Whistleblowers: A very special kind of bs detector

We all like to think that if we saw wrongdoing, we’d do the right thing - that when confronted with a problem that goes against our ethics or morals, we’d speak up or take action. But what if calling bullshit meant damaging or ending your career, your family relationships, or even compromising your personal safety? 

Show Notes:

• Learn about Mary Inman’s incredible work at Constantine Cannon here. 
• Read about Kyle Welch and Stephen Stubben’s research on whistleblowing. 
• Check out Dana Gold’s Newsweek article about keeping whistleblowers safe. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, folks, I want to take a minute to ask
for your help. This show is a labor of love
for all of us here on the team at calling BS.
We debate which organizations to investigate. We carefully consider how
to best tell these stories. Our goal is to create
a show that exposes purpose washing and the real harm
it does in the world. But we also want to

(00:22):
create a show that's fun to listen to and serves
as a practical guide for entrepreneurs and leadership teams about
how to do purpose right. We're really proud of what
we've made so far, and we're super excited about getting
season three into production so we can share it with
all of you now to the help we need. So far,
we are self funded. We need a sponsor or sponsors

(00:46):
to help us with the cost of production. But, and
this is important, we feel like it would be disingenuous
given the theme of the show to accept money from
just anybody. It's important to us that the sponsors of
this show shared of shows values. We're looking for partners
who are purpose led themselves, Companies or organizations that truly

(01:07):
walk their talk. Companies who understand the harm that purpose
washing does and who understand how important it is for
all of us that more companies embrace the path to purpose.
If you're a part of an organization like that, or
you know one that seems like a good fit, don't
hesitate to drop us a line. You can reach me
directly at Team Montague at Calling Bullshit podcast dot com.

(01:30):
Thanks for listening, and let's get on with the show.
When powerful organizations do wrong, who stands up for what's right?
Francis how Good is thirty seven, a data scientist from Iowa.
The thing I saw Facebook over and over again was

(01:52):
there were conflicts of interest between what was good for
the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook
and over again shows to optimize for its own interests,
like making more money. It's people, in most cases, just
regular folks. Tyler Schultz says he quit out for Holmes
and her partner, Sonny Balwani ignored his complaints about falsified

(02:14):
research right off the bat. I realized that there's this
open secret that the technology didn't really exist. So all
these red flags were just piling up insiders who see
something and aren't afraid to say something, even when they
know it may cost them dearly Snowdon said he saw
firsthand and became increasingly concerned about the reach of the

(02:38):
n S, a electronic surveillance of innocent America. These are
public issues. These are not my issues, you know, these
are everybody's issues. There's a name for people like this, Whistleblowers.

(02:58):
Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the podcast about purpose washing, the
gap between what an organization says they stand for and
what they actually do, and what they would need to
change to practice what they preach. I'm your host, Time
onto you, and I've spent over a decade helping organizations
define what they stand for, their purpose and then help

(03:20):
them to use that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. Today,
for the finale of season two, we're devoting the entire
episode to a special kind of BS detector, the whistleblower.
I'm speaking with three experts on the topic who will
explain why these people are so important and why, rather

(03:42):
than fearing them and shunning them, organizations should actually do
everything they can to protect them. Imagine you work for
a biotech company, a Silicon Valley unicorn with a charismatic

(04:03):
founder and a ten billion dollar valuation. You work there
because you believe this company is doing the right thing
changing health care for the better. Plus your grandfather's on
the board of directors. He's how you were introduced to
the company in the first place. But one day you
realize that this promising new technology that you're selling is

(04:25):
no more complicated than a bio student running tests with
a pipette, That the data you're publishing is misleading investors
into thinking you have an invention that doesn't actually exist,
and that the patients you're testing your technology on, some
of whom have life threatening conditions, are getting inaccurate results.

(04:47):
When you talk to your superiors, they dismiss you, and
when you talk to your grandfather, he dismisses you. So
what do you do. Do you just quietly quit or
are you ethnically pelled to say something publicly? A jury
convicted that Parinis, founder of four counts of defrauding investors yesterday.

(05:08):
One of her former employees was the first to blow
the whistle about the problems at the company. He then
shared his concerns with a state regulator, and then he
went to the Wall Street Journal. We all like to
think will do the right thing, that when confronted with
a problem that goes against our morals, we'll speak up
or act. But what if calling out the bullshit means

(05:30):
damaging your career, or your family relationships, or even your
personal safety. The fact is it is definitely easier in
a situation like this to just look the other way.
But if you raise the issue internally and management won't
address a problem, you are literally the last line of defense.

(05:51):
We all rely on and benefit from whistleblowers who take
on risks like this. Without whistleblowers, the public never have
learned that therein nosis blood tests were built around a lie,
or that Boeing had a toxic culture that ignored basic
safety precautions, and that hundreds of people died as a

(06:12):
direct result. Without whistleblowers speaking truth to power, it would
be a lot harder to detect bs in the world.
And here on the show, Francis Hogan was an important
part of the very first company we covered. Her insider

(06:32):
knowledge showed the world just how nefarious Facebook actually is.
A few episodes later, we spoke with whistleblower Tarick Fancy
about sustainable investing at Black Rock, and most recently, we
looked into the consulting firm McKenzie with two former employees
who helped us to understand the culture and the scope

(06:54):
of BS. At one of the world's most influential companies,
we rely on whistleblowers because they are a special kind
of BS detector, people with inside information and the courage
to go public. When whistleblowers need help, they often turn

(07:16):
to attorneys like my first guest today, Mary Inman. Mary
understands the unique challenges of coming forward because she's devoted
her career to protecting people who do. She's a partner
in Constantine Canon, a law firm that specializes in representing whistleblowers,
and over the years, she's built up an impressive resume,

(07:38):
defending many names you've heard of and countless others that
you may not have. Mary, Welcome to the show. TI,
thank you so much for having me today. It's a
real honor to be on your show. It's great to
have you here. So for the benefit of our listeners,
let's start off with an introduction. If you could just

(08:00):
tell folks a little bit about your background and how
you found your way into being an attorney for I
guess you know many of the most famous whistleblowers in
the world. So um, I went to law school, like
many lawyers trying to change the world. Didn't really know
how I was going to do that. I did some
work in the public Defender's office in law school, UM

