Looking At Where We Are Lacking: The OECD, Integrity, and Honest Discussions on Corruption

Finally.

An open, honest, sometimes uncomfortable, conversation about corruption and integrity at an institution genuinely committed to doing something about it...after all, it is called the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (We can’t do a whole lot of cooperating and developing if we’re not holding ourselves to high standard of ethics, now, can we? ??[ Or maybe we can, but we would be kicking our own feet out from beneath us if we are just going to build card houses, ready to topple over the with the first gust of audit winds.]). 

I spent two days (agenda) in one of my absolute favourite cities, Paris, drinking far too much delicious tiny French coffee, attending meeting after meeting, session after session at the OECD Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum titled “Planet Integrity: Building a Fairer Society.” Simply put, the meeting of nearly 2000 people was meant to create a forum to debate how integrity can "cultivate a level playing field for business, reduces socio-economic inequalities, and make public policies more effective- enhancing the benefits of globalization for all.” It was a place to share ideas, shape policies, and learn from the best out there working their way towards creating a more integrity-filled and fair world. 

And, though it can be hard to summarize two whole days of information sharing, chats, and events in just one article, I want to share a few of the “golden nuggets” of information I found to be highly sharable, important, and relevant. 

• I’ll start with a positive. Though the conference was on a theme that can seem gloomy and doomy, thanks to academics and psychological studies (presented during the panel on “Ethical Superhumans? Behavioural Insights for Integrity”) we (happily) found out that humans are NOT inherently bad and unethical………at least not most of us! PHEW! ?? 
• Despite this, in certain circumstances, we do make bad decisions and mistakes, and leaders are not at all immune. Additionally, we have an unfortunate tendency to over-estimate our own goodness, thinking we are often much more honest than those around us, which studies have proved, is simply not the case. It turns out, that we tend to hyper-inflate our own positive values, and often excuse our own bad behaviour with rationalizing and special language choice post-decision (“It’s not ’tax evasion!’ It’s ‘creative accounting!'' ??). Oops. Of course, when this happens at the leadership level, the implications are massive.
• On a global level, issues linked to this kind of bad decision making, lack of integrity and corruption have lead to a massive decline in public trust in politics and public institutions...and in leadership in general. A Global Shapers World Economic Forum survey recently found what the OECD echoed as well: corruption is the issue most commonly pointed to as the cause of more serious concerns, including gross inequalities in society.
• Traditional approaches to institutions - especially public institutions - are failing with far too much focus being placed on the institutions themselves (from a "structures and approaches" perspective), often ignoring the basics of how people make decisions (aka. the "human factor"). I was nodding my head like crazy when this was being explained on stage, because, coincidentally, this is precisely why the movement to #StartWithin was started: it stemmed from an insider's understanding that our institutions and ways of being are fundamentally out-dated and often broken, and since people are the ones who built the institutions, it is indeed the people who have the power to mend and rebuild them, by starting within. I only spent 5 years in public service, but it was enough to come to this realization. Certainly this news was no shock to me, and judging by the uncomfortable laughter in the room, and nods of agreement — I was not alone. 
• In order to function in good societies, and a good global community, we need to build trust between the people and institutions. I heard the perfect quote, and gosh I wish I wrote it down! For you, I’ll try to paraphrase, and I hope someone will correct me if they know better. Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the European Commission, was at the podium during Opening Remarks. He was speaking about the social contract we “sign” with our governments as citizens of a country. You may remember from history or philosophy class what the social contract is. It’s quite simple - we, as citizens of our democracies, have agreed to give up certain limited rights and privileges, and pay agreed-upon expenses in exchange for services provided to us by our governments, which we often can not provide for ourselves as individuals. Those services are things like protection and security (provided by our militaries, police and legal institutions), governance, healthcare, and a general rule of law, that we hope will create more peace, cohesion, and regularity in our societies. The trouble is, these days many people around the world are feeling that this contract has been violated, or not fully fulfilled by the "higher-ups.”  Essentially, many people feel leaders don’t play fair, are cutting corners, not acting with integrity, and often, are partially or totally corrupt. Trust is broken, and citizens everywhere are calling foul, looking to leaders to fix the problem; or looking to other means to have the problems resolved. If the public sector wants to remain relevant, and truly serve it’s populations, it’s going to have to work hard to regain trust. 

