She started in the business world, but now teaches in academia. We are excited to introduce our next guest, Ann Tenbrunsel, a true leader in the field of business ethics. Tenbrunsel is the David E. Gallow Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Notre Dame. She has also co-authored Blind Spots: Why We Fail To Do What's Right where she and Max Bazerman examine the ways we overestimate our abilities to perform ethically.
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Episode Transcript:
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00:12 Cindy Moehring: Hi everybody, welcome back to another episode of The BIS, and today we have with us Ann Tenbrunsel, who is the David E. Gallo professor of business ethics and the College of Business Administration at the University of Notre Dame. Welcome, Ann.
00:25 Ann Tenbrunsel: Hi, thanks Cindy, great to be here.
00:28 Cindy Moehring: Glad to have you. Let me tell you a little bit about Ann and then we'll dive into our topic for today. Ann's research interests focus on the psychology of ethical decision-making, and she examines why employees, leaders and even students behave and ethically, despite their best intentions to behave to the contrary, and is the author, the co-author and co-editor of six books on this topic, including Blind Spots, one of my favorites, with Max Bazeman, Behavioral Ethics: Shaping An Emerging Field with David De Cremer, Codes of Conduct: Behavioral Research into Business Ethics with David Messick, and over 50 other research articles and chapters. Ann's research has been featured in interviews, airing on MSNBC and National Public Radio and adaptations, exceptions and references to her work have appeared in a variety of publications, including New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Huffington Post, Washington Post, and many, many others.
01:24 Cindy Moehring: Ann teaches at the executive, the MBA and the undergraduate level, and prior to entering academics Ann worked as an engineer for SC Johnson & Sons and as a sales and marketing consultant for ZS Associates. Ann, that is quite a background. I love the fact that you have some business experience too before you moved over into academia. I find... My experience so far, and I'm new to the academia side, having just come from business, is that it's really helpful to have that kind of practical application of what you're studying and teaching about, what have you found?
01:57 Ann Tenbrunsel: Absolutely, and first of all I think gives you credibility in the classroom, but I also... I actually was thinking of recently of writing up a little vignette of an ethical dilemma that I participated in. Well, I didn't participate in, I was presented with it.
[laughter]
02:14 Cindy Moehring: Understood.
02:14 Ann Tenbrunsel: I'm quite proud of my decision. But I thought, "Oh, this would be something... " because it happened to me maybe two years out of college, "that my undergraduates could relate to", and then kind of do the big reveal at the end saying, "This was me, and this is what I did."
02:27 Cindy Moehring: So, Ann, I really wanna talk with you about business ethics, the whole field of it, where it's been, where it is now and kind of where it's headed into the future. And there was an article written in the Harvard Business Review, it's about 25 years old now, but it is still unfortunately kinda commonly cited when people look up business ethics. And at the time, what the article found, again, 25 years ago, is that business ethics was being taught in a way that was just too philosophical, too general and too theoretical, and it wasn't of any real value or use to the students. So what I wanna know from you is whether or not you still think that's the case today, and if not, what’s changed?
03:13 Ann Tenbrunsel: Yeah, so I was thinking about that and I agree at the time, although I would almost say more than it being maybe taught in a way that wasn't seen as relevant, it almost wasn't taught. So in some sense, ethics to me... And that's about when I got involved, I think I started studying ethics in 1992, so that makes it 28 years ago, it was not seen as something that was relevant to business. For two job talks that I gave at great schools that now have really strong ethics programs, the comments were things like, "This is really great work, we just honestly aren't sure what we would do with it, in a business school." Or the famous line that I give with almost every talk that I give, "What are you going to study when this is no longer a fad?" So to me it wasn't even just that it was potentially being taught wrong, it wasn't even considered relevant within the business domain at all. I certainly think that that has changed now, every business school that I know is trying to figure out, "How do we further integrate ethics into the curriculum, how do we hire more ethics professors?" So certainly the attention to it has changed.
04:22 Ann Tenbrunsel: I do think that there has been an introduction of kind of this more behavioral ethics approach, I know that that's how I teach my class, not all the classes at Notre Dame, for example, are taught that way. At the same time... And I used to be the one that would position behavioral ethics against normative ethics, always saying that I thought it was important but it doesn't explain, even if people have a lot of principles, why they themselves are deviating from their values. So the famous example I use is "Ethics books are more likely to be stolen by ethicist than they are... " so, ethics books are more likely to be stolen than other types of philosophy books that would be used by grad students and professors. So they know a lot about ethics. Simply knowing a lot about it doesn't mean that I can enact it in a time in my life.