(08:20):
and then clerked for a couple of judges, and I
just had the most amazing opportunity to drop in my lap.
A friend of mine referred me to a headhunter that said,
there's this little boutique law firm that's opening a San
Francisco office and they specialized in representing whistleblowers. So this
was like twenty four years ago, and that was a
time when there really weren't whistle blowers, weren't really the

(08:44):
esteemed place that they sit in our society today, part
of every news cycle, it seems like. And I was
just really really lucky. At the time I started, the
Supreme Court had not even yet said that the whistleblower
primary whistle blower program called the False Claim Sect something
we'll talk about later today. It wasn't even held to
be constitutional yet. So I remember getting advice from people saying,

(09:05):
what you want to specialize in this one statue that
the Supreme Court hasn't even said is legitimate, is constitutional?
And I said, well, um, it sounds really intriguing I'm
gonna roll the dice, and I did, And boy, I
did I have any idea that this was going to
become an amazing growth field and that the United States

(09:26):
government in particular has come to see whistle blowers as
their most effective law enforcement tool. So who are some
of the folks that you have represented in your career?
You know a lot of them. I do know a
lot of them, and it's been an enormous privilege every
day I kind of jumped out of bed to represent
people who really have the intestinal fortitude and the strength

(09:48):
to speak truth to power. So I think some of
your listeners probably most familiar. Tyler Schultz says Sarani's whistle
blower is one of my clients. Um. I've had a
number of health air fraud whistleblowers, including a gentleman by
the name of Dr James Taylor, who will be front
page news in the in the New York Times soon
exposing Medicare fraud by health insurers. I've also represented another

(10:12):
gentleman by the name of Benjamin Paling, who has also
shown a light on United Health Group for Medicare fraud,
as well as Dr Taylor shining a light on Kaiser permanente.
So there's been a huge group of them. But the
one I like to talk about the most is a
whistle blower that was the subject of a story in
The New Yorker magazine a few years ago called The

(10:34):
Personal Toll of whistle Blowing. His name was Dr Darren
sewell Um, and he's one that I like to talk
about a lot because I think he might still be
with us today had he not made the choice to
be a whistleblower. Tell us that story, what happened there? Yeah,
So I think it's it's something that we're gonna explore.
I'm I'm confident today is this idea what are the

(10:54):
repercussions of speaking out? And I'm sure a lot of
your listeners are well all aware that it can be
a career defining moment, in fact that it's often considered
career suicide. And so we're pretty familiar with the fact
that in certain industries, particularly healthcare or defense, you may
never work again if you speak out. But I think

(11:16):
what people are less aware of, and we're becoming more
sensitized too, is the psychosocial impacts of speaking out. The
New England Journal of Medicine did a research study a
number of years ago now that basically looked at whistlers
in the pharmaceutical industry who had reported off label marketing fraud,
and the study showed that the health effects were such

(11:37):
that whistlers have higher incidences of divorce, of alcoholism, of depression.
And I think so much of that comes from this
really primal notion that when you speak up and speak out,
you lose your tribe. You speak out against your tribe,
and your tribe tends to close ranks around you, and
there's really strong psychological circumstances to losing your support network.

(12:01):
So in the case of Dr Seol, he exposed health
care fraud at health Insure in Florida, and he really
could never work again because of his personal situation where
his daughter lived in Florida. He really couldn't just go
live somewhere else. And so all the health insurers community
and health care community was aware of him. And so

(12:22):
when he would get a job interests, you know, when
they called for references, all of a sudden they didn't
want to talk to him again. Um, And that became
a really difficult circumstance for him. Um. He actually wore
a wire for the FBI on that case. So and
a lot of stress that goes along with that, and
you know, and he and he passed away after UM,

(12:43):
just a long series of circumstances of not being employed.
So they really do, UM put a lot on the line.
And it was interesting. I wasn't aware that healthcare and
defense are particularly that way. I can understand the company, uh,
you know, maybe uh not being in a hurry to

(13:03):
hire you back, but the whole industry that you're in
shutting you is a completely different matter, you know what
I mean. That's UM, that's that's really dire. UM. So
just just before we get further into some of the
impacts on the lives of whistleblowers, how do you decide
how you take clients or whether you take a client

(13:25):
or not. We represent whistle blowers under what we call
the US Whistleblower Reward Programs, so that all of a
sudden narrows the universe. We wish that we could represent
all whistle blowers. We don't do national security whistlers, for instance,
in the United States were fairly hypocritical. We're one of
the most advanced societies for having this notion that in law,

(13:46):
law enforcement settings we pay whistle blowers for information, recognizing
what they're giving up by speaking out. That's when these
whistle blowers are helpful and exposing fraud against the government
or fraud that impact our regulatory agencies missions like the
SEC fraud against investors. But when it's fraud by the government,

(14:07):
when we have those kinds of whistlers, when they're exposing
wrongdoing by the government, it's a very different setting. We
don't pay whistlers. In fact, we are just as bad
and medieval in terms of shooting the messenger. And so
just to make sure I understand, if I blow the
whistle on the government for some kind of malfeasance, there's

(14:28):
no financial reward in that for me, which makes it
very hard for you to take them on as as
a client, right right, right. So one of these we
do is we represent our clients. And this is something
that became really apparent to me when I moved to
London and sort of looked at the UK legal system
is to get to the brass tacks and gets kind
of boring to people. But I think it's important to

(14:50):
understand that. Um in the United States, a lot of
plane emplawyers like myself represent their clients on a contingency
fee or a success fee basis, so that means we
only get paid aid if we're successful in returning and
helping our client get a reward that actually facilitates access
to justice because in the UK they don't really like

(15:10):
that kind of a model, and as a result, lots
of whistlers and other people can't get lawyers because it's
very difficult to pay you know, six hundred seven hundred
dollars an hour when um, that's not within your budget.
So I think that's part of it is that these
bounties do, and I like, I don't like to call
them bounties because they almost suggest we're pirates. Um. These

(15:30):
these rewards and these awards go to whistleblowers to recognize
what they're giving up and to entice them to undertake
the risk in speaking out. But what's interesting is these
programs do a lot more than just pay the whistleblowers.
They actually create offices of the whistleblower. In the SEC,
the CFTC, I know we're going through alphabet soup in

(15:51):
the I r S, they actually have offices that are
staffed with people who are prepared to receive information from whistleblowers.
It sounds undane, but it isn't because a lot of
people don't know where to bring their information, and these
programs create, you know, staffed experts who are there with
special forms and web portals to upload your information, and

