Best Idea Ever?

I hate, hate, hate when someone stomps me flat. I mean down on the floor for me and the enemy is wearing combat boots to stomp on me.

Flat. On the floor. Flat. And I hate it.

It’s not like I mean to cause trouble. That’s not me. Not me at all.

I’m a go-with-the-flow kinda guy.

In fact, I’m almost too nice. Everybody tells me I’m nice – maybe I’m the nicest guy in this company. Maybe in this whole country. Maybe in the known universe.

One of my friends here at work told me – she said, “Blake, you are just so nice. Way too nice. Kind of like a great, big, cuddly teddy bear.”

So, anyway, I got this great idea. Super idea. As a compliance professional here, the one who thinks up great new plans for our compliance messages and training, I figured this one was perfect. My best idea ever.

What we’d do – talking with our investigations people – we’d look at the real world experiences of bad stuff inside our global company, at true stories, collect all the facts – especially stories about managers – and write it up. An example of what not to do. A morality tale about the consequences of breaking rules.

As in, you break the rules, you get caught, you pay the price – boom, game over. We’d focus on real world stories about people in our company breaking the rules.

True stories. Morality tales. From all over the world where we operate. We’d find them, disguise them so nobody would know real facts and figures, no real names of people, no locations even.

Then boom. For the one who thought they were pulling a fast one – the whole thing crashes and burns. They get held accountable. How great would that be?

My whole team loved it. True stories – though well disguised – and real consequences.

Our people – all our own employees at our company – would love it. They would totally and absolutely love it. We all learned as kids from stories – people remember those. What a great way to learn a real-world lesson.

You lie, cheat, break rules, think you’re too smart to get caught. Then boom! You are done, finished, over and out – break the rules, pay the price!

So. There’s my idea. Best idea ever. In fact, I even did a little checking and found out this had worked well at other companies. Even the Feds wrote about this idea in their own compliance guidance.

What happens next? Well, of course I took my sensational idea to our labor lawyer for her OK on my great idea, my perfect project, my brilliant new plan.

Know what she told me? Our labor lawyer? Our expert on legal matters? Know what she said?

Looked me straight in the eyes, she did, and she said, “No. Never. Absolutely not. We’d get sued. You’d cause us more trouble than we’ve ever even imagined. The answer is now and always will be No. Go write a nice, gentle, kind and encouraging memo. Keep it safe, safe, safe. Better still, I will write a few nice, safe memos for you. I can tell people what the law says – that’s all they need. And no one will complain.”

She stared at me hard. “Do not – I repeat, do not – rock the boat with this kind of thing.” Then she stalked away.

Play it safe. That’s her rule.

So, here I am. Stomped flat, flatter, flattest.

But – and it’s a big but – maybe, just maybe I could figure out some way to get around the legal lady. Maybe. Very, very big maybe. Hey, this big idea worked for others – why not us?

© 2024 K. Leet

What do you think?

Ever had an idea squashed?

Ever felt it was unfair?

What did you do?

These are stories (usually fictional, but not always), based on insights and experiences from the world of compliance & ethics.