385: The Behavior You're Willing to Tolerate

Oh, Meredith, I'm so pleased to be here.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Well, I am so looking forward to our conversation, and I know my listeners are going to enjoy learning from you today.

One of the things I wanna circle back on from the introduction, because I think it's important, Lincoln Financial has now been recognized five times by Ethisphere, and The Hartford has also been recognized multiple times.

You've been involved in both of those, and in that process you said something to me earlier that I thought was really important and interesting.

You said, "You know, the award itself is wonderful, but the benchmarking process is the most valuable part." And I'd love for you to share, what is it in that process that turns out to be so valuable for you?

Well, uh, that's exactly, um, the way I look at it.

The, um, the process of being considered for, uh, the designation of one of the world's most ethical companies by Ethisphere involves an extensive process by which you have to, um, not only answer questions, but provide supporting evidence about what you do in a variety of different areas, from all the mechanics of your ethics and compliance program, to corporate governance, to how you manage third parties, to, um, social and civic engagement and philanthropy.

And, um, as I said, it's not just telling them what you do, but providing the evidence of what you do.

And as a result, over a number of years, Ethisphere has developed quite an extensive database of, uh, information showing what the winners of that designation actually do.

Um, and as a result, when you submit, whether you get the designation or not, you get very detailed data and reporting back from Ethisphere that shows exactly how you do in each of these areas.

Um, and that has been the primary motivation, uh, always, both when I was at The Hartford, and certainly here at Lincoln, in pursuing that exercise.

Again, if we get the designation, that's great, but of even equal or greater value is the great benchmarking data we get to help us understand from year to year to year, uh, how our own program may be improving, where we are strong against, uh, peers in our industry or other industries, and where we may be falling behind.

Uh, because the field of ethics and compliance has become so dynamic, uh, for a whole host of reasons, some of which I'm sure we'll talk about, um, you can't just assume that once you create a program that you can set it and forget it.

You have to be constantly thinking about the changing external environment, the changing dynamics of your own business, and adapting accordingly.

Mm-hmm.