(16:14):
they're obligated to report back to Congress and tell them
how they're doing with this whistle lower information. And that's
really what's revolutionary here. It's not just that, it's it's
rolling out the welcome at to whistleblowers in a way
that clearly signposts where they should go and ensuring that
the information that they bring is actually looked at. Yeah,

(16:35):
that's important work. So you've touched on a little bit
already in some of the stories you've told what risks
whistleblowers take by deciding to shine a light on you know,
let's call it organizational malfeasance. Can you talk more about
those risks? You know, what are some of the other
aspects of it. I can think of one other for instance,

(16:57):
like Tyler Schultz was in a bizarre situation where his grandfather,
who was the ex Secretary of State. Is that right?
Is his grandfather was was also an investor in the
company that Tyler worked in and on the board, I believe,
and and so he risked not only, you know, terminating

(17:19):
his relationship with the leadership of Sarais, but also with
his own members of his own family, and he put
a lot on the line there. I think his story
is a great one to spotlight in terms of what
are the effects of whistle bling that we haven't necessarily
explored yet. And one of them, it's what I call
the inequality of arms that a whistleblower goes against a

(17:41):
large corporation like Saranos, which was the darling of all investors.
You know, Elizabeth was on the cover of Forbes magazine.
And what happens is when you sign up as an employee,
you signed confidentiality agreements that often include nondisclosure and non
disparagement clauses. And what happened in Tyler's case is he
was visiting his grandfather and attorneys from Boy Schiller, who

(18:05):
were representing sara No Nos, basically served him with a
restraining order telling him stop violating your confidentiality agreement. UM.
They had come to understand that he had been giving
information to John Careyrew with the Wall Street Journal reporter
who exposed it all. But what happened is his parents
ended up, he's a young person at the time, ended

(18:25):
up taking out a mortgage on their home to pay
four hundred thousand dollars to pay for the attorneys to
defend against this lawsuit. We're saying he violated their trade secrets,
their proprietary confidentiality and agreement. And one of the most
famous things that Tyler said is he said, fraud is
not a trade secret, right, and that seems intuitive to
all that that seems intuitive to all of us, right,

(18:48):
But that doesn't mean that he didn't have to suffer
through an immense amount of litigation in order to get
that right result, which is that you know, in public policy,
we want certain information to get out to law enforcement,
which is what he did. So it's that these huge
corporations have a corporate playbook which is to basically destroy

(19:09):
the whistleblower. And and it's not just to silence them's
to silence all the employees who are watching everyone else. Yeah,
that's right, scare scare everybody else, absolutely, So you know,
that's just one of the things is that they will
often sue them for theft of documents. They will sue
them for violations of the confidentiality agreement because they're so intent,

(19:30):
these companies on digging up dirt with this theory that
if you besmirched the whistleblower, it diverts attention from the
message that the whistleblower is is giving right, We'll shoot
the messenger to divert attention from the pr scandal that's
happening in front of their very eyes. And unfortunately, that's
that is the playbook. It makes me wonder because you know,

(19:52):
I've worked in a bunch of companies and I'm I've
signed a bunch of n d A. S Is it
there should be language protecting the person signing if the
company is committing fraud as as Tyler said, does that exist? Well,
you have you have put your finger on one of
to me, one of the best topics, which is UM.

(20:15):
There is a marvelous whistler who is because of her
experience of pinterest. Her names of Foma a Zoma. She
actually broke her n d A to speak out about
race and sex discrimination at pintrist. She's an African American
woman UM and she actually went ahead to have two
laws passed, one in California and one an Oregon called

(20:35):
the Silence No More Act, And what they seek to
do is hold those provisions unenforceable. So that's the insidious
part about these provisions as a lot of people see
the consequences of violating it. If they signed a severance
degree with this part of a severance package and you
have to give back all of that money, there can
be you know, damages on top of that. So it

(20:57):
has an enormous chilling effect of the things companies do.
They've gotten hip to the fact that these whistleblowers can
get rewards. They put in the separation agreement when you're signing,
you know, to get your you know years severance for
working there. How many years they say, I waived my
right to a reward under any of the whistleblower programs,

(21:18):
which is only shouldn't that shouldn't be legal. Yeah, well
that's good. The only way it stops when it is
when the SEC comes in and finds them. I was
reading an article today in publication called The Information that
said that reports to the SEC whistle blowing reports to
the SEC are up seventy six percent in over which

(21:42):
was already a record setting year from what do you
think is causing that. What's what's going on there? Well,
it's really interesting. Um, what might cause some of the
numbers is that we saw during the pandemic whistle blowing
just increasing across US sectors. Um, the SEC I think
saw fort rise. You know, we're all speculating here, but

(22:05):
is it because we're no longer in the workplace? You know,
there was a great resignation or people feeling less attached
to their employers. Are we having you know, these moments
of what really matters? So I think it started very much.
We have to look at the pandemic a little bit
um to understand some of these numbers. But as to
the SEC specifically, it's their success so um. I think

(22:26):
it was last year they crossed the billion dollar threshold
that they've paid over a billion dollars in rewards to whistleblowers.
And you know, it's a very controversial topic outside the
United States, and the United States were very comfortable with
this idea of paying rewards to whistleblowers UM in commonwealth
countries in the UK, it's anothema and a lot of
that comes from very strong cultural stereotypes. I think there's

(22:48):
a notion that Americans are mercenary and were transactional and
we have to be paid to do the right thing,
whereas British people do the right thing right upright, upstanding. Yeah,
but those rewards say something. I mean they basically, um
have a ripple effect around the globe when you pay
two fifty million dollars to a whistleblower, and then that

(23:10):
means that we really really value them. And so when
we say you get ten to you know, ten to
thirty percent of our recovery, we mean it regardless of
what size there you know penalty was. Whistleblowers trust the
American regulators because they believe we're aggressive. So international whistle
blowers have a lot more faith bringing their information to

(23:32):
US regulators because they know it won't be a feudal act.
The SEC gets twelve thousand tips a year now. They
come from ninety nine countries around the globe. Last year
of the people receiving awards came from overseas. So it's
really a beacon. Um. We always say it's like Lady
Liberties torch saying give us your give us your give