05:10 Ann Tenbrunsel: And so that's where I see the introduction in the last 25 years of people teaching business ethics that way, I certainly see the receptivity on the corporate side. But at the same time I think we're starting again to see some really relevant practical examples for normative ethics. So, in autonomous vehicles, right?
05:33 Cindy Moehring: Right.
05:38 Ann Tenbrunsel: At some point we have to program in what principles they should make. And so Germany has come up with a list of principles that were involved, ethicist and corporate and governmental entities, and came up with a list like "This is what we think all cars that are going autonomous, the rules by which... " one of which, if I'm remembering correct, is the target of who you're going to hit, which has become a big "What If" question...
06:01 Cindy Moehring: Right.
06:02 Ann Tenbrunsel: Should not factor in, so their age, whether they're wearing nice clothes or not, their race, what they're doing. So any characteristics about the target shouldn't factor into the decisions, and that's where I really see increasing relevance in the business world...
06:21 Cindy Moehring: I agree.
06:21 Ann Tenbrunsel: For some of our new technologies, but I do bring up autonomous vehicles, and the inability to solve the ethical dilemma is almost stifling our innovation in that area.
06:31 Cindy Moehring: I would agree, yeah. And we know it even happened here, in the Uber self-driving car that crashed and killed someone in 2018, and when they went back to try to figure out the root cause with what they called "explain-ability engineers" a word that I don't think existed a few years ago.
[chuckle]
06:47 Cindy Moehring: They found that the pedestrian was killed because the car was not programmed to recognize the human form outside of a crosswalk. The person was jaywalking.
06:57 Ann Tenbrunsel: Right.
06:57 Cindy Moehring: And so it wasn't even programmed to recognize the human form in that situation, so it's all of those what ifs that is kind of ethical what ifs both for just safety and ethics reasons that have to be kinda factored in, so I would agree. So you mentioned something that was similar to a comment that was made by Linda Trevino which was that just ethics wasn't being taught many years ago where they thought it was a passing fad, more importantly, what do you think was the tipping point that made it not seen as a passing fad?
07:33 Ann Tenbrunsel: Well, I think it's people like Linda and some of us at Northwestern and other places that just started to study it and kind of strongly assert that this was a legitimate ethics topic or I'm sorry, business topic. And then as I like to say in somewhat of a sarcastic manner, thank God for WorldCom and Enron and Tyco because that really, to me, was the tipping point that people said, "Wow, ethics aren't just something you're supposed to do to be nice. [chuckle] Ethics can take down really big firms."
08:07 Cindy Moehring: Right, right.
08:09 Ann Tenbrunsel: And then of course, there's legislation. So the world suddenly started to pay attention to the significant costs of being unethical, and same thing then with the financial crisis. So I hate to say it, but sometimes those exogenous threats do lead to more rapid change than you would have had if we wouldn't have had them.
08:29 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, yeah, I would agree. And perhaps advancements that actually end up benefiting society overall.
08:34 Ann Tenbrunsel: Exactly.
08:35 Cindy Moehring: And I think one of the big advancements is not just that we started teaching it, but that we did start introducing the social sciences and the behavioral ethics piece of it, which obviously has been a big, big love of yours as well. And so let's talk a little bit about one of your books that you co-authored and that I'm a big fan of called "Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do About It." I love the title [chuckle] first of all. So why do you think, if you could sum it up that we fail to do what we know is right?
09:12 Ann Tenbrunsel: So blind spots kind of stepping back or just those obstacles, so obstacles at the individual, obstacles at the social, obstacles at the institutional level that really prevent us from behaving in accordance with our value, and maybe more importantly, prevent us from seeing that we're not behaving in line with our values, so in some sense hiding it from us.
09:33 Cindy Moehring: Right.
09:34 Ann Tenbrunsel: So at the individual level, you have blind spots such as illusions, so I believe I'm more ethical than I really am. You have cognitive influences, like ethical fading, so if I don't code this as an ethical decision, it doesn't matter how many principles and values I have, they're not gonna be kind of called up when I make that decision 'cause it's not gonna be seen as relevant to that. You have biases from game theory or moral disengagement mechanism. So at the individual level, you have a lot of forces that allow you to behave in ways that deviate from your values, but again, hide it from you.
