Creating ethical cultures in business | Brooke Deterline | TEDxPresidio

As Corporate Director for the Heroic Imagination Project (HIP), Brooke helps boards, executives, and teams at all levels develop the skills to act with courage and ingenuity in the face of challenging situations. This fosters leadership credibility and candor, builds trust, engagement and reduces risk.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.

So I got an e-mail last week
from the conference organizer;

it said, "Good news!
You're going after Van Jones."

(Laughter)

I thought, "In whose alternate universe
is it a good thing to follow Van?"

(Laughter)

And then I remembered
I'm here to talk about courage:

our ability to act from our hearts
in the face of fear.

And courage as a skill
that we can build with practice,

so thank you for this tremendous
opportunity to practice.

(Laughter)

First, let's take a look at
what does life look like without courage.

(Video) The Enron fraud is the story
of synergistic corruption.

There are supposed to be checks
and balances in the system.

The lawyers are supposed to say no,
the accountants are supposed to say no,

the bankers are supposed to say no,

but no one who was supposed
to say no said no.

(On stage) So, has anything changed
in the last 10 years?

And, please, raise your hands
when you've had enough.

(Laughter)

Yeah, me too.

And it doesn't have to be this way.

What if the people in these circumstances
had the courage and the skills

to act on their values
in the face of fear?

I met a man who did in exactly
one of those types of circumstances.

We'll call him Ted.

He found an illegal trading ring
in his department,

and he didn't know what to do,
so he did nothing.

As the days passed and the stress built,
he decided he would have to quit.

He confided in his friend
in another department,

and his friend said to him,

"If you went into the system,
could you find the program?"

And Ted said, "Yes."

His friend said,
"Then you have no choice."

What Ted says is he was reminded
of who he was, of his values,

in that moment, reflected by his friend.

So he came forward, and justice prevailed.

I had my own subtle experience
with powerful situations.

I was working for a company,

and I found out the CEO was doing
something unethical and illegal.

So I called a meeting with my boss,
the CFO, and his other direct reports

in a scenario that looked
shockingly like this Stock photo.

(Laughter)

I went to deliver the news,
and I knew he would struggle.

Although a very ethically driven man,
the CEO is also a good friend of his.

So I delivered the news,
and he looked at me and said,

"I think we should do some more
research and give it a little time."

I was so dumbstruck by the answer
that everything went into slow motion

like it did when I was a kid
playing soccer.

I looked around, and everyone
has their head down or is slowly nodding.

I was so perplexed!

I know these people, they're good people,

and the last thing you want to do
is to put more time

between when you know and when you say
in a circumstance like this.

So I was confused,

but the humbling part of the story for me
is then my thought process goes to,

"Maybe we don't have to do anything.

Maybe it isn't such a big deal.

I don't even have to say anything."

And then I was given a gift:

the CFO was called
out of the room for a minute,

and in that moment, I remembered,
"This is one of those moments.

This man hired me
because he believed in me;

he believed I would do my job

and act on our shared values
when it was hard."

So he came back into the room,
I stepped back into time, and I said,

"We should go to the Board."

He paused, and he looked at me,
and he nodded.

And we did.

But what I will never forget

is that I am and we all are vulnerable

to situational influence all the time;

it's just natural human wiring.

This is from our founder
Dr. Phil Zimbardo.

He found this out in 1971

when he conducted the famous
Stanford Prison Experiment

that showed that even the most ethical
and compassionate among us

can easily betray our values
in the face of a challenging situation.

I won't make you
raise your hands for this one,

but think back over the last six months.

How many of you have been in a situation

where you thought, "Someone should do
something, or I should say something."

And think of the subtle ones

because those are often
the ones that get us,

and you and no one else did anything.

It's natural,

it's a natural human tendency
to be a bystander,

to follow a leader or a group
that we know is doing something wrong

for sense of acceptance
or sense of security.

The good news is we get to choose.

But first, it's even harder for us
in business to do the right thing.

The research out of Harvard
on ethical fading

shows that when we're focused
on operational objectives

and you throw pressure on top -
sounds familiar? -

the ethical implications of our acts
will fade from our minds.

Pay attention when people say,
"This is business";

find out what they mean
when they say that.

So now the good news is we get to choose.

Between stimulus and response,
there is a space,

and our work is about using that space
to get us to reconnect to our values,

to our hearts, to our natural wisdom
to act courageously.

The kids in our program
call it the magic pause button.

The way we do that is we do something
called Social Fitness Training.

It was developed over 25 years
by Dr. Lynne Henderson.

The great news about it

is that with practice
we can actually retrain our brains

to override our natural fear response,

to act consistently from our own values
in the face of fear.

Start to think the key aspects
of her work to remember,

start to recognize your patterns:

where do you stand up easily
and where do you not?

Once you know your patterns,
practice the situations that scare you.

We call them social flight simulations.

And just like with pilots,

if you practice with some level of fear,
it creates the muscle memory

so that when the actual moment arises,

you can act in the way
that you've practiced.

You start to use that shot
of fear or adrenaline

as your cue for mindful action
versus avoidance.

In neuroscience,
they call it "priming the brain."

So how do we foster these ethically
courageous corporate cultures?

Become a pattern interrupter:

start to interrupt your own patterns,
create your own pause button,

create it for your teams
and organizations.

I think we can all agree

if we look at the challenges
facing our economic system,

our political system,
and the world at large,

we're going to need a bigger pause button.

What I also know by our work

is that we are all born
with the innate capacity for courage.

It's a choice -

one I hope we'll all make, and it matters.

Thank you.

(Applause)