Leading Transformational Change with Tobias Sturesson

How do you overcome your ethical blindspots? Ann Tenbrunsel, Professor of Business Ethics at Notre Dame, has researched why we believe we are more ethical than we are, why that is a serious problem for every organization, and what we can do about it. This is vital for every organization that wants to lead with values. On episode 26 of the Leading Transformational Change podcast, I talk to Ann about: -How ethical fading can remove ethics and corporate values from the decision making process. -Why we need to dispel the myth of being a "good organization". -How we often put too much trust in our formal system - our corporate values or codes of conduct, and overlook the informal system that has ten times more influence on observed misconduct. -How whatever your employees perceive to be what's rewarded in your organization will ultimately drive behavior. -How moral licensing can make us hide behind a noble mission or good values and, as a result, become more open to unethical behavior. -Why and how we can assess our leadership and organizations to get a better understanding of how ethical we really are. #integrity #corporateethics #ethics #corporateculture #values

"I think I’ve got an idea for another study. I think we should talk about how we lie in the Army” Lenny Wong, Research Professor at the US Army War College, discovered, while doing a study on why junior officers weren't innovative enough, that the Army had put so many requirements on officers that it was physically impossible to get it all done. However, everyone would still report that everything got done because that was what the system required. Lenny and his research partner found that this systemic lying created a moral numbness and a slippery slope that could go from trivial tasks to very consequential ones. In episode 25 of Leading Transformational Change we talk about: 1. How our desire to believe ourselves to be good or have perfect values can lead to a culture of dishonesty. 2. How we can listen to our organizations to uncover unhealthy culture. 3. Why we need courageous humility in order to build healthy and honest organizations. 4. Why we should take patterns of unethical behavior seriously even if it might seem like insignificant things. 5. How our systems and structures can override our corporate values.

Anna & Michaela share their learnings, building up ethics, and compliance at the Telia company in the wake of a corruption scandal.   Michaela Ahlberg is a lawyer with over thirty years of experience working with ethics & compliance programs at several multinational companies and is currently the Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer at Getinge. Anna Romberg is an anti-corruption, compliance, and corporate governance expert who has deployed ethics and compliance programs in global organizations. Anna and Michaela worked together to establish ethics and compliance in the Telia Company after a major corruption scandal, Michaela as the Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer and Anna as the Global Anti-Corruption Program Lead.   Together they have authored The Grey Zone: A Practical Guide to Corporate Conduct, Compliance, and Business Ethics.

Richard Bistrong shares his story - from being a successful Vice President at a Law Enforcement and Defense company to being sentenced for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, going undercover for the FBI, and finally to prison.  Today Richard speaks and advises leaders, HR, and compliance professionals on ethics and compliance challenges.  We talk about:   How leaders and organizations need to navigate the tension between the pressure to succeed and the pressure to comply.   How we can make the values on the wall operational in the business.   Why we should encourage conversations about real-world ethical dilemmas.  Why middle managers have a crucial role in whether the message and culture of ethics will be amplified, distorted, discarded, or discounted on the front-lines.  As the CEO of Front-Line Anti-Bribery, Richard consultants and speaks on bribery, ethics, and compliance issues at institutions such as the World Bank, The International Anti-Corruption Academy, and global multinationals. Learn more about Richard’s work here: https://www.richardbistrong.com/

Max Bazerman, Jesse Isidor Strauss Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, takes us through four key aspects of ethical leadership, based on his new book - Better, Not Perfect. Max shares how research on decision making can help give better output on philanthropy, why we need to make wise trade-offs to decrease waste and how we can all be a part of disrupting corruption. The key is our moral obligation to notice and not close our eyes when we see signs of corruption in our organizations, industries or communities.  Max drives the message home with stories from the pharmaceutical and auditing industries, as well as companies like Amazon, Theranos and Enron.     Max is a frequent Harvard Business Review contributor and has authored a number of books including The Power of Experiments (with Michael Luca), The Power of Noticing, Judgment in Managerial Decision Making (with Don Moore), and Blind Spots (with Ann Tenbrunsel).  His latest book, Better, Not Perfect: A Realist's Guide to Maximum Sustainable Goodness just came out.