10:13 Cindy Moehring: So you're gonna trick yourself into believing that I'm not really unethical.
10:17 Ann Tenbrunsel: Exactly, and you're not conscious of it, right? So it's even that I know that I'm tricking myself. It's more insidious than that in some sense.
10:24 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, it happens unconsciously. Interesting.
10:27 Ann Tenbrunsel: And then at the closer level, you have anywhere from overclaiming, that's when you're thinking of a social level. Like you said, the individual levels we're like, "What effect do I have on myself?" And at the social level you then kinda go to the next level and you say, "What effects do other people have on me?" So one of them is social dilemmas. I know that I overclaim. When I'm with other people, I compare myself to them, and if that comparison is just advantageous, I feel that I can behave unethically or at least it motivates me to right the wrong. Other people provide us with a justification for behaving unethically. So there's research that shows that if I'm going to make $2 for behaving unethically or another situation, say, where I'm gonna make a dollar and I can give you a dollar or I have to give you a dollar, even though it's a less smaller temptation 'cause it's only a dollar in that second situation for me, aggregate total is the same, I behave more unethically in that second situation because I can use you as a rationalization because I can say, "Oh, but Cindy is benefiting."
11:36 Ann Tenbrunsel: So other people provide us, if they can be somehow a beneficiary, they provide us with that rationalization. Obviously groupthink, which has been covered a lot, so other people, when we're together, we're gonna think we're more moral and invincible than we really are. And then probably what I spend a significant time on not at least my classroom, is on implicit biases and kind of understanding the barrels that you're in, but maybe more importantly, the barrels that you're not in it, and how that might lead us to treatment, unfair treatment, treatment that deviates from our values, again, because there's a neurological basis to some of this that I don't even realize what I'm doing. I think I'm being fair to everyone, for example.
12:20 Cindy Moehring: Right, right, right. So if it's implicit, you're not aware of it, it's unconscious, like you mentioned, so what can you do about that?
12:30 Ann Tenbrunsel: Right, so at the individual level, one of the things we talk about is just A, I always say to my students and in talks, "The only thing you get out of this is that you're not as ethical as you think that you are, then you've started down the path. 'Cause if you don't do that, then nothing else I'm going to say after this is really gonna matter." Right?
12:49 Cindy Moehring: Right, right.
12:50 Ann Tenbrunsel: 'Cause you're gonna say, "That's for other people. That's not for me." So A is recognizing that you, your company, your division are not as ethical as you think that you are. Then you need to begin to address some of those forces. So you need to understand that when I'm thinking about ethical dilemmas, I say, "Oh, of course, I will behave ethically." And then at the time of the decision, that's potentially not true. So your should self is strong before your want self, your impulsive self is strong at the time. So you have to be aware that, "Guess what? I think I'm going to stand up in a meeting if somebody says something inappropriate, but in the decision itself, I may actually not." You have to be aware of what forces and what forces are there, things like, "I wanna get along. I want you to like me, Cindy. I don't wanna rock the boat." So you have to be prepared and then think about how to address that.
13:40 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
13:41 Ann Tenbrunsel: At the social level, a lot of great recommendations are starting to come out of the implicit bias work. And one of the nice things is they're actually more malleable than perhaps decision biases that I studied more in game theory. So they find, for example, that let's say living in a diverse neighborhood doesn't necessarily change our implicit attitudes, but having good friends or socializing with people that potentially are biased against is important to personalize them.
14:11 Ann Tenbrunsel: Right, right.
14:13 Ann Tenbrunsel: So also reading books by people that are not maybe in your barrel watching you. With my executives, I recently had them think about, "In the last six months when you've had a difficult decision to make, who did you call up?" And they listed the five. And then asked them, "How many are your gender or how many are your race?" So that comes...
14:39 Cindy Moerhing: That's a great exercise, and I think that there have been a lot of... Given our current situation with, for example, systemic racism and thinking about that and thinking about, "Well, how many mainstream authors are there that have been black? And how many times do you see black individuals as the main point of reference? Or how many times do you read black authors?" And suggest, to your point, getting outside of your barrel and becoming more aware of things that are different than you, and picking that up can, you're right, really help to make some of those implicit biases, to your point, more malleable.
15:20 Ann Tenbrunsel: Exactly. Exactly. And start to change them. And some of that work suggests, this works best for people that are motivated to change, people that are aware that they've have biases. Again, awareness is the first step.
