沃尔玛贿赂丑闻警示录：告密者不容忽视

    “别理他。他就是个疯子。”

    “她就是没得到提拔，心里不痛快罢了。”

    “他大嘴巴好多年了，从来都没讲出个道道。”

    这些话听起来耳熟吗？如果你在商界工作，应该会耳熟，因为人们就是这么评价告密者的。告密者也许在媒体那里名声不错，但在公司内部，管理层常常对他们不屑一顾，要么用一段诋毁名誉的轶事，要么用一段往事来化解他们令人恼火的指控，就这样把他们打发他们了事。他们这么做的原因是：绝大多数情况下，告密者在某种程度上要么是疯了，要么一心报复，要么两者兼而有之。可总有那么一个糟糕透顶的日子，不管是出于报复还是道德热忱，告密者有时候恰巧说出了真相。这时候，危机就来了，就像眼下沃尔玛深陷其中、不得自拔的处境一样。

    别弄错了。即使现在被控贿赂墨西哥官员，我们仍认为沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）是一家伟大的公司。它为数以千计的人创造向社会上层流动的机会，在全球提供了超过100万的就业机会，也依旧是美国消费者对抗通胀的最可靠盟友。而且，最近针对沃尔玛的指控目前也仅仅是指控而已。但不管最终证实真实与否，这些指控都给我们一个重要教训。这个教训并不是现在到处传播的那样：沃尔玛那样的大公司就是仗着自己的规模和影响力才胆敢参与腐败。我们认为，这种观点通常来说并不正确。我们也不认为这个故事的最大要点就是，如果不贿赂，美国公司在海外就会举步维艰。完全可以按照正统老派的美式法则和规矩在全球运营并取得成功。

    对我们来说，沃尔玛故事最重要的地方在于，它提醒了我们，由于多数时候不过是浪费时间，公司内部有种广泛的、甚至是可以理解的冲动，那就是对告密者视而不见。这也提醒我们绝不能对他们置若罔闻。实际上，应对告密者指控的唯一方法（我们强调每一次都必须这样，即使这样有违直觉）就是要特别偏向于相信，告密者看到了某个重大的问题。这样的偏见会驱使人热心地调查每一个指控。你也许会想这只是浪费时间和金钱，最终徒劳无功；可能真的会这么走运，但谁知道呢？帮帮忙，千万别让被指控的老板本人去调查！引入独立机构进行侦查，最不济，内部调查者也要与被调查的问题无关，和相关人士无关。对，你也许痛恨这样大张旗鼓，其实所有相关的人都一样。但只有这样，才能补偿轻视告密者的倾向，不能像惯常那样仅仅是敷衍了事的抽查，或者只是随口问一句，“没什么事吧？”。

    'Ignore him. He's a wack job."

    "She's just bitter she didn't get promoted."

    "He's been shooting his mouth off for years -- and it's always nothing."

    Those lines sound familiar? If you work in business, they probably do -- it's how people talk about whistleblowers. Whistleblowers may have a noble reputation in the media, but when they surface within a company, management almost always brushes them off with a discrediting back story or a little piece of history that explains away all their annoying accusations. And here's why that happens: In the vast majority of cases whistleblowers are, to some degree, crazy or vengeful or both. Until one terrible, awful day when, speaking out of vengefulness or ethical earnestness, the whistleblower also happens to be telling the truth. And then, well, you get a crisis like the one Wal-Mart finds itself tangled in today.

    Make no mistake. We think Wal-Mart (WMT), which was accused of bribing Mexican officials, is a great company. It has created upward mobility for thousands of people and 1 million--plus jobs around the world, and it remains the American consumer's greatest ally in the war against inflation. Furthermore, the recent accusations against Wal-Mart are just that -- accusations. But those allegations, proven true or not, offer an important lesson to everyone in business, and we don't mean the one that's being widely bandied about right now -- that big companies like Wal-Mart, because of their size and power, engage in corruption because they can. We don't think that's generally true. Nor do we think the biggest take-away from the Wal-Mart story is how hard it is for American companies to do business abroad without bribery. It's perfectly possible to operate globally -- and win -- while playing by good old American rules and regulations.

    No, to us the Wal-Mart story is most importantly a reminder of the pervasive, even understandable, impulse within companies to ignore whistleblowers because they're so often time wasters. And it's a reminder of why you can't turn your back on them. Ever. In fact, the only way to deal with a whistleblower's accusations -- again, every single time and often against your own instincts -- is with a hyperbias toward believing that the informant is onto something big. Such a bias must impel you to investigate every claim ferociously. You may think it's a waste of time and money, and will go nowhere; you should be so lucky. And for goodness' sake, don't let the investigation be conducted by the boss who's been accused of wrongdoing! Bring in an outside agency to do the sleuthing, or at the very least executives outside the scope of the alleged problem, with no relationship to the people involved. Yes, you may hate the whole meshugaas and so might everyone it touches. But it's the only way to overcompensate for the propensity to wish whistleblowers away with the perfunctory spot check or the "Everything okay?" kind of look-see that usually occurs.