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Mandated compliance can unintentionally undermine ethical culture by encouraging check‑the‑box thinking, freezing programs at legal minimums, and disempowering compliance leaders unless actively countered.

Strangers open my files. Go through my desk. Check my numbers as if I’m a kid trying to cheat. I’m honest. I follow the rules. So why does it feel like I’m being treated as if I can’t be trusted? I guess a surprise inspection might catch the one bad apple — but I’ll never stop hating a pop quiz.

“Much like Charlie Brown running to kick the football that Lucy will certainly pull away, we work in structures that ask us to do great and impossible things, only to undercut us again and again. …”

My job is more than a job. It’s bigger, better, deeper. I’m a compliance professional, and the work I do matters — to me, to our company, and to everyone we touch. I believe in honesty, integrity, fairness.

This column turns to law schools, proposing concrete ways to support students interested in compliance and ethics roles.

It might sound strange to others. It might sound odd. It might even sound really weird. But there’s like an internal alarm going off inside my head. I know. I sound half crazy here. Or maybe I sound totally crazy.

Is there a connection between professional ethics and company codes of conduct? I was doing work with the Working Group in the development of their “Good Practice Guidance” relating to compliance and ethics programs to prevent bribery. There I first came across the idea that professional ethics should play a role in a company code of conduct.

What does the future hold for the field of compliance and for compliance professionals everywhere? Here are a few ideas that might sound good.

1. Compliance people are in high demand – every business wants more of them.
2. Compliance people get the respect they deserve.

2025 is pretty much “history” now – how’s it been? Have you ever done a year-end assessment? Wanna take a look back as you plan for the New Year coming? Here are some ideas to get you started.

There’s an old story about a man who offended the king and was sentenced to death. This man pleaded with his royal highness, asking he be spared. He told the king, that given a year he could teach the ruler’s favorite horse to sing.

Huh? What? A surprise what? An internal what? An unannounced what?
Audit? Review? Nobody every mentioned that! Why didn’t anybody tell me? Why wasn’t there a memo?

In part one, I shared how I first started in the compliance profession and many of the early challenges that came along. I have learned that consistent learning, collecting and presenting objective and meaningful data, deploying professional approaches in compliance and ethics management, as well as finding your squad to cheer you on and give an example, are the most important success factors in this line of work.