15:32 Cindy Moehring: It is the first.
15:34 Ann Tenbrunsel: And then start to pay attention and then really give yourself time to change. It's not gonna be something that occurs overnight. Certainly using things like having pre-established criteria when you're looking at candidates is useful rather than having it be kind of this quick decision you make in your mind. So say you have a pile of resumes.
15:56 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
15:57 Ann Tenbrunsel: Having a pre-established criteria, and they say also having to write a justification for why you're accepting or not can prevent those implicit biases maybe from rising up to the degree that they can.
16:10 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, that's some really great, great educational points to learn on, I think.
16:15 Ann Tenbrunsel: And then you also I think I have to look at the institutional level and say, "How do we fix some of the blind spots that exist there?"
16:23 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
16:23 Ann Tenbrunsel: And that includes looking at your reward systems, and more important than just looking at what you say reward is getting feedback from people in the organization as what do you think is rewarded. Because whether they're accurate or not, what they think is what's rewarded is going to be more influential in their own behavior than what you tell them.
16:44 Cindy Moehring: One of the things I found when I was... Before my life now [chuckle] on the academic side when I was in business, is making sure that there's an open environment and that when you are getting to a promotion phase, that there are more than just the immediate managers that are weighing in on all aspects of someone's performance holistically, not just what they achieved, but how they achieved it. So having your ethics and compliance department that you run a check with before to make sure that there aren't allegations that have been filed against them that might be so serious that it should have an impact on somebody perhaps getting promoted or not, it can be a really beneficial thing to do.
17:26 Ann Tenbrunsel: Absolutely, I was working with an organization that was very global, people all over, and in kind of little pods all over, and I worked with them for about four years. One of the things they did after that is, it's so big, they kinda didn't know where to start. They, similar to what you're saying, Cindy, is they had people rate their ethicality, so leaders, but also their subordinates, and they started with where there was the biggest gap.
17:53 Cindy Moehring: Wow.
17:54 Ann Tenbrunsel: Not to say that one was right or wrong, but why is there discrepancy in perceptions? And that at least that was kind of the lowest-hanging fruit is to say, "Let's just start here and have a conversation." So that's kind of ethical illusions at the leadership level, which might be also a good first step.
18:13 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, yeah, very interesting. So let's talk a little bit about an article that you recently wrote in the Annual Review of Psychology that really focused on sexual harassment in academia, and you looked at that really through the lens of behavioral ethics and started from the premise, which I would agree with that sexual harassment is a form of unethical behavior. If you do look at just some of the basic principles of business ethics, it's respecting everyone's autonomy should be one of the basic ground rules if you wanna have a trusting and effective business relationship. Well, that means that you don't discriminate and harass other individuals. There aren't any second-class citizens in business would be another way to say it. So tell us a little bit about what you found in that article about how the ethical climate at various levels can actually affect both the occurrence of and the response to sexual harassment.
19:12 Ann Tenbrunsel: Yeah, so we were asked to write this... This includes Tina Dickman and McKenzie Reese. About five months before the Me Too movement.
19:20 Cindy Moehring: Wow.
19:21 Ann Tenbrunsel: We were given two years, so it was interesting to read the 300 or so articles that we read, going all the way back as far as we could find about sexual harassment in the midst of all of the revelations that were coming out about sexual harassment. So what we noticed is certainly there were factors that contribute to the...
19:48 Ann Tenbrunsel: Committing of sexual harassment, but also the observation of sexual harassment, but then as we went through it we realized there was quite a tight connection, in our minds, to the blind spots that we just discovered. And just to discuss a few of them, there certainly can be ethical fading by the harasser. It doesn't excuse their behavior. Now, just because you're not seeing it as something wrong doesn't mean you're not responsible or accountable for the harassment, but we know, at least through some of the research, for example, males don't code sexual harassment in the same way women do. And so if you look at the most typical, which is a male in higher power sexually harassing a woman of lower power, part of it may be that they're coding the harassment different, and I think you see a lot of the training focused on that, right? Trying to get people to recognize what are the various... All the way from micro-aggressions, right, all the way up to sexual assault.
20:44 Cindy Moehring: Right.
