John Bell Hood and the Measurement of Conduct Risk

This article was republished with permission from Tom Fox’s FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog.

Readers of this blog know I am huge Civil War buff. Growing up in Texas, I only focused on the Southern side as a youngster and while this led to a sometime myopic view of events, in my mid-20s when I did begin to study the Northern side of the war – because I had never seriously studied from that perspective – an entire panorama opened up for me.

One thing that never changed however, was the disaster that befell the South from the appointment of John Bell Hood to commander of the Army of Tennessee, which opposed General Sherman’s advance into Georgia since his stunning defeat of the Confederate forces at Chattanooga and later Lookout Mountain in Tennessee in late 1863. On this day 150 years ago, Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced General Joseph Johnston with John Bell Hood as commander of the Army of Tennessee. Davis, impatient with Johnston’s defensive strategy in the Atlanta campaign, felt that Hood stood a better chance of saving Atlanta from the forces of Union General William T. Sherman. President Davis selected Hood for his reputation as a fighting general, in contrast to Johnston’s cautious nature. Hood did what Davis wanted and quickly attacked Sherman at Peachtree Creek on July 20, but with disastrous results. Hood attacked two more times, losing both and destroying his army’s offensive capabilities. Over the next two weeks in 1864, Hood’s actions not only led to President Abraham Lincoln’s re-election but spelled, once and for all, the doom of the Confederacy.

I thought about the risks of appointing Hood to command when I read a recent article in Compliance Week magazine by Carol Switzer, co-founder and President of the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), entitled “A Strategic Approach to Conduct Risk.” Her article was accompanied by an entry in the OCEG Illustrated Series entitled “Managing Conduct Risk in the GRC Context,” and she also presented thoughts from a round-table that included John Brown, Managing Principal, Risk Segment, Financial and Risk Division at Thompson Reuters; Tom Harper, Executive Vice President-General Auditor, Federal Home Loan of Chicago and Dr. Roger Miles, Behavioral Risk Lead, Thompson Reuters.

In her article, Switzer pointed to the “ill-advised risk taking” which led to the near-collapse of the financial sector as the genesis for the creation of the UK’s new Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). But she also noted that conduct risk is something that exists in industries far afield from the financial sector where “sales schemes driven by inappropriate incentive plans and outlandish short-term objectives” can cause severe financial consequences to an organization. As an example of the need for change in the financial sector, Switzer quoted Clive Adamson, FCA Director of Supervision, on the need to address conduct risk: “achieving an effective conduct- or customer-focused culture is challenging for firms, particularly for those whose focus has been primarily on profitability and shareholder returns. … From what we see, there are key drivers that set and re-enforce this conduct-focused culture, with the most important being clear and ongoing leadership from the top of the organization, constant re-enforcement, hiring practices, incentive structures, effective performance management and penalties for not doing the right thing, all of which should set the tone for a framework for decision making on a day-by-day basis.”

Switzer continued, “throughout his speech and other materials published by the FCA, there is a theme that returns over and over again to integrity, leadership, culture, the concept of controls over conduct and strong risk management—all tied to an outcome of business success. What is this? It is a vision of principled performance—a point of view and approach to business that enables organizations to reliably achieve objectives while addressing uncertainty and acting with integrity. And it is refreshing to see leaders (and in some cases past wrongdoers) in the financial sector rising to the occasion and establishing a principled performance approach to conduct risk, even though they may not yet call it that.”

Harper described conduct risk as follows: “conduct risk embodies elements of the risks that we have been discussing over the past few years, including not only operational and compliance risk, but also reputational risk and tone-at-the-top. The idea that organizations need to ‘do the right thing’ and balance the immediate pressure of short-term growth and revenue along with meeting the aspirations of equity holders and managers is not new. In the past, conduct risk was primarily mitigated by the long-term focus on the goals of the organization of the Board and management.”

In the Illustrated Series piece included with the article, Switzer set out four principles for managing conduct risk. These principles are an excellent starting point for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), UK Bribery Act or other anti-corruption compliance practitioner in that it can be used to evaluate, assess and manage conduct risk in such a context.

Assess Conduct Risks

Miles stated that “the idea of benchmarking ‘conduct’ as a basis for business, or life in general, is actually of course a very old one. Constraints on behavior are exactly the right direction to go in, though it’s not yet clear how these will be framed, let alone policed. Now with the FCA’s new Risk Outlook 2014, there’s a big step forward. They have a deep commitment to sharing understanding about how various elements of behavior feed through into good and bad product design, into selling or mis-selling.” Based on this, Switzer believes that you should first identify potential conduct risks in your business. After such identification, you should conduct a risk and control assessment. From this measure, you can best determine the level of inherent and residual risk. Finally, you should carry out an emerging risk workshop to develop a more complete risk profile.

Establish Risk Appetite

Brown pointed toward the increased complexity in financial institutions as a key problem. As part of the solution, Switzer writes that the first step is to connect the risks, controls and other framework elements to your company’s organization chart. From there, you should determine risk capacity, your company’s current risk profile and its risk appetite. Next you should measure your risk appetite adherence. Finally, you will need to align your risk appetite with your company’s risk governance framework.

Measure and Monitor 

Here, Switzer suggests that there be a detailed collection of information on any issues associated with risk events. It is important that from that point, you begin to track key risk indicators. Miles noted that “managing risks due to behaviors and cultures requires a deep understanding of psychological drivers and developing programs to modify those drivers,” as such measurements would allow your company to begin to move from simple detection and prevention to predictive controls through the use of behavioral and analytical modeling. Finally, you could use the above information to perform scenario analysis on emerging risks.

Communicate and Manage

Switzer advocates that you communicate and train your company’s employees on your organization’s risk culture. You should also work to ensure that employees have accepted their risk conduct appetite metrics. Brown said, “behavioral drivers will vary around the world based on societal culture. I’ll focus on what might be appropriate for U.S.-based organizations. Most people operate to maximize their personal return, so compensation structures are an obvious avenue to modify conduct. If my bonus or equity compensation is based on specific targets, such as new accounts, loans written or customer satisfaction index, I will try to maximize those targets.” This is why you should continue to collect all key data about conduct risk in one data repository. Finally, you should also continue to provide reports and analyses on conduct risk to key stakeholders and regulators, if required.

Switzer ended her article with the following quote from Gary Kasparov: “think about it: after just three opening moves by a chess player, more than nine million positions are possible. And that’s when only two players are involved in the game. Now imagine all the possibilities faced by companies with a whole host of corporations responding to their new strategies, pricing and products. The unpredictability is almost unimaginable.” To this she added, “this couldn’t be truer than when facing the myriad challenges presented under the umbrella concern of conduct risk. Masterful strategic planning and execution is essential to stay in the game and win.”

The risks that General Hood was willing to engage in were catastrophic for his army and the Confederacy. If Jefferson Davis had used a risk conduct analysis to think through the effects of elevating Hood to command of the Army of Tennessee the results might have been very different for all involved. Switzer’s article provides a valuable tool for the compliance practitioner to bring to bear on specific conduct that could put a company at risk.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business advice, legal advice or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The author gives his permission to link, post, distribute or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.