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Compliance Question: What Would You Do with a Rogue Tweeter?

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Imagine if you were the compliance officer for Tesla. What would you do?

In light of Elon Musk’s (the CEO of Tesla) recent string of tweets – – the tech genius’ uncontrolled social media posts have highlighted the importance of social media governance and how difficult it is to eliminate the risk that emanates from executives’ individual conduct.

The question becomes, can you really control a founder, CEO or a favored executive of a company? The short answer, no, but you can influence and have safeguards in place to protect your organization and its stakeholders including clients, investors, and board. Those who have founded and built successful companies likely feel entitled to speak their mind about the company they have created.

What would be your first order of business if you were the new compliance officer at Tesla implementing social media and other governance controls?

First, do what is necessary to understand what the company has in place currently, what it doesn’t, and why.  Understand why certain protocols are missing or if they are in place, why have they been ignored.  You will earn the trust of the business and others by assessing the current state before making changes. Then start to build trust by explaining and implementing controls that facilitate marketing and promotion by the company’s leaders and proactively protect the company for liability and any reputational crisis.

Most often, public companies like Tesla have controls guiding executives and PR agents who speak on their behalf. The SEC alleged there was not enough of both.  Following Musk’s “$420 per share tweet,” SEC Chairmen Jay Clayton stated, “Tesla had no disclosure controls or procedures in place to determine whether Musk’s tweets contained information required to be disclosed in Tesla’s SEC filings.  Nor did it have sufficient processes in place to that Musk’s tweets were accurate or complete.”

This situation is a good reminder to consider whether your company has the following best practices in place when it comes to public statements about the company:

  • Limit who may publicly speak or represent the company in the media, so the company can control the message,
  • Require pre-approval of content to ensure any message is fair and balanced and accurate, and
  • Create “rules of the road” for social media posts, public appearances etc. — such as communicate what is true, already verified and fair and balance. Do not communicate feelings, beliefs or hopes – unless pre-approved to confirm there is no bias, conflict or misrepresentation.

Now, instead of imaging “what if I were at Tesla,” take the time to consider the “what if” in your current organization and do everything you can to influence leaders, implement protocols, and prevent a similar reality from happening to your company.  Learn more about best compliance practices by visiting www.warburtonadvisers.com

dilemmas

Being “True North” when Dilemmas Surface

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There is one question at the center of many dilemmas compliance professionals will face in their career.  The answer is often obvious; sometimes not: What is ethical?

By focusing on one’s “True North” orientation, compliance professionals can strengthen their professional value-add and their organization’s compliance and business standards.

For example, when compliance departments prepare annual certifications to boards, regulators and others to report on the compliance program (and potentially disclose compliance gaps), compliance should conduct research, schedule interviews, and obtain supporting certifications.

What if a compliance officer is asked to prepare and submit a certification but doesn’t have the time or authority to conduct the due diligence? Is it ethical to do so?

The answer may seem obvious, but it is not necessarily easy.  And therein lies the challenge.

Uncommon but Inevitable

Such dilemmas are rare.  However, those times are the true test of one’s commitment to ethical standards and the organization’s best interest, essentially this is a compliance officer’s True North orientation.

There will inevitably be times when there are conflicts between a compliance professional’s responsibility to the organization and the gatekeeper function for government regulators. In this example, a compliance officer will need to get help or conduct the due diligence in order to meet his or her ethical responsibilities as a gatekeeper.

Compliance officers need to balance the need to be client-centric and effective gatekeepers, equally guarding the employer’s interests while delivering on legal requirements. Compliance must give regulators and others a genuine and accurate certification of good health. If a gap were to be discovered later, but mistakenly not disclosed in the certification, the firm and the unprepared compliance officer both could have been held accountable for being negligent.

To be impactful, compliance officers should be aligned with and believe in the culture, the organization, and the business efforts they serve. Compliance officer job descriptions routinely contain phrases like “strong ethics needed” included in the list of qualifications. “True North Ethics” is one of the keys to a compliance officer’s success – protecting an organization and one’s contribution.

Ethics and Leadership

Dilemmas will inevitably arise that challenge a compliance officers’ responsibility to both protect their organizations and serve as a gatekeeper for government regulators. They need to avoid focusing only on protection.  Compliance officers must be simultaneously aligned with and believe in the culture, the organization, and the business efforts they serve.

This need creates the opportunity to serve as a True North ethical beacon that communicates and demonstrates advocacy for sustainable governance while also managing their personal liability.

You can learn more about True North Ethics in my book Triple Bottom-Line Compliance: How to Deliver Protection, Productivity, and Impact as well as my podcast What’s Ethical?

To learn more about how you can innovate with compliance, contact my office today. If you would like to read about my philosophy and how to support business growth so there is measured and informed risk-taking, here’s a look inside my book.