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Whippersnapper whistle-blowers
beware
Being a whistle-blower is fashionable
right now. It's appealing to be the person who rights the wrongs
of the workplace. And many people dream of busting their boss publicly
for smarmy acts done privately.
Discrimination, kickbacks, broken promises -- these
are illegal and immoral acts that happen every day in the workplace.
But be careful. Because the most common result of whistle blowing
is not reform. The most common result is that whistle-blowers lose
their jobs.
Of course, it is illegal to fire a whistle-blower
for being a whistle-blower per se. But the odds are that you will
be fired: First, your boss lets you know he hates you. Then you
get no new projects. Then you stop having anything to do at work
and your career stagnates. If you're lucky, you will be able to
go to another company. If you're unlucky, your name will be mud
throughout your industry.
This is not to say that we shouldn't have whistle-blowers.
I am as impressed as anyone else with the three whistle-blowers
on the cover of Time magazine as "persons of the year."
Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom), Sherron Watkins (Enron) and Coleen Rowley
(the FBI), showed enormous courage and integrity when they blew
the whistle.
But an important thing about these women is that they
were all very advanced in their careers. They were at a point where
they were trusted widely for their expertise. And part of their
expertise was knowing what really mattered in the moral fabric of
corporate America. Surely, they had all been harassed at work, and
they had all heard of someone cutting corners on commissions. These
women probably spent decades reporting nothing. They chose their
battles carefully.
If one of these women had made a stink the first time
she was harassed, if she had brought that case to court, she probably
would have received some sort of financial settlement, but her career
would be over. She would not have climbed high enough on the corporate
ladder to make the huge difference in corporate ethics that she
did.
In order to make a difference in corporate ethics
significant enough to be worth losing your career, you should aim
to make a difference at the top. Most people who are at the beginning
of their careers will not have the ability to make that difference.
All you potential whistle-blowers in the whippersnapper ranks, think
twice about sacrificing your career in the name of corporate ethics.
You can't be a whistle-blower each time your morality
is offended: You'd never be able to hold a job. So wait until the
moral aberration is huge. And huge is relative, so know what sort
of aberrations are out there so you can compare. (Reading assignment:
"Tales from the Boom Boom Room" for extreme examples of
sexual harassment and discrimination.) For the most part, our experiences
are not extreme, and they should be dealt with through normal, company
means -- no need for whistle-blowing.
Some times you will report questionable behavior to
human resources and nothing will change. Stay focused. You will
need to put up with a lot of morally questionable behavior at work
in order to climb the ladder to a high enough point where you can
make a difference. If you don't make it up the ladder, you will
squander your power to make change by making small stinks about
small issues that will get no attention from people in power.
For some of you, there will come a time when you do
have a case against your company. You should call the Government
Accountability Project. This nonprofit group counsels whistle-blowers
before they toot, and represents them after they get fired.
Until then, hunker down. Report abuse to someone within
your chain of command. And don't anger people so much that you
undermine your ability to get real power to make change. Save your
moral high ground until you get to high ranks.
-- Posted: Feb. 24, 2003
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