Compliance Or Obedience? It Comes Down To Management Style

In a previous article (Management Today, 01 May 2010), we briefly considered the issue of compliance

and the fundamental requirement for a culture of compliance in today's corporate world. In this follow-up article we address more specifically the question of what compliance is and how the management style of business leaders can either nurture or stifle it. Specifically, the important distinction between a culture of compliance and one of obedience is considered.

Semantically, the terms compliance and obedience are sometimes used interchangeably, while operationally managers often tend to think that the one is the same as the other. This can have far-reaching consequences for both employee morale and the capacity of the organisation to meet (or better, to comply with) ethical and value requirements. At the outset, it is therefore necessary to understand clearly the distinction between compliance and obedience.

Simply defined, obedience refers to one's willingness to obey the instructions of authority figures. Depending upon the individual and the context, the representation of authority may take the form of a uniformed police officer, a stern parent, a priest, or a boss/manager. Interestingly, persons who tend to be obedient to one form of authority also tend to be obedient to other authority figures and, conversely, those who habitually challenge a particular authority figure (e.g. a parent) may also be motivated to challenge other manifestations of authority, such as a boss. In principle, this makes it possible to predict how a particular individual will respond to authority figures in the workplace, but this intriguing issue will have to hold off for a future article.

The dynamics and social significance of obedience remained largely unquestioned until the early 1960s, when social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a now famous set of experiments designed to determine the degree to which 'ordinary' persons could be persuaded by an authority figure to engage in acts that defied their own morals and values. The original motivation for Milgram's study was to shed light on the validity of claims by war criminals that their actions constituted necessary obedience to command authority which left them with little or no freedom of action. By having research subjects believe that they were administering potentially lethal electric shocks to other subjects, Milgram demonstrated that under specific social conditions individuals may demonstrate blind obedience to a voice of authority, particularly if that voice reassures them that their actions are condoned and necessary.

Translated into workplace settings, the implications of Milgram's findings are that managers and other authority figures can exert considerable social and psychological influence over employees, even to the point of persuading them to engage in acts that are unethical, illegal or simply against the values of the organization and its shareholders. A striking example that I use to illustrate this is the case of a middle-aged bank clerk who for a period of several years chose to remain silent about a manager's blatant pilfering of an account because the manager repeatedly instructed him not to say anything about it and assured him that there was nothing untoward happening. Importantly, after the irregularities were exposed, the clerk explained that the institution emphasised the importance of obeying authority and it was frowned upon for an employee to circumvent his or her direct line manager if problems were encountered. This was confirmed by several other employees, who indicated that they would probably have acted in the same way had they been in the position of the clerk.

This is a classic example of how an emphasis on obedience can directly and indirectly expose an organisation to financial, legal and operational risk. I was however stunned when in presenting these findings to the board of the organisation, a senior executive grumbled that “obedience is an essential part of our culture and without it employees will think that they can get away with anything”. It took considerable explanation to bring home the point that what the organization required was a culture of compliance, not one of obedience.

The key distinction between the two cultures is that while obedience involves a blind and unthinking willingness to obey, compliance is focused on doing what is right or, in situations where it may be unclear what the right course of action may be, elevating the problem to a higher level of authority. While a culture of obedience is therefore little more than a set of rules-driven imperatives that leave employees with little freedom to think for themselves, a culture of compliance is focused on principles that are aimed at protecting the ethical health of the organisation and its stakeholders. If obedience seeks to turn employees into unquestioning disciples of authority figures within the organization, compliance seeks to develop employees into personal custodians of organisational values. This creates an environment within which employees have the freedom to act on a principled basis, even when they may be instructed to do otherwise. Not surprisingly, research consistently demonstrates that institutions that nurture compliance over obedience also have fewer problems with fraud, corruption and other negative behaviour on the part of both managers and employees. The problem with obedience is, principally, that it leaves persons vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. In some cases it also encourages, in subtle but powerful ways, employees to rebel against authority, leading to a “when the cat's away the mice will play” culture that can be seriously counter-productive.

Understanding that obedience is not the holy grail of the workplace is one matter, but ensuring that it is replaced with an emphasis on compliance is more challenging that it may seem to be. In the first instance, it requires managers that are willing to sacrifice control for compliance. Managers that are emotionally invested in rigid discipline may react adversely to employees who appear to question instructions or even to employees who simply show a capacity to think for themselves. This can result in a syndrome characterised by chronic disappointment on the part of both managers and employees, with obvious impact on job performance. On the other hand, managers who feel secure in providing employees with the key principles and issuing reassuring guidance along the way are far more likely to become gatekeepers to compliant employees and divisions. Even in cases where the firm exercise of authority and discipline is called for, referring employees to principles rather than rules is consistently a preferred option.

Secondly, for compliance to be effective the values of an organisation need to be explicit and reflected in the form of clear and consistent principles. Put simply, it is difficult to comply with principles if they are vague, implicit or contradictory.

In the next article, I will introduce a concept and model that I have developed called 'the Frame', which  provides organisations with a tool to promote and sustain compliance and ethical behaviour among employees and executives.