You’ve probably seen the Ethical Excuses Bingo, crowdsourced on LinkedIn, below. My anecdotal experience of rule-breaking is that it’s overwhelmingly done “for the organisation.” The excuses 👇 echo that sentiment. But what about when we willfully and intentionally circumvent controls for “I” not “we” reasons?
There’s an expansive canon of research - much of which is challenged. Of course it is. It’s tough to replicate real-world stakes in study conditions. Sometimes, we don’t even know why we act as we do. But some themes do emerge.
Thrill-seekers: Breaking the rules can create a rush. It’s not all about adrenaline junkies; I remember an investigation where the fraudster’s life (grinding in a clerical role) was so crushing that he admitted the thrill of stealing provided a sense of meaning, feeling alive.
Injustice warriors: “The rules are rubbish; we must break them.” Sometimes they’re right (civil rights movement), sometimes they’re wrong (terrorists), and sometimes it’s grey. For instance, I’ve observed how (some) newer joiners to the workforce don’t respect confidentiality agreements, especially when the “greater good” is outing injustice (bosses telling people not to ‘moan’, clumsy redundancy emails, etc.).
Normalised rule-breaking: I often hear this excuse for corruption: “It’s a way of life here.” That’s mainly BS, as most folks I know HATE the corruption where they live. I’m more interested in the “victimless crime” meme, from shoplifting to jaywalking. In organisational settings, you’ll often find more creative teams or departments where breaking conventional boundaries is the currency of success, struggling with the mundanity of “pointless rules.”
Rationalisation: We judge our intentions to be good (e.g., caring for a sick relative) to normalise our actions (skipping work).
Power: “Sticking it to the man”. Breaking the rules is an assertion of your authority. Raise the corner of your mouth on one side in a smirk. Does it feel good? That’s the universal facial expression for contempt. It’s defined as “an assertion of moral superiority.” We often do it when someone (seemingly) more powerful tries to put us in our place, a way to feel better about ourselves.
I might offer up a new reason to break the rules.
Assert individuality: I see this with my daughter. In a school system where cultural values and norms are becoming homogenous, breaking taboos makes you stand out. I see her friends quoting some of the more scandalous lines from SouthPark for shock value in response to teachers enforcing a form of monotheistic liberalism. At the worst fringes, this gives us scumbags like Andrew Tate. But don’t be distracted by the fringes. Many of the future workforce are sick of “your stuff”, as my daughter terms the preachings of older generations. They’re more worried about “their stuff” (the environment, conflict, and cost of living).
For organisations, investigators, compliance folks, and risk professionals, it helps to know where people are bored, angered, inured, disempowered, or patronised. Identifying these pockets isn’t as hard as you’d imagine - most folks already tell you (in employee surveys, etc.). We need to know how to read between the lines.
Bad behaviour is bad business
On a related theme, and if you want to know what a study into your organisational pathology might look like… this report, with a title that could only be drafted by a committee, might help: “Report of the Expert Independent Review into Workplace Culture at Gold Fields.”
Some standout observations include “Almost one in two employees (47%) indicated that they had experienced bullying in the last five years.” But what struck me was the prevalence of problems at the HQ level (table 👇). We’ve surveyed 5,000+ people now across 20+ organisations around integrity culture, and the Gold Fields results are not an anomaly. The closer to the seat of power, the more toxic things seem to become.
Aside from the obvious problems - like strategic dysfunction - it severely impacts the much-vaunted “tone from the top” and dramatically increases risk (as you have angered, inured, disempowered, or patronised people pulling the levers of power).
The good news is once you understand the extent of the problem, treatment is MUCH easier.