The seemingly "little" things matter

OK, so I've been building up to this post for some time now (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), trying a few points out along the way. 

I've also done something I don't recall having done before, which is to consult with others on their experiences, insights and opinions, so this post is a bit of a joint effort.

Now, there are some excellent trends in management (and governance generally) in recent years, including the desire to avoid ethical problems such as corruption. The current protests globally for Black Lives Matter, Me Too (which started with a focus on black women), and the rape  culture in Australia and the abuse that has allowed into our parliament are but the most recent manifestations and continuations of that trend towards greater ethicality.

These recent management trends are, however, less well developed (in my opinion) than QAQC (Quality Assurance/Quality Control, often also referred to as Quality Management - which, in its modern form, started developing in the 1950s and 60s), which has been around for decades longer as a management "thing". The USA is well ahead of us on the ethical management trends because of their Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, (which does cause some safety problems in my experience). However, as a result of the move to directly address ethical conduct being less mature than QAQC practices, implementation of the former can still be flawed, IMO, and is an evolving area. 

Until recently, the focus of training against corruption has - in my experience and at least some of those I consulted - been focused on obvious financial matters - don't take bribes, don't abuse your power (access to knowledge of the type that allows "insider trading" is power), etc. 

You can find more basic information on corruption at: 

• Transparency International; 
• Global Issues; 
• Lesson 28 and 29 of the Universidad  Diego Portales' MOOC Chile course "Introduction to Human Rights"; 
  
• my home state's Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (which has  some  flaws in relation to police  matters); 
• Our World in Data; 
• the Australian Government's Attorney-General's Department ("Corruption has a corrosive impact on society"); and 
• Wikipedia.
  

However, the valid and worthy desire to create a culture of ethical behaviour, including resultant actions (such and adopting policies, procedures and guides, and implementing training and repeat training), can be undone by other actions/inactions in the workplace. 

As an example, secretaries thinking it is OK to use someone's e-signature on the say-so of a boss, not the person concerned (which is an act of fraud by the secretary), or to create an e-signature without the person's permission (which is potentially an act of fraud, deception, or identity theft - even in the workplace).

To say that these misdeeds are minor is to tolerate them, and immediately  create  two  sets  of  behaviours or situations: one where it is acceptable to be corrupt (even if that is "small"), and one where it is not. As soon as that is done, it creates difficulties for those trying to be ethical, as one thereafter needs to consider "is this the situations where it is OK to be corrupt, or it is not OK to be corrupt?". The commitment to being ethical is not just undermined, it is blown out of the water. 

Of course, most people don't apply the word "corrupt" to these behaviours "because they are small matters". 

Wow. 

What utter rubbish. 

As one of my consultees pointed out, from small things bigger things (corruptions) grow. 

Apart from such behaviour being illegal (and that will be doubly so when our flawed engineering registration act comes into force), it directly contradicts the principles set out in anti-corruption policies, and thus leads to problems including the example above. 

Another serious problem is people in admin sending emails "on behalf of" other people with that person's permission. That is an act of impersonation, and it is IRRELEVANT whether or not the admin person considers the act to be necessary, they are "putting words in the mouth of others", creating massive workplace tensions, and acting contrary to anti-corruption principles and THE LAW. (There are also problems with an at times passive-aggressive tones of such messages, which either assume or seem to assume bad faith on the part of the employee.)

On a slightly different but related note, I've just read a description of a dissociative state experience by a suicidal character in Katharine Kerr's "The Fire Dragon" (p.160 of my copy; Bantam Spectra, 2001, ISBN 978-0-553-58247-5): "Bellyra nodded and smiled. She felt as if she were playing with a doll, as if she stood beside her body and moved its head and flapped its arms while she pretended it was alive." I've been brought to such states by being on the receiving end of discrimination - including in the workplace, but also by unethical expectations in the workplace, which were particularly bad in the 90s and 2000s as engineering in Australia sought to become global with a "pragmatic" (i.e., accepting of unethical practices) viewpoint. The experience of the soul-crushing and crippling experience of being repressed by widespread corruption has no doubt caused similar experiences to many other people across the world - corruption is, in fact, one of the biggest global barriers to freedom (including democracy) and development, by which I mean "development of the type that ends poverty and extreme poverty, and allows the economic middle class to grow". 

In fact, work expectations - especially the intensity of work, not just the hours, is a threat to the attainment of OHS goals, as well as undermining anti-corruption (people under time pressure take "short cuts", so as those who once - in pre-PC days - impersonated my signature) goals.

So, the little things matter - and don't conflate social conventions with legality or being ethical. 

Instead, care, communicate (remembering Zeno of Citium's admonishment that "We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say"), and, above all else, remember that what you do in your life contributes to the moral soup the world lives in.

PS - see also this, from one of today's papers.

PPS - for those on LinkedIn, there is also this.
A comment I also received raised the issue of terminology, which, of late, includes micro-aggressions, death by a thousand cuts, covert and subtle behaviours, gaslighting, and also that it is the sum of the behaviours and actions that are harmful.
The issue of coercion at work was also covered as part of this broadcast today (transcript also available).