment is about leaders demonstrating their commitment by ensuring the compliance policy and objectives are established and by ensuring that the resources needed for the compliance are available, allocated and assigned to ultimately enable a compliance culture.

Oh, and did you see the Kit Kat?

That represents:

  1. Chopsticks (because how else do you eat your Bento meal?).
  2. The little reward you get when you demonstrate compliance and that perhaps you can take a break (momentarily!).

That is just a snapshot into how I am delivering enterprise compliance differently. By creating a series of touchpoints between individuals and the organisation. All of which, will work towards influencing the culture and embedding compliance. To take the fear and awkwardness out of compliance and turn it into something that enables and creates opportunity.

By making compliance about the people and not just the law. By seeing people as the solution and treating them as the solution, so that they will act as the solution.

Then ideally compliance is the vibe….