A couple of weeks ago, Tamara and I had the privilege of speaking to Jonathan Taylor, a whistleblower whose world was turned upside down when he exposed his employer for paying bribes to secure contracts in the oil and gas industry.
Jonathan was an in-house lawyer for SBM Offshore, a Dutch company that makes floating platforms for the offshore energy industry. He discovered evidence that bribes were being paid and blew the whistle. SBM was found guilty of bribery, ordered to pay $827 million in fines, and two of its former CEOs were prosecuted, fined and given jail sentences.
It is one of the biggest whistleblowing cases we’ve ever seen, and it played out over 10 years. But SBM – despite having been found guilty – went after Jonathan, in what seems to me like a series of personal or vengeful attacks, and are still doing so.
There is so much to this story, and if you haven’t listened to the podcast episode where we talk to Jonathan, you can find it here: SBM Offshore: Corporate Corruption, Whistleblowing, and the Fight for Justice.
The thing I find fascinating is the implications for corporate culture. If someone within your organisation finds evidence of wrongdoing, and reports it, how do you respond? I’d like to think most companies – at least those with proper governance structures in place – would want to do the right thing, even if they want to do it as quietly as possible.
One of the things Jonathan talks about is the danger of a culture of paying bribes, to the point where it’s almost seen as acceptable within an organisation. You could apply this to anything – the point is any modern organisation has to have a robust compliance process where employees feel safe to report wrongdoing of any kind, without having their lives destroyed in the way his was.
As Jonathan says, no-one should have to go to the SEC to report something; there should be a reporting structure within the organisation. That way, in his words, “There would be no headlines, no billion-dollar fines, no prison sentences – because the company would be handling the matter properly from the outset.”
And this is at the heart of resilience. If you could prevent the crisis in the first place, why wouldn’t you do that?
Unless, of course, you have no intention of changing.
The real test of a company’s values is in how it handles a crisis of its own making. Attempting to destroy someone who’s exposed your illegal behaviour tells its own story.