(23:56):
us your poor, you're you're tired, and your whistleblowers. I'm
want to follow a thread that you you started to
pull out there a little bit, which was, you know,
the the results of whistle blowing. I wonder if you
could talk just about any examples that you have or
data that you have on whistleblowers whose actions have resulted

(24:17):
in real change, you know, in things really improving. So
I can't not start with the Ukraine whistle blower who
exposed President Trump. I mean in terms of holding powerful
people to account, that was an extraordinary result and one
of the oddest things happening. There was of course that

(24:37):
his identity was exposed by Trump and certain other politicians,
which is yeah, I mean incredibly like there should be
sanctions for that kind of a thing because obviously that
threatens his life and livelihood and safety. So that was extraordinary.
But I mean, I think some of the other whistleblowers,
I mean, look at the Me Too movement. You know,
it caused shock waves around the world world, and it

(25:00):
also caused us all to rethink what an n DA
is and should we have these kinds of agreements in place,
and so you know, you look at Francis, it makes
us relook social media. You look at these healthcare fraud
whistle lowers, You know, health insurance companies now think differently
before they upcode these diagnoses that they're doing to get

(25:20):
more money from Medicare. I mean, it is an incrediblely
powerful tool to shake corporations out of their slumber and
into being held accountable for wrongdoing. And I think part
of it is the deterrent effect. Right. You see these
big penalties and fines that are levied, and I think
it does have a deterrent effect. And you know, I

(25:43):
know from my European experience, a lot of companies choose
not to list on the U S stock exchanges that
of fear of having the jurisdiction of the SEC. Really
oh yeah, oh yeah. Um. So they want access, they
want access to our capital markets, but there's scared what
that comes? Right? Interesting? That makes me think there is

(26:05):
maybe some problems there. So I'm gonna ask you to
talk about or explain the False Claims Act. What is
that about, What what is it for? What does it do? Yeah,
so it is the touchstone of you can't talk about
whistleblower reward programs in the United States without going to
the False Claims Act. It's actually called Lincoln's Law. It

(26:27):
was enacted in the wake of the Civil War, and
it recognized something that is now more true than ever
today than it was back then, that um, it's very
difficult for the government to investigate and to detect fraud.
The United States pours tons of money into medicare and
into defense, and it's hard to police that from the

(26:48):
outside and that there's no substitute for a well placed
insider to bring that information forward. So we want to
incentivize these people because they have an insiders have incredibly
valuable information that basically creates a roadmap to the fraud
for any prosecutor. We often say to the prosecutors, and
I've heard prosecutors say this does key tam cases are

(27:09):
like cake in a box delivered to our office. Is
we just add water? Because the key tam for asking
that key tam is short for a Latin phrase that
basically stands for he who stands on the shoes of
the king as well as himself, and this comes from

(27:31):
English common I don't want to get too nerdy, but
there was an idea in England before they had police
forces that individuals could basically service police. And so we
took this concept in the United States and we said
We're going to make these people private attorney generals. They
will stand in the shoes of the United States government

(27:51):
and launch lawsuits in their names. So what I think
so powerful about the false claims because people seem familiar
with the tip program, with the sec ree file. It's
hup anonymously and if if they act on your information,
you can get a reward. Under the False Claims Act,
we deputize a whistleblower to launch a lawsuit in the
name of the government. You can imagine how I am

(28:13):
received when we show up and say, um, we're now
suing Boeing for you know, something defective planes to the U.
S Military or something like that. Can you imagine? There
are now thirty states that have False Claims Act. So
I have been in the position of suing on behalf
of thirty cities in California, right because if private contractors

(28:34):
are cheating the the FISK in California, then they can
bring these kinds of cases. And I show up at
the city attorney's office and you know, San Francisco and say,
I've just folowed a lawsuit in your name. Let's talk.
Let's talk about how do we go about discovery, Like
how are we going to prosecute this thing? Right? So
it's an enormously powerful tool, and it's something that is

(28:55):
unique to the United States. Although I always say to
the UK that we stole it for view and now
we're trying to sell it back to you as our own.
That's funny. Well, what goes around comes around. So I'm
gonna pivot here in just a second. But the last
question on this sort of theme of of whistleblower repression. Um.

(29:16):
You know, CEOs and HR departments often see whistleblowers as traders.
You know, they do things like right anti whistle blowing
language into the contracts, as you've mentioned, to prevent it.
Can you talk about some of the other strategies that
companies use to discourage whistle blowing. Sure, and so I
think it really comes back to more of this idea

(29:37):
of the medieval mindset, the corporate playbook that is in
place that basically shames whistle blowers who speak out. To me,
that is one of the biggest things that they do. UM.
And what's interesting is that in the wake of the
enron Um scandal, we adopted Sarbanes Oxley legislation that basically

(29:58):
requires companies of certain sizes to include a designated anonymous
internal whistle blowing mechanism. So we recognize that maybe if
there had been a mechanism like that that had been
clearly signposted, that could have maybe stop and Ron in
its tracks. Right. So I think that's that's one of

(30:20):
the things that has been imposed upon companies because they
haven't created a situation where people feel safe to speak up.
So I think those those kinds of mechanisms are fine,
But those mechanisms are only as good as the culture
that's behind it. Right, You know, it has to start
with the tone of the top. It has to start
with creating an environment where, um, people feel safe to

(30:42):
speak out and you value it. That's the thing, right,
is culture change within corporations. And there's an irony to this,
which you pointed out to me in one of our
first conversations. At your suggestion, I read to Harvard Business
Review articles about the late data on whistleblowing, and there
were just a number of eye opening revelations in that data.

(31:05):
For instance, companies that don't attack whistleblowers actually do better financially. Um,
So why why is that? So? What this research is
showing is that companies that create a space where whistleblowers
feel safe to speak out. Those companies have fewer lawsuits
against them, fewer federal investigations, with the assumption being whistler

(31:30):
serve the function and actually helped them stop and correct
course before some wrongdoing metastasized into the next big PR scandal.
So I really love it because it tells us that
not only do we need to change how we think
about whistleblowers, we need to celebrate them as almost the
CEO's best friend. I mean, it's such a brain drain

(31:53):
when you let these people go, because they are really, um,
your most disruptive in the best possible way employees. Um,
And why are we creating a yes culture and not
allowing people, you know, creating a culture where people feel
safe to challenge what's going on. Aren't we all better
in our relationships when someone calls us out for doing

(32:14):
something wrong. Yeah. In addition, they're your bravest employees. They're
the ones that are at some level the most honest
of your employees. Like and yet people are drumming them
out of their companies. They should be, as you say,
celebrated and protected by the CEO. And and and certainly the
board if it is true and that and it is

(32:37):
that these companies do better financially, and it's the job
of the board of directors to look after investors, and
boards of directors should be whistleblowers best friends. It feels
like maybe that is beginning to happen a little bit more.
It feels like maybe the worm is being beginning to turn.
But you know you would know this better than I do.

