Do High Performers Pose Greater Risk?

As we approach year-end, many organizations are conducting performance evaluations and are allocating the bonus pool accordingly. During the performance review process, low performers garner a lot of negative attention. Indeed, one of the more widely recognized red flags in efforts to identify fraud risk is disenfranchised employees, often a subset of the low performer pool. But what if we told you that the opposite may be true and it is high performers who pose a disproportionate amount of organizational risk?

In most organizations, there is a pretty large cultural divide between the rainmakers in an organization and legal and compliance who are often referred to as “overhead” or the “business prevention department”. How important is it to root out danger signs of a cultural divide and how should organizations tackle negativity or other indicators that signal leadership is tacitly endorsing their rainmakers to make their own rules?

In some organizations, their high performers may believe they can act with “impunity” and that they feel as though they have a “moral license” to financial rewards. Often, high performers aren’t just motivated by the financial rewards. In fact, many have already achieved a great deal of financial success and their actions may be driven by other factors such as the desire for power and the accolades that come with being a rainmaker.

And try to imagine the conversation in which it is suggested that the organization should put guardrails around in the most successful rainmakers. It may not be met with an enthusiastic response from leadership. And yet, everyone in the organization has to be held to the same ethical standards no matter how important to the organization’s success they may be. What are some approaches to ensure that high performers don’t allow their drive to succeed to cross ethical boundaries and ignore obvious danger signs of corruption or fraud?

Hear the answers to these any other thought-provoking questions in a discussion with Frontline Anti-Bribery CEO and compliance subject matter expert Richard Bistrong here.

To watch the video version, click here.