Essentially, many people feel leaders don’t play fair, are cutting corners, not acting with integrity, and often, are partially or totally corrupt. Trust is broken, and citizens everywhere are calling foul, looking to leaders to fix the problem; or looking to other means to have the problems resolved.

• The rise of “isms” is here, precisely because of the failure I mentioned. The direct counter-action to a loss of trust in our politics and politicians? A rise in nationalism, protectionism, and radicalism- and all kinds of anti-diversity, anti-globalization “isms.” And I don't think we can be too surprised. Historically, we have seen that when we don’t know where to turn for trust-worthy leadership; when things we don’t understand can feel like a threat; and when we feel like we are deliberately not being told the full story in our "own language" at our own level of understanding, we crave safety and security, and people who will speak frankly, as well as lead differently. We can often find this security in people and groups which tell us that this is precisely what they will provide, by swinging in the opposite direction of what we are seeing as problematic. The trouble is that there is no guarantee that these people and groups aren’t corrupt either, however. 
• So where do we begin? A big part of the solution to all of this is education. We need to start educating for anti-corruption and integrity; to ensure our leaders are the responsible representatives we expect them to be (but genuinely, I believe an education in integrity is good for everyone). Currently, we don’t educate for integrity and anti-corruption nearly enough -or not at all.
• Corporations seem to be slightly ahead of the curve when it comes to educating and creating real change in some ways with corporate compliance programs ensuring integrity and big changes taking place in corporate culture towards one which cares about ethics, sustainability, and things like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (a grouping of goals created at the UN level to address some of the world's most pressing issues). Alison Taylor, Managing Director, Business for Social Responsibility, spoke about her work with business leaders, and how her and her team are helping move the dial towards a world where the private sector is a force for good. This approach is founded heavily in the principles outlined in the SDGs, and sees businesses as collaborators in creating a more just and fair world. These sorts of examples, while noble and effective, however, are not yet wide-spread enough to address this larger global concern. What they do is properly set the tone, and the public sector would be wise to learn from the example and follow suit.

"Often, the assumption is that only the “really corrupt” countries need to educate about integrity. But this is an issue for everyone – from the perceived least corrupt to the most.” 

• Fortunately, the OECD is actively working on remedying the issue on a broader level. I spoke to Carissa Munro of the OECD, who stated: "When we talk about preventing corruption, one of the statements we often hear is “we must start with the youth”. It’s a no-brainer, really: if we start educating for integrity and anti-corruption with the youngest of our society, then the corruption prevention work will be sustainable. That is why at the OECD, we developed a resource book on educating for integrity. This book – Education for Integrity: Teaching on anti-corruption, values and the rule of law – aims to provide policy makers and educators with guidance on how to design and implement material on educating for integrity. This is a resource book for everyone –  for both our OECD member and non-member countries.” She continues, "Often, the assumption is that only the “really corrupt” countries need to educate about integrity. But this is an issue for everyone – from the perceived least corrupt to the most. All have a responsibility to use education to empower their young people with the knowledge, skills and behaviours to challenge corruption and unethical behaviour.” 
• Interestingly, even though there was an entire panel focused on the education of youth, the conclusions rang clear across the board that YES we must educate the young, but the work should truly be cross-generational, educating both the young and the more seasoned leaders to understand truly what this realm of ethics is all about, and why it is important. The OECD will be playing a strong role in doing such work, adding that "Moving forward, we will continue supporting countries to educate for integrity, developing the tools and sharing the good practices to enable policy makers, educators and youth to be integrity champions.” Of course, this is great news!
• Lastly, a theme that was clear and heard across sectors: ALL SECTORS NEED TO WORK WITH YOUTH….but unfortunately, don’t seem to know exactly how. I heard many leaders (including OECD Secretary General Angel Guria and Prime Minister of Iceland, Katrin Jakobsdottir) mention how elections and success of programs these days largely fail or succeed because of their inclusion of or lack of inclusion of youth (which make up over 1/3 of the global population by the way!). Leaders understand this in theory, but have difficulty truly engaging with youth in practice, and struggle to build trust with a sometimes distrusting group of younger generations (Gen X & Gen Y at the moment). Leaders need to find forums for hearing youth concerns and working with them effectively to build trust. There are many ways to go about this and I provide a few suggestions on where to start, here. 