(32:58):
You feel like the culture is headed in a better
direction now I do, actually, And one of the reasons
I think, um, we're seeing this change, of course, is
because chief compliance officers are starting to relate to whistlowers.
So if you're a chief compliance officer in a corporation,
you're not dissimilar to a whistle blower. You're not a

(33:20):
cost you're not a profit generating center. You're seeing as
the people who put the brakes on it tell you
shouldn't do it this way. And I think now we're
recognizing that for a lot of the scandals, compliance officers
were made compliant officers and we're told to go along.
And now there's an elevation of compliance officers where there's

(33:41):
more of a sense that they should be reporting to
the board board level. You know, they appreciate whistlers in
a way that a lot of people in organizations don't.
So what advice would you have for leadership at companies
to help their company be more open to whistle blowing
and therefore, you know, kind of open to open to change.

(34:02):
I really think one of the best things the company
can do is actually hire a former whistleblower. What signals
more that you believe in whistle blowers than hiring a
well known informer whistlel er. I think that's one of
the things that you can do most um. But I
think the other thing is we really need to teach
people how to have difficult conversations. I really think some

(34:22):
grassroot training on we value difference of opinions and really
walking the walk and talking to the talk. I always say, like,
let's put in your performance review that you get a
certain gold stars right when you expose wrongdoing. Why isn't
that something that's in our evaluations. Doesn't that also show
in a very brass tax kind of way, what we value.

(34:44):
What you put on your performance evaluation for manually is
what you value. Do you know any whistleblowers who regret
you know, having made the decision to do it, it's
a great question. I don't, and I find that to
be extraordinary. Even after they've been through the ringer, they
still look back and I feel like it was the
right thing to do. And a lot of my clients

(35:04):
are like, I can't exist at an organization where I
have fear that I may be wearing an orange jumpsuit
because I could be found to be a co conspirator
for going along um. And I think with a lot
of whistleblowers, they feel like they don't want to leave
it for the next person, and so even after they've
suffered it, I think a lot of them talk about

(35:25):
I have to look my children in the eye, I
have to look myself in the mirror, And so to
a person, they will always say, it was a hellish journey.
And we need to change how whistlers are viewed. We
need to normalize whistling and change this perception that we
have of whistlers as disloyal. But they would all do
it again, and I just find it remarkable. That is

(35:46):
remarkable and and kind of wonderful. I love that the
last question, is there anything else that I haven't touched on?
Or asked you about that you think we should talk about.
Is there anything else you think folks should know? Yeah,
you know, there's one thing that I really did want
to talk about UM today, and that relates to this
idea that I alluded to about them, anonymity of whistleblowers UM.

(36:09):
And I think we're now accustomed to the idea of
whistleblowers having, you know, being becoming almost personalities, right, not celebrities,
but personalities UM. And I think that what we're starting
to see with the i C i J, the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists is UM what I call what
a lot of people are referred to as sort of

(36:29):
a leaking culture. Where in the case of the Panama Papers,
the Mosak Fonseca law firm, all those files were turned
over to sadutschs iding the reporters there, and they then
shared it out to the International Consortium and Investigative Journalism.
And now we have journalists around the world who are
looking at people who are taking advantage properly and improperly

(36:52):
of offshore tax havens UM. And the reason I pointed
out is that there was I mean, the Panama papers
kind of shook the world and there have since then
been Paradise papers, um Pandora papers, right. They this model
has continued to happen and we don't know who those
whistleblers are. And isn't that just right? So the the

(37:14):
SA Deutsches i dig reporters just a few weeks ago
did uh an interview with their source for the Panama
papers and it was, you know, a robotic voice, the
person's face was etched out and all of it and
what that whistlebler said was his her. Their life was
completely improved by the fact that they were anonymous. They
could go ahead and continue to live a life um.

(37:36):
And so I think that that's something we need to
think about. And that's one of the things when we
were talking about the SEC program today. That's one of
the things it affords is that whistlers can actually report
anonymously um. And that makes it a lot easier for
all of us to make that kind of a decision
and the risk reward calculus if you didn't if you can,
you know, give the information and not be outed, didn't

(37:59):
have to blow your life up to do it. Yeah,
I love that. Okay, Mary, this was not unexpectedly a
fantastic conversation. I want to thank you so much for
talking with us today, and I want to thank you
for the work that you do. It's so very important.
So UM, we really appreciate your spending time with us today. Well, So,

(38:21):
I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to
be on your podcast. In particular, there's such an alignment
between whistleblowers ultimately UM exposed purpose washing. That's what they
do for a living, and I know that's what your
podcast seeks to do. And so I just felt like
it was the perfect pairing, UM, And what an honor
to be on your podcast because my clients do call

(38:43):
bullshit every day. Yes they do, Yes they do, and
more power to them. After talking with Mary, I'm even
more impressed with the actions of whistleblowers and convinced that
the business world should be treating them differently, and not
just because they deserve better. The research shows that companies

(39:04):
who deal with problems internally instead of forcing people to
go public, actually improve their culture and their bottom line.
It seems like there's a win win scenario here for everybody.
So how can leadership and companies learn to see internal
whistleblower reports as an opportunity to fix problems and ultimately

(39:27):
to make more money. Next up, I talked with two
experts to discuss ways that that might actually happen. Right
after a quick break, to continue this conversation, I've invited

(39:58):
two more experts in whistleblowing to joined me for a
panel discussion. Dana Gold is the Government Accountability Projects Senior
counsel and director of Education. Her clients have exposed environmental
fraud within nuclear power plants and atrocities within immigration detention centers,
and she has devoted her career to teaching others about

(40:20):
the critical role of whistleblowers. We're also joined by Kyle Welch,
professor at George Washington University School of Business and author
of those HBr papers that Mary sent over to me.
He is the expert in whistleblower data and has published
evidence that shows how much they benefit all of us

