When corporate cultures breed dishonesty

When corporate cultures breed dishonesty – Organizational culture and dishonesty

A positive corporate culture encourages employees to behave in responsible, ethical ways, resulting in a happy workplace, team collaboration and employee empowerment. Negative corporate cultures, on the other hand, can promote unethical behavior, causing a wide variety of problems.

Many of the corporate scandals in the past several years have been cases of wide-scale dishonesty:

• Wells Fargo – The cost of poor performance management – Wells Fargo’s pressure-cooker sales culture comes at a cost
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) – Total mismatch between the reality and the value statements
• Volkswagen – The cover up by Volkswagen of fake CO2 emissions data. A culture where performance was driven by fear and intimidation
• Deutsche Bank – The endless numbers of scandals at Deutsche Bank, continue to make headlines across the world. Pressure to make transformational change

It’s hard to fathom how lying and deceit permeated these organizations. The scandals have illustrated how the behaviors of managers can have devastating consequences for the entire organization and beyond.

Pay attention to these factors

In an HBR article Ron Carucci argues, that companies should pay attention to these factors:

• A lack of strategic clarity – When there isn’t consistency between an organization’s stated mission, objectives, and values, and the way it is actually experienced by employees and the marketplace, it is more likely to have people withhold or distort truthful information
• Unjust accountability systems – When an organization’s processes for measuring employee contributions is perceived as unfair or unjust, it is more likely to have people withhold or distort information
• Poor organizational governance –When there is no effective process to gather decision makers into honest conversations about tough issues, truth is forced underground, leaving the organization to rely on rumors and gossip
• Weak cross-functional collaboration – Silos aren’t just annoying to work across; they’re an impediment to honesty. When cross-functional rivalry or unhealthy conflict is left unaddressed, an organization is more likely to have people withhold or distort truthful information.

When has the time come to fundamentally change the organizational culture? Read: When organizational culture needs to change fundamentally

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When corporate cultures breed dishonesty — https://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/snk
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