It’s our fault that Martha Stewart and Bernie Madoff committed crimes. That was the most surprising thing I learned at the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) Compliance & Ethics Institute last week. I learned that from Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Stewart, who talked about the tendency of role models to commit white collar crime and the reasons they do. As it turns out, it’s because they get away with it, Stewart says. Bernie Madoff, Martha Stewart, Barry Bonds, and many of the other high-profile figures who have been caught, did what they did because they could. They had loyal people around them who lied for them and protected them.

Loveable Villains

In a similar vein, a panel to discuss why we find the bad guy so likeable comprised a television producer, a Hollywood movie director and a bestselling author. They explained how they create likeable villains by making them charming but flawed.

Think “The Great Gatsby” after whom my villainous but loveable cat is named. Homer Simpson is despicable, yet loveable. We loved to hate Archie Bunker, and we are rooting for the drug-cooking teacher in Breaking Bad. We love to love the underdog and excuse his or her behavior, no matter how heinous, if he or she is charming and likeable.

Face-to-Face is King

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Another theme running through the conference was the personal element of compliance and ethics, and the importance of relationships in building an ethical culture. In his blog post Put Boots on the Ground to Build Relationships, attorney Tom Fox highlighted his main takeaway from the conference, which was that face-to-face is king.

The compliance practitioner has to get out of the office and into the field, he wrote. “Online training is certainly a useful tool for large multi-national organizations but nothing beats in person training. Compliance officers need to get out and develop relationships so that employees will be more open to helping them keep the company running in a compliant manner.”

Ethical Decision Making

A thought-provoking session led by Rick Crosser, PhD, outlined some of the barriers to ethical behavior, starting with a historical look at ethics. He showed an experiment where participants were pressured to shock a victim, and surprisingly caved to the pressure to continue long after they were comfortable with the level of pain they were inflicting.

He then went on to illustrate some difficult and painful (as well as deadly) ethics decisions made by groups of mountain climbers, concluding that good leadership and the right group mentality are keys to ethical decision-making.

Two takeaways from Crosser’s session: beware of unjust authority and know and practice the right thing to do.

Blogging Fodder

On the less philosophical side, I attended practical sessions on privacy and security in the cloud, ethical leadership, investigation interview risks, whistleblowing, investigation report writing and social media risks, all of which delivered solid information for building some helpful blog posts over the next few weeks. Stay tuned.