(40:41):
and proves that these folks are an asset to organizations
to start out with today, UM, I thought, you know
you you both come at this from such different backgrounds,
and I'm assuming you would both agree that in many

(41:01):
ways whistle blowing is a really good thing and it
benefits the world in important ways. But let me start
by just checking that assumption. Do you both agree with
that premise? I think you're a little too timid in
how you talk about it, to be honest with you, No, no, no,
And I'd be very frank it is you are way

(41:23):
too timid and how you talk about this. If you
want to find a problem in an organization, it is
through humans identifying it and speaking up. There's a lot
of things that robots are going to replace. I don't
think robots are going to be able to replace this.
What is the number one way frauds are caught? It
is whistle blowing. It's people speaking up and way way
way way down, less than half like like something like

(41:47):
it changes every year of the cases are identified through whistleblowers.
The next is internal lot it. But if you talk
to anybody in internal lot it or external lot it
and you ask them, how did you identify the problem?
They say, well, we were are actually asking for a
report and somebody spoke to us. And so at its core,
humans identifying problems and talking about them is how these

(42:10):
problems get solved. Right And Dana, I see you nodding along.
Could you speak to that a little bit? Can you
go into from your perspective, what good do whistleblowers do
for the world. This is the hundred thousand dollar question
or million dollar questions or billion dollar questions. So, expanding
on what Kyle just said, we have systems in place

(42:35):
in our institutions that make it predictable that they will
engage in misconduct and wrongdoing. And when you know that
these systems are broken or incredibly weak, or have these
problematic drivers. In the corporate sector, we have just the
profit motive measuring things by the short term, how we

(42:58):
have shareholder primacy. There all of these drivers that that
make it difficult to value the public interest, to protect
the public interests, and the humans, the employees, the workers
are in the best position to see the problems there there.
That's why the whistle boor protection laws protect employees predominantly,

(43:18):
I would say, not completely, but predominantly, because they're in
the best position to see the problems and to raise concerns.
And so they are what is standing between us and
horrific disasters, right. And it's terrifying to me and also
inspiring at some level because it's the human element of

(43:39):
how truth and truth telling can actually still make a
difference and hold abusers of power to account well. Also,
many of them pay because of the stigmatized environment around whistleblowing.
They pay off on a terrible price for coming forward,
career setbacks as well as personal set back. Some people lose,

(44:02):
you know, their whole support system, they lose relationships with
their family. You know. It's it's bananas, I would say,
absolutely it Actually, that makes my point about why it
it's so terrifying that we're so dependent on whistleblowers because
the risk that is involved with speaking up against those
who have far more power. We're all more vulnerable because

(44:25):
they are vulnerable. It is, it is, It is a
societal problem that is not that it's why we need
to care about whistleblowers because they are the one standing
up for us rather than other rising whistleblowers and um
thinking of them in some really with with a lot
of misperceptions that I think, I think are changing. I

(44:45):
think and I think it's interesting your podcast that talks
a lot about this erosion of trust in our institutions.
Right we have a deep erosion of trust in our
government institutions and our corporate institutions than the past four years.
Since this past administration. And you've seen whistleblowers come forward
on on COVID threats right, um, you know, pushing bogus

(45:08):
therapies um, and not prioritizing vaccines. You've seen climate science
whistleblowers gagged. You've seen um, you know, Facebook and Twitter,
and you know the kind of social media whistleblowers come
forward that people are realizing that it's the humans, it's
the whistleblowers who are where we're going to get actually
honest information and protecting our backs. And I think it's changed.

(45:29):
And you see there's emarrassed poll from a few years
ago that says like eight sent of people think whistle
blowers there should be stronger protections for whistleblowers. I mean,
it's a huge change from viewing them as snitches and
tattle tales and disloyal there's a sense that that's where
our information is going to come from when we're in
a sea of dis and misinformation. Yeah, it's obvious you

(45:52):
both passionately believe that whistle blowing has multiple positive benefits
from the world. And I guess the natural place to
go next is how do we remote more of it?
Although it does sound like it's moving in the right direction.
How might we accelerate that process? So, Kyle, I'm gonna
ask you to go first, what's the one thing we
ought to do well? So Tie, there's two things that

(46:15):
that I always talk about. One of the big things
that could be done is that for leaders that look
at whistle blowing or people speaking up understanding the value
derived from it. Um Essentially, our research shows that firms
that have more reports internally are better in almost every
regard governance. Uh, you know, they get ahead of future lawsuits,

(46:37):
future finds, the amount of future lawsuits, amount of future finds.
It just basically shows that you're able to avoid negative
outcomes and there's also a lot of positive outcomes that
come from it. And so that leaders leaders that essentially
see reports and say, oh, are whistle blowing numbers are up?
The wrong question is to say what's wrong? Instead, the

(46:57):
right question is to say do we have enough resources?
Which leads me to kind of like my second thing,
and probably more so for the audience here, there is
frequently a story told about whistle blowing, and it's unfortunate
because I think it's wrong. I think it's very wrong.
So Dana comes from the world of like the worst situations.

(47:18):
She's seen people in nuclear power plants. You know, I
guess I watched the Chernobyl series, and so my mind
goes to the worst were stuff ever? Right? And what
we've what Dana has is a wealth of experience, basically
in the trauma room associated with whistle blowing. But like,
there's this other side of the data that nobody sees

(47:41):
because whistle blowers that actually get problems solved, that don't
have to go to court, that don't end up in
the news, we never hear about. We never hear about
them because companies don't release something saying, hey, we had
a serial harasser. We got rid of the serial harrass
They don't do that. Oh we found out that we
you know, we have ridgulen stuff. They don't report it.