20:45 Ann Tenbrunsel: But that wasn't the only piece of the puzzle we thought, and that is that victims and observers... And observers are really important and really are seen as key to stopping sexual harassment for a variety of reasons, often don't see the harassment for what it is either, which is akin to motivated blindness. So for victims, there's an interesting... Disturbing but interesting theory out of the domestic violence literature, betrayal blindness, which says, "It's really hard for me to admit that someone that I love, that I care, or that I'm dependent on is actually doing something to me." That doesn't fit any of those, 'cause... "What I think of them as." So, the same thing can be true of victims, and that is, is that it's very difficult sometimes for me to see it. It's also very difficult for observers to see it if it's not in their best interest to see it. So if it is someone that has resources in your organization, my own boss... So, interesting research in the abuse of supervision literature that says, "When someone else in my work group is being abused, I actually step away from it because I don't wanna be the next target." And I don't know if we do that consciously, right?
21:58 Cindy Moehring: Right.
21:58 Ann Tenbrunsel: And we may not be aware it's a protection of the self, right? And some of that kind of fear often leads us to doing things that we don't even recognize that we're doing. And then I think at the organizational level one of the biggest problems, and we saw this again and again, is the legal focus on sexual harassment. It seems a legal issue, not an ethical issue, as many others have argued, that creates a situation where really the university or the organization is aligned, their interests are aligned, with the harasser and making this go away, versus with the victim. And I think part of the problem is we don't see it as an ethical issue, so I don't think about the harm that's being done to them, everyone around them, and I would argue there's an effect then on ethical behavior. That's just...
22:47 Cindy Moehring: Sure.
22:47 Ann Tenbrunsel: Right? So if I see people being mistreated, that then lends itself to other forms of mistreatment that may not be sexual harassment.
22:54 Cindy Moehring: The other thing that I wanted to ask you about is, you also mentioned that things like the slippery slope could facilitate sexual harassment, so what is that? Tell us what that's all about.
23:06 Ann Tenbrunsel: Yeah, so there's a lot of research that shows we don't pay attention to those small ones, the jokes, the leering, there's a sexual severity scale, those would be kind of considered to be the least severe. And just like unethical behavior, where you don't pay attention to, "Oh well, they over-charged by a 100 on their expense report, I'm sure that was fine." Then that 100 becomes acceptable, and then all we need to do is take a little bit of a step and not a very discernible one, and then it's 125, and then it's 150, and there's so many examples of the slippery slope of unethical behavior. And the research seemed to suggest, and we hypothesize that the same thing is true with sexual harassment, that is that it doesn't start out with sexual assault, sometimes it does, please don't get me wrong in that.
23:53 Cindy Moehring: Right, right, right, right.
23:54 Ann Tenbrunsel: It starts out a little bit, being asked over, being asked to stay late, hand on the knee, and that... It's hard for us to discern small changes in behavior. And before we know it now it's so far, but then there's always the fear that, "Will I look like I was complicit in those smaller steps?"
24:15 Cindy Moehring: Right, right. Which is another reason I think that it should be viewed as an ethical issue and not just a legal issue, because some of those actions may fall on the not legally actionable side of the equation, but it's still behavior that if you can nip in the bud early enough, you can hopefully prevent it ever getting to the legally actionable side of the equation.
24:35 Ann Tenbrunsel: Absolutely, absolutely. And then the other problem with the legal focus is the NDAs, right? So when you have an NDA, no one in the organization knows, so it looks like a weak response, so it says, "I'd never go up through all the trouble of reporting, and the retaliation, potentially, if nothing's going to happen." And the point is an NDA doesn't allow you to tell it, but more disturbing to us was this notion of pass the harasser, if there's an NDA, the next organization or university that hires you has no idea. And I think one university, and I was trying to remember what it was, somebody just sent it to me, now I think it's part of your employment, you have to list whether you were ever charged with or investigated for. So they're trying to... 'cause it's become somewhat of a known problem, at least in academia.
25:19 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, how interesting. And that's just a manifestation of a problem I think that exists in some corporations for poor performance as well. Instead of giving the kind of feedback you should be giving and addressing problems when they arise, it might be easier and some might argue unethical to simply not recognize it but give the person a hint enough that they're really not meeting the standard they need to be, so that they then go find another job and essentially you're just passing the poor performance, which can keep organizations from getting better.
25:52 Ann Tenbrunsel: Exactly.
25:53 Cindy Moehring: This would be a similar manifestation to that, you just... It's another example, if you will, of kinda willful blindness, you know, but you're purposely not knowing...