All in all, what I got from the Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum was this: we are really just properly beginning to discuss this complex topic in an open way, and it can certainly be scary, unchartered territory for some. What we are seeing already though are some great examples to be replicated, and the forum is a great place to share these kinds of innovations, and allow positive influence to occur. To me, this is all the more reason to keep the conversation open. 

This year the Forum attendee list was almost at the 2000 people mark, with leaders from all three sectors (private, public, and not for profit) in attendance. The OECD’s goal is to build a community and annual gathering that grows in numbers and effectiveness of action. Personally, I am excited to see this happen and I can’t imagine a type of leader who wouldn’t benefit from being present to these kinds of discussions and learnings. 

After all, we all need to check in with ourselves and our actions and frankly assess if we are doing our work with honesty, integrity, and in service of others (truly). If we are to be “public servants,” or “leaders” we need to keep those we serve and lead in the front of our minds. Working towards integrity and anti-corruption, I believe means just that. 

People. Honesty. Integrity. First. 

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ALL THE OTHER DETAILS

MY AGENDA

• Day 1: Arrival in Paris, Hotel Check-In, work from cafe, outreach to people I want to meet with at the OECD Forum, confirming meetings, sight seeing
• Day 2: Day 1 of OECD Forum, networking, work from cafe 
• Day 3: Meeting with the Head of Mission of the Embassy of Canada to France, Day 2 of OECD Forum, networking, evening meeting with an old friend
• Day 4: Hotel Check-Out, morning/early afternoon work from cafe, depart Paris

The formal agenda: https://www.oecd.org/corruption/integrity-forum/agenda/

NOTABLE SPEAKERS

• Angel Guria - OECD Secretary General 
• Erna Solberg - Prime Minister of Norway
• Gabriela Michetti - Vice-President of Argentina
• Katrin Jakobsdottir - Prime Minister of Iceland
• Frans Timmermans - First Vice-President of the European Commission, and many, many more...

LEARN MORE

• Follow the OECD and subscribe to their social media channels: https://www.oecd.org/social-media/
• Request an invitation to the 2018 OECD Forum in May: https://www.oecd.org/forum/registration/
• The OECD Report titled "Education for Integrity: Teaching on anti-corruption, values and the rule of law" - https://www.oecd.org/governance/ethics/education-for-integrity-web.pdf
• The OECD Report Titled "Behavioural Insights for Public Integrity" - https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/behavioural-insights-for-public-integrity-9789264297067-en.htm
• For regular updates from me, sign up for my newsletter here
• For more on my travels and work, feel free to follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

UPCOMING ARTICLES

“From Animosity to Inclusion: Why the Private Sector MUST Be Involved in Matters of Public Policy” (Expected Release: May 2018)

"Reflection on The OECD Forum" (Expected Release: June 2018)

What do you want to read more about? Submit your ideas here.  

**PLEASE NOTE: I am in no way affiliated with the OECD, nor do I promote any of the work or people referred to in this article. I simply wish to share my experiences. All opinions stated here are my own.