(48:01):
What I hear over and over and over again, especially
from defenders, is how hard it is to be a
whistle blower. But I would say that based on the
sample of people that actually report that, by and large,
the average human is not as evil as the type
that data is prosecuting in a courtroom. And so when

(48:23):
you think about that, that should frame also whistle blowing.
When you think about whistle blowing. The reason why we're
discovering fraud isn't because we have more corrupt politicians now.
It isn't because we have more problems, and we've always
had these problems. It's just this tool. It's like in
the last decade it's been the birth of it, and
we've all of a sudden realized how valuable this tool

(48:44):
is to identifying and solving problems. And so I look
at it, and I I see a lot more hope
and positivity coming out of this because I just have
looked at the data and I've seen firms saving millions
and millions of dollars resolving issues and not going to
court as a result of it. The ones to go
to court. It's like, it's kind of like judging driving

(49:04):
a car based on the E R room and if
you only if you only look at the R room
and advertise the ER room. It's good to talk about
the E R room because it will help people respond
right to these cases. But I don't think but it
doesn't represent the sample of driving. It misses many of
the benefits. That's right, That's right. That's so those are
the Thank you, Kyle. So Dana, first of all, any

(49:28):
thoughts on what Kyle said. Yeah, well, I I just
want to say I totally agree that you know, I
work on the fringe of extremes. Right, Like, basically, companies
or governments or agencies have failed by the time when
I when I'm involved, when I'm involved, right, So like
it's just like they missed their I always say they
have multiple chances. That the first chances do the right

(49:50):
thing in the first place, that doesn't require needing a whistleblower, Right,
that's your first chance. Then the second chances when a
whistle blower, an employee speaks out, identifies a problem, a
deal with that appropriately. And ninety of employees raise concerns
internally first, I mean that's what they do. People don't want, like,

(50:10):
it's not true that a whistleblower is only only when
you go outside the organization. I mean the laws are
except for one of them, Dodd Frank, which is complicated
and we can talk about that. But but basically, you know,
your rights start your your rights attached when you start
raising concerns internally to management or supervisors or people who
are responsible for dealing with the problem. And most employees

(50:33):
do raise concerns internally first before going outside. So so
this is like a powerful tool. And that's what Kyle's
data is so important for establishing, is that you have
this risk management tool sitting in you know, it's this
is like your most powerful resource they want to report
internally first you just have the opportunity to respond appropriately.

(50:56):
You don't even have to validate. I mean, this is
the other thing that I think it is so interesting
and one kind of reform tool is that if you
investigate an employee's concern appropriately, that there's this whole research
around procedural justice and procedural fairness that if an employee
raises a concern and the employer has, you know, an
objectively fair process, they protect the employee from retaliation. They

(51:19):
communicate with them about the investigation. They you know, and
like there's a perception that the investigation is fair and
objective and legitimate. And the employer comes back and says,
you know, hey, thank you, and this is what we found.
We actually didn't find that you're just your concern um
was right actually even though you had a reasonable belief
about it. Then the employee is like hugely willing to

(51:41):
accept those results and then becomes an ambassador on behalf
of other employees and the company that Look, this company
dealt with my problem in a really effective way. So
like there's no downside to an employer responding appropriately to
its employee when they raise concerns. There is only upside.

(52:02):
You avoid risk, you avoid litigation, you save money, all
of these things because you have like this best line
of defense. But it is this internal speak up culture
that has to be real and legitimate and not used
which we see sometimes as a tool to actually suss
out who the reporter is and then retaliate against them.

(52:22):
I mean, like there are there is some hotline abuse
that happens, although I think these third party platforms are
minimizing some of that dramatically, which is great, But I
think that's a huge pieces. Like there's so many things
that companies can do and governments can do to you know,
institutions can do to internally shore up how they respond
to their workers, to value and encourage them to speak up.

(52:45):
And there's like a whole list, not just one. But
then there are external things that we need to do
to Like we do need to strainen them with more protections.
We need to, like the me too movement recognize that
a whistleblower. When they speak up, they have everything to lose,
nothing to a gain, and we need to listen to
them and put the presumption that they're they're putting a
lot on the line if they're bothering to speak up,

(53:07):
rather than viewing them in a suspect way, and that
we need to make it safe for them to speak
up and to support that conduct as a culture. Yeah, okay,
so um, that was great. I'll take the floor for
a moment and um just humbly submit my idea in

(53:28):
the space, and I'd love to hear what both of
you think about this, because to me, the problem here
is education whistle blowing is still culturally stigmatized, although it
sounds like that may be improving, and and that comes from,
I think a genuine ignorance about the positive effects that
both of you have been talking about. And so my

(53:50):
idea is to figure out how to create whistleblower awards,
So not rewards, I'm talking about awards that are given
to recognize the positive benefits to businesses into society and
maybe get a sponsor. You know, I don't know whether
the Harvard Business Press would ever, you know, co sponsor

(54:11):
this or or distribute it. They tend to be a
little conservative, but it would be great if they would
get behind this, And why not since it's obviously a
business success story to promote, you know, whistle blowers. If
you want to promote better business in the world, you
ought to promote whistle blowing or you know. Again, possibly
a fantasy, but the Wall Street Journal as a partner,

(54:32):
let's celebrate and reward individuals and along the way educate
the wider world about the clear business benefits and clear
societal benefits of creating a culture where it is safe
to come forward. Thoughts on that first of all, as
as better as it could be, we should recognize that

(54:53):
the United States, for all our problems, is the best
in the world at complaining about things. We do the
best at whistle blowing because we embedded in our culture
speaking up more so than anywhere else. We actually have
of huge cultural advantage here. So the whistleblower reports in

(55:13):
the US are like a mile ahead culturally because in
our culture, generally speaking, it is not stigmatized nearly as
much as as it used to be, and people do
look up to it. And I think that's kind of
your point, is that we need more people looking up
to it. I would also push back a little bit too.
This is not a liberal idea. I mean, this solves

(55:35):
the problem faster, better and improves it this way better
than anything else. I agree with that. What are you
pushing back on, because that was what I was trying
to say, is that of all the people in the world,
the hardcore business press are the people who ought to
be celebrating this, and I don't think they are. But
it's I would say, though, it's that kind of shooting

(55:57):
from the hip that creates a problem. We don't know
that answer because you don't have the data on it,
and I don't have the date on it. Yeah, it's
my show. I get to have an opinion. I have
comanecdotal evidence, which is not the kind of data that
that Kyle does. But I used to um I used
to run executive education programs on corporate governance for directors,

(56:18):
corporate directors and general counsel often. And um I was
running a program at Boston College Law School and an
issue came up around a lot of concern and interest
about Dodd Frank and whistle blowers, and it went to
a place these are all enlightened nice people. It went
to a place where what can we do about the whistleblowers?