26:01 Ann Tenbrunsel: Exactly.
26:01 Cindy Moehring: So that just becomes a problem you don't have to deal with, but then somebody else will have to deal with, which isn't good for any of us.
26:07 Ann Tenbrunsel: No, right.
26:08 Cindy Moehring: Yeah [laughter]
26:08 Ann Tenbrunsel: Yeah, exactly. Well the more you can see it as an ethical issue, "This is not how we treat people." And in fact...
26:14 Cindy Moehring: Right.
26:15 Ann Tenbrunsel: A few papers we have, we posit and find support for the notion that a climate for ethics certainly contributes to unethical behavior, but so does a climate of justice and a climate of respect, independently. And so if you aren't respecting people, and the process isn't just, by which we file complaints, then it's... Contributes to unethical behavior as well.
26:39 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, yeah.
26:39 Ann Tenbrunsel: So you think about those... To me, it's interesting to think about those three pieces. Right.
26:44 Cindy Moerhing: Yeah, yeah.
26:44 Ann Tenbrunsel: Ethics, justice and respect. Obviously overlapping.
26:48 Cindy Moehring: Right. Absolutely. Well, respect is one of those hyper-norms that... They say that all individuals actually share. And despite other disagreements lower down, if you can communicate on that level, even sort of implicitly in the way you act in an organization then people will see that there is respect for the individual. And it kinda sets this higher ethical plane. And organizational justice, there's a lot written about that as well, that sometimes it's about the process, right? Not necessarily the outcome.
27:17 Ann Tenbrunsel: Exactly.
27:17 Cindy Moehring: It's about the process and whether or not it was just and whether or not it was fair.
27:21 Ann Tenbrunsel: Right. And then there's the third form. So it's distributive right. What outcome did I get? Process. Was it a fair evaluation process using that as an example. And then... Inter-personally, sort of, how I was treated during it.
27:33 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, and all of those go together to really, in my opinion, having an effective practice. So we've talked a lot about where we are today, and boy, have you added a lot to the field with all of the behavioral ethics and the psychology side of it. And I think there are lots of tips in there that individuals and organizations can use to improve. But if you had a crystal ball and were able now to look into the future and say... What do you think that business ethics ought to really focus on to deal with the challenges we can't even see in front of us right now, but we surely know it's disruptive in the business world and is gonna become more so with technology? What do you think those three things ought to be or the three words that we should define business ethics by, in the future to get it right?
28:18 Ann Tenbrunsel: Well, originally I'd written remedies and interventions, 'cause I think we've done... Have gone far in identifying kind of being aware of the obstacles, identifying more obstacles over the last 25 years, and we're starting to move into remedies. But as I was thinking further about it, particularly in the time we find ourselves in the other word that came to mind is vigilance. There's a lot of compliance officers that I've talked to that are worried with everything that's going on ethics is taking a back seat.
28:46 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
28:48 Ann Tenbrunsel: There's a lot to do right now, so I'm a little afraid the guard has been let down. And further, we know when people are in the red, when they're facing a domain of losses that we're more likely to utilize risky strategies, which can include unethical behavior.
29:04 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
29:05 Ann Tenbrunsel: And so... I think my very first word would be vigilance. We have to continue to find ways to identify when there are unethical actions that are occurring. And that again, increasingly involves the use of observers, focus groups. I always say talk to your new people because you just indoctrinated them with your norms, and they're the first ones because they're not... They haven't become desensitized to say, "Hey, this isn't what I learned about in training."
29:36 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
29:38 Ann Tenbrunsel: And just constantly ask, "How are we doing? Where do you think we're going wrong? What is our biggest blind spot?" What language euphemisms do we use here? That's a very useful exercise.
29:47 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, you're right. Yep.
29:48 Ann Tenbrunsel: But all those will help in the vigilance aspect.
29:50 Cindy Moehring: I like that.
29:51 Ann Tenbrunsel: And then I think the research needs to... So vigilance on the part of those in the compliance function...
29:58 Cindy Moehring: Yea.
29:59 Ann Tenbrunsel: And... Are continuing to identify remedies in the research, and that can be useful to organizations once they find the unethical behavior.
30:08 Cindy Moehring: That's great. Okay, so did I miss one? Vigilance...
30:12 Ann Tenbrunsel: Well, remedies.
30:14 Cindy Moehring: Remedies.
