Large-scale, system-wide change begins at the individual level. From the leader, charged with setting direction, to each member of the system, an organization’s capacity to change is determined by the collective of individuals. In particular, the extent to which individuals act with integrity and accountability—to themselves, to each other, and to the institution—is a strong indicator of an organization’s inner workings and, subsequently, the drivers and inhibitors of large-scale change. Accountability and integrity, and their roles in system change, are best understood by considering what happens in the absence of individual accountability within organizations. From corporate corruption at the highest levels, in organizations like Enron and WorldCom, to institutionalized complicity, in organizations like Penn State and the Weinstein Company, systemic failures can be traced directly to the decisions of individuals. In the wake of these scandals, the media and the public are quick to identify and vilify key players. Yet should we accept the explanation that, in these large, complex systems, an isolated subset is solely responsible for such pervasive covert wrongdoing? I do not accept that explanation. The bad behavior occurred in those systems because the systems allowed it to happen. If a system’s culture or norms are byproducts of the individuals and behaviors within, then each member of the system has some accountability in the bad behavior. In fact, Schein (2013) suggests that an organization’s culture, and how those cultural assumptions are reinforced and confirmed or challenged and disconfirmed, can be determined by studying the day to day interactions of the organization’s members (Schein, 2013). Questions about accountability are closely related to the matter of integrity. In the Four-Fold model for personal reflection and development, Arrien (1992) describes how a person embodying the Visionary archetype maintains integrity with truth-telling, aligning words and actions, and abstaining from denial and indulgence (Arrien, 1992). To tell the truth, or to be aware, honest, and say what is so, is a universal value that collapses patterns of denial and indulgence (Arrien, 1992). When individuals who observe wrongdoing in their respective organizations do speak the truth about what they have seen, what happens when other individuals in the organization indulge or deny the reported truth? Denial and indulgence at the individual level was pervasive at Penn State, as was revealed in the Sandusky sex abuse investigation (Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, 2012): These individuals, unchecked by the board of trustees that did not perform its oversight duties, empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access to the University's facilities and affiliation with the university's prominent football program. Indeed, that continued access provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims. Some coaches, administrators and football program staff members ignored the red flags of Sandusky's behaviors and no one warned the public about him. (Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, 2012, p. 15) Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who led the Penn State investigation and authored the report, goes on to say, “the Board also failed in its duties to oversee the President and senior University officials…by not creating an environment where senior University officials felt accountable” (Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, 2012, p. 15). Arrien’s (1992) interpretation that alignment of words and actions, as a measure of integrity, is one possible lens for attempting to understand the dire lack of individual accountability in the Penn State system. Taking a humanistic approach and assuming that most of the individuals who enabled and indulged the wrongdoing believed themselves to be good, ethical people, how did they justify their actions—or in most cases, inaction? According to the legal counsel of Curley and Schultz, key conspirators in the Penn State scandal, the two were “good people trying to do their best to make the right decisions” (Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, 2012, pp. 15-16). So, how do Curley, Schultz, and others complicit in perpetuating organizational wrongdoing come to exonerate themselves from accountability? A likely answer is that those individuals used rationalization. People tend to rationalize, or concoct seemingly rational cases for doing something that would otherwise cause shame, in order to defend against the anxiety that would be aroused by recognizing their own shame (Funder, 2012). Rationalizing behavior in organizations may also take shape as trivialization. Consider the revelations about decades of sexual misconduct in the Weinstein Company. When young actresses reported Harvey Weinstein’s advances and actions over the years, agents and managers alike reportedly responded with, “that’s just Harvey being Harvey” (Twohey, Kantor, Dominus, Rutenberg & Eder, 2017). Trivialization is a method of rationalization that occurs when individuals convince themselves that regrettable actions