Rob is the former Chief Ethics Officer at Airbnb. A role he took on after nearly 4 years as Airbnb’s General Counsel. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Rob worked for 14 years with the U.S. Justice Department, including 10 years as an Assistant United States Attorney. He is the recipient of the Justice Department’s John Marshall Award for litigation, and the CIA’s Outstanding Service Medallion. In 1999, Rob moved to California to become eBay’s third attorney and was later promoted to Vice President of a newly created Trust and Safety department. He worked at several other companies in Silicon Valley before joining Airbnb in 2016. During his time at Airbnb he developed a popular interactive employee program, Integrity Belongs Here, to help drive ethics throughout the culture at the company. His highly relevant new book “Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution” is available for purchase! In this episode of Leading Transformational Change, Rob shares how a conversation with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, about the risks of ethical scandals, led to them to devise a strategy to build integrity into the culture of the company. Rob takes us through a six-part strategy for any organization, that wants to be intentional about integrity, and gives us lots of helpful examples along the way. He challenges every leader to put integrity on the agenda and decide what kind of company they want to become.

Mary Gentile is the Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and senior adviser at the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program. She is the creator and director of Giving Voice to Values, a pioneering business curriculum for values-driven leadership, which has been featured in publications such as, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and piloted in over 1200 business schools and organizations globally. Mary is the author of the award-winning Giving Voice To Values: How To Speak Your Mind When You Know What's Right. In her ten-year tenure at Harvard Business School, Mary was one of the principal architects of the school’s Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Responsibility curriculum. In this episode of Leading Transformational Change, Mary shares how the Enron scandal and a self-defense course made her rethink the way ethics was taught in business school and led to the Giving Voice to Values experiment. She realized that we do not merely need ways of theoretically discerning the ethical course of action based on philosophical models, but knowing what is the right thing to do, how would we actually go about doing it? Mary shares the main reasons why we do not voice our values in the business world and how we can build a framework for doing it in a thoughtful and strategic way. She shares practical examples of how the Giving Voice to Values framework has been implemented in companies like McKinsey and Unilever and why it needs to be a part of the leadership development strategy and not merely an HR issue. 

Joan Lurie discusses using a systems thinking lens for organizational change. She emphasizes the importance of leaders seeing themselves as part of the system. Exploring challenges in a software company like internal conflict and lack of innovation. Highlighting the need for innovative ecosystems and effective innovation systems for lasting change.

Sesil Pir is an industrial/organizational psychologist who has worked in Global HR Management roles on four continents in multinational corporations like Novartis and Microsoft.  Sesil is currently acting as an HR functional thought leader, founder of SESIL PIR Consulting, a boutique management consultancy, focusing on changing the status quo of work; and of Whirling Chief, a global digital collaboration and learning platform, championing humanity into the workplace. She is a frequent Forbes contributor and has contributed to a number of HR management books. In this episode of Leading Transformational Change, Sesil shares insights from a study she has developed together with Standford University Center for Compassion and Altruism, on the keys to flourishing organizations. Based on her extensive experience within Human Resources, Sesil paints a picture of organizations that develop resilience and adaptability, are driven by an authentic purpose, invest in their culture, and put humans at the center of the equation. 

Terentia Browne has spent many years, first as an engineer and then in management positions, at multinational corporations like Unilever and Johnson & Johnson. She holds a bachelor of science and has been awarded a Rising Star Award from the Health Care Businesswomen’s Associations. She was chosen to be a part of the Ascend Accelerated Women’s Leadership Program within Johnson & Johnson. She is the founder of Greenleaf Leaders where she supports introvert emerging leaders to enhance their leadership potential. In this episode of Leading Transformational Change, Terentia shares her experience coming from South Africa, as a non-white woman, to lead a team of engineers at a plant in Sweden. Terentia gives examples of how leaders and HR professionals can help create inclusive experiences and environments where diversity can flourish, and why every team member should take co-ownership of Diversity & Inclusion.