30:16 Ann Tenbrunsel: But I had remedies and interventions.
30:17 Cindy Moerhing: And interventions...
30:17 Ann Tenbrunselg: So remedies would be maybe what we uncover through research and then interventions or something that's takes that to you eventually.
30:22 Cindy Moehring: Yes. I like it. Those are all really good, and the reason why I think that makes so much sense is they're all very practical. Right. So if the criticism many years ago as it was too theoretical and philosophical, I think we've come a long way in identifying what are some of the practical problems, what are the root causes. And then, okay, how do we apply these practical solutions for the future? And being vigilant about that is one of the main things. And then being willing and having the courage to intervene when the research leads you to what the remedy should be, you actually have to then go... Put it into action.
30:59 Ann Tenbrunsel: Absolutely, absolutely.
31:01 Cindy Moehring: So yeah. Those are great, Ann. Thank you you very much. And so I wanna end on something fun for everyone. During this time, we know that we've been all kind of cooped up with COVID going on and it's still going on, so hopefully you've had time to maybe do a little more reading or watching something on television. A movie or a TV series. Have you read anything that was both interesting and fun and kind of a release for you, but still had just an incredible ethical dilemma embedded in it?
31:31 Ann Tenbrunsel: So in the last year, I've read Bad Blood which if you have read it is just amazing, and certainly that trial will be ongoing. And this... The author of that actually came to speak at Notre Dame as well. And so...
31:45 Cindy Moehring: Really, I bet that was fascinating.
31:47 Ann Tenbrunsel: Really shows many of the aspects, I think, that we identify in the book. Many... It was almost like every page I wanted to put a notation, as an example of.
31:56 Cindy Moehring: I know... Yeah.
31:57 Ann Tenbrunsel: We're... Notre Dame in our Business School, we have kind of an Ethics and Technology book club. So now I'm reading The Ethical Algorithm, which is actually really... It's written by theoretical physicists or computational professors. And they even state that. And it's really easy to understand...
32:20 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
32:20 Ann Tenbrunsel: And really talks about the data. So I'm not that far into it, but so far, I've really enjoyed that. And then my husband and I... We've actually haven't watched a TV series together since The Sopranos. Just finished Ozark.
32:34 Cindy Moehring: Oh, yes.
32:35 Ann Tenbrunsel: And three seasons. That's not just one ethical dilemma, every minute is an ethical... Do you protect family, do you pay attention to yourself even within your family and the ends justify the means... So much... And is really really... Great acting. And the person that plays Ruth won the... What is it? The Grammy or the Oscar. Whatever the award is for a TV show.
32:58 Cindy Moehring: Oh yeah... Is it Emmys? I think it's the Emmys for TV. That's news... Is it the Emmys. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, we love that one. And the only one negative, there's lots of them... The only problem is with COVID, they've not been able to tape...
33:10 Ann Tenbrunsel: I know.
33:10 Cindy Moehring: A lot of addition shows... So all of us who've been voraciously watching these series are gonna have to wait longer for the next series to come out for some of those. But...
33:19 Ann Tenbrunsel: Exactly.
33:19 Cindy Moerhing: Anybody who hasn't caught up, my son was recently watching Ozark and he's off at college. And when I called him one time and I asked him what he was doing, he's like, "Well, I'm in the middle of Ozark, Mom. I gotta go."
[laughter]
33:30 Ann Tenbrunsel: Can I call you back?
33:32 Cindy Moehring: Can I call you back?
33:34 Cindy Moehring: Well, Ann, this has been fabulous, thank you for your time today and sharing your knowledge and wisdom and insights, that was... It's been... Really a treat. I appreciate it, thank you very much.
33:44 Ann Tenbrunsel: Well, thank you for the invite for all you're doing to bring your practical knowledge with theoretical knowledge and connections to help us, further, hopefully the good work we're doing in this field.
33:56 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. Well, I enjoy it very much. It's a passion and a love, I think, for all of us in the field. So it's something you share. Alright, well, thanks very much. We'll talk again soon.
34:06 Ann Tenbrunsel: Alright, thank you, Cindy.
34:08 Cindy Moehring: Okay. Bye.
Cindy Moehring is the founder and executive chair of the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative
at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. She recently
retired from Walmart after 20 years, where she served as senior vice president, Global
Chief Ethics Officer, and senior vice president, U.S. Chief Ethics and Compliance
Officer.