are of little significance or that the victims involved are in some way inferior (Funder, 2012). From rationalizing to denial to blame, who is responsible for cultivating such behavior and cultural acceptance in organizations? In high profile scandals, this question is hotly contested. Recent investigations into Wells Fargo’s fraudulent sales practices (2017) provide several varying perspectives of individual accountability. In a scathing confrontation with then-CEO John Stumpf, Senator Elizabeth Warren illustrates the polarity of views on corporate accountability and integrity: Okay, so you haven’t resigned, you haven’t returned a single nickel of your personal earnings, you haven’t fired a single senior executive. Instead, evidently, your definition of ‘accountable’ is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don’t have the money for a fancy P.R. firm to defend themselves. (Kolhatkar, 2016) Yet accountability is not binary, especially in the Wells Fargo sales scandal. While Senator Warren appropriately holds Stumpf accountable for his role in the unethical practices that became commonplace, the thousands of low-level employees who created fraudulent accounts are also accountable. However, when masses of individuals accept unethical behavior as standard practice in the system, accountability shifts again and calls into question the system in its entirety, at all levels. Aided by a culture of strong deference to management of the lines of business…the Community Bank’s senior leaders distorted the sales model and performance management system, fostering an atmosphere that prompted low quality sales and improper and unethical behavior. (Wells Fargo, 2017, p. 4) To understand systems and system change, it is critical to acknowledge that all members hold some accountability for reinforcing the culture or environment within the system. In more formal systems, like large corporations, leadership certainly deserves a larger proportion of the accountability. In Hackman’s (1986) work on the psychology of self-management, he describes the essential role for authority. In orienting organization members toward common objectives, an authority figure thereby facilitates coordinated action in pursuing those objectives (Hackman, 1986). Returning to Penn State, one can begin to understand how a clear, authoritative message to protect the organization’s reputation and football legacy above all else, served to mobilize the lower levels of the organization to cooperate with whatever means necessary to achieve that. By their action or inaction, individuals shape the very norms and cultures that exist in their organizations. Just as individual actions collectively foster systemic corruption, individuals have the capacity to influence change for the better. Consider the USA Gymnastics system. Similar to institutions like the Weinstein Company and Penn State, an individual with disproportionate power was committing widespread abuse, and this behavior was insulated and reinforced by other individuals in the systems. During his tenure at USA Gymnastics, Larry Nassar committed hundreds of acts of sexual abuse. Only when a critical mass of individual brave voices began speaking their truth, was there room for change in the system. This notion is illustrated by one of the brave voices in the USA Gymnastics case, who addressed the prosecution during Nassar’s trial: “I implore you to do your part to exercise your power to the fullest extent. Show all the predators watching that we as a judicial system and community will no longer tolerate this behavior” (US District Court, 2017). Sources
Arrien, A. (1992). The four-fold way: Walking the paths of the warrior, teacher, healer and visionary. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Axelrod, R. H. (2010). Terms of engagement: New ways of leading and changing organizations (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, LLP. (2012). Report of the special investigative counsel regarding the actions of the Pennsylvania State University related to the child sexual abuse committed by Gerald A. Sandusky. Funder, D. C. (2012). The personality puzzle (6th ed.). New York, NY: Norton. Hackman, J. R. (1986). The psychology of self-management in organizations. In W. Burke, D. Lake, & J. Paine (Eds.), Organization change: A comprehensive reader (pp. 762-808). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kolhatkar, S. (2016). Elizabeth Warren and the Wells Fargo scandal. The New Yorker. Schein, E. H. (2013). Corporate culture. In Vogelsang, J., Townsend, M., Minahan, M., Jamieson, D., Vogel, J., Viets, A., Royal, C., & Valek, L. (Eds.), Handbook for strategic HR: Best practices in organization development from the OD network (pp. 253-258). New York: NY: AMACOM. Twohey, M., Kantor, J., Dominus, S., Rutenberg, J. & Eder, S. (2017). Weinstein’s complicity machine. The New York Times. US District Court. (2017). US Attorneys sentencing memorandum for Larry Nassar. Wells Fargo & Company Board of Directors, (2017). Independent directors of the board of Wells Fargo & Company sales practices investigation report.
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