(56:41):
Can we can we can we get them for stealing documents,
you know, or violating gag orders. And I was just like, oh,
oh dear, oh dear, this is the this is exactly
the problem. And I think that there is this embedded
problem of perceiving even though I think this is not
as true for management. I think with general counsel sometimes

(57:03):
they see whistle blowers as a potential source of risk,
rather than realizing that I'm going to create more risk
if my company doesn't deal effectively with the whistleblower. I'm
actually going to increase our risk by now we're going
to have a lawsuit around litigation and not just the
underlying problem. I was like, oh my gosh, the degree
of education to your point, Hie, around why whistle blowing

(57:25):
is a good thing and why responding appropriately to whistleblowers
and how to do that internally is exactly what is
beneficial to a company. That's what needs to happen. And
you know, to your point about the awards, I agree.
I mean, what you're talking about is is valorizing or
calling out the right behavior rather than the wrong behavior.

(57:45):
And so if you're measuring, for instance, we only had
you know, zero safety problems right as opposed to saying oh,
because that discourages people from reporting accidents right as opposed
to how did we respond on to those accidents. I mean,
we have these perverse performance incentives that I think switched

(58:06):
for the burden to be on how management responds rather
than drive to encourage just employees to speak up. They're
gonna speak up if they feel like they're not going
to suffer retaliation and something's going to be done about
the problem. And I also just want to say one
thing about this, the money problem, is that largely that
is not what motivates people to speak out. As a

(58:28):
matter of fact, there's some data that says that money
depresses reporting right or depresses ethical behavior. And so when
the SEC, for instance, promotes all of these multimillion dollar
awards that it's giving to whistleblowers, I think it's just
sending totally the wrong message personally, um, because like they've
given out three hundred and twenty eight awards out of

(58:51):
sixty four thousand, four hundred and twenty one tips that
they've that they've received since its inception in that means
you have a point five sent chance, point five percent
chance of getting an award. It's like you buy buy
a lottery ticket. I think the success of this program
is that it's a program that allows for anonymity and

(59:14):
confidentiality and an opportunity that someone someone responsible might investigate
and do something about it and yeah, maybe you maybe
you'll you'll win the lottery and get a payout. But
it addresses those other two issues that that are motivating
to an employee who sees wrongdoing, right is that someone's
going to maybe do something about it and I don't

(59:35):
have to risk retaliation because I can stay anonymous or
you know, maintain my confidentiality. Like that's in part why
this is so successful. So I think it's not about
this money thing. It's about measuring and incentivizing the right behavior.
So what are your thoughts, just in general, on the
idea of rewarding whistleblowers with money at all? Personally, I

(59:59):
think we have struck, the regulators have struck a pretty
good balance. If you try to resolve something internally and
then go external, you have the highest chance for the
most reward externally on these bounties. So I I think
that balance is a great balance that the US is
created because it it doesn't steal this resource away from firms.

(01:00:21):
Because if we really want to change things, we want
the people closest to the problems to fix them. It's
much harder to get the government to fix them. But
if it has to go to the government, oh man,
they better pay. I want to pivot for just a
second and and talk a little bit about your work, Kyle.
In your work, you use the Peter Drucker quote culture

(01:00:42):
eats strategy for breakfast. Can you explain what you meant
by that in the context of whistleblowing When you have
a strong culture in your organization, where when your group
feels like almost like their kinship with like they're related
to each other, they all of a sudden make an
investment in their organization that you wouldn't get otherwise. You

(01:01:04):
would not get that otherwise, and so there's all these externalities.
And Danta kind of talked about this. One of the
tragedies of this of research and this data is that
it's very easy to measure negative outcomes. Negative outcomes come
in the form of lawsuits, fines, and then news stories.
Those are all the negative outcomes. It's very hard to
measure the positive outcomes. Somebody that is dealing with harassment.

(01:01:27):
Somebody is dealing with the problem at at work, and
the problem gets resolved all of a sudden, they feel
a huge weight off of them and working at work
environment is much better. You think about somebody being harassed
at work and then taking that home with them and
how that affects their other relationships with their spouse and kids.
It's it, it has. There's huge effects to this, and
and I think we're just we're just getting exposing just

(01:01:51):
a little bit of it that it's wide open for us. Yeah. Yeah,
I just want to expand on that a little bit
because I just think it's it's often hard to measure
problems that are prevented, right, Like it's hard when you
when you actually can prevent a big safety problem because
the company has addressed it, it's hard to say, well,

(01:02:13):
we we prevented a nuclear three mile Island disaster. And
this is like why it's a you know, it's a
weird data set to to measure, you know, I think
about GM. I whish there were more examples like this,
but you know, Tony Fernendez, the whistleblower who sued on
his own Haliburton and then GM he's an accounting fraud

(01:02:34):
he you know, GM snatched, he blew the whistle on
Haliburton and huge accounting fraud, right, and he represented himself.
Actually pro se was very successful. General Motors hired him
and they brought him on like in a really public way,
like we're gonna hire the whistleblower. And I just like

(01:02:54):
this should happen all the time, like this should like this.
You know, we've we've touched on this a couple of times,
but why doesn't it happen more? Let me can I
push back on that? Just a sect to that the
name of the show was calling bosh so so so
let me push back on that. There's an academic article

(01:03:16):
that was published by a couple of smart, sharp guys.
What they did is they looked at uh public keytam
lawsuits and then they said, okay, let's find the people
that brought the lawsuits and do background checks on them
to see where they are in their careers. So, using
LinkedIn and private Investor, they spend a ton of money
on this. What they found was their careers showed no

(01:03:38):
deviation from their peers. I do know that people's careers,
people get fired from jobs. I know that event happens.
But when I'm saying this, I'm talking about means. I'm
talking about averages and especially means and averages of the population.
Even at the extreme. They looked at the extreme, and
in that extreme they said, hey, all these people had
like similar jobs. They didn't have their set, but they

(01:04:00):
were at similar levels relative appears. So i'miding to read that,
and I hope you send it to me, because I
think what's interesting about Dodd Frank and the false Claims
Act of course, right, is that when you file a
false claims at case, you do so under sealed. You
file a claim, but the Department of Justice and it's
under sealed, like it is under sealed, like the company
does not know. Like this is like a quiet thing.

(01:04:22):
But those whistleblowers who blew the whistle not using these
confidential systems, that experience for the whistleblower becomes then they
become radioactive quite quite frequently if it's public, you know,
very very public profile. So I just you know, I think,
I mean, again, this is like a really dramatic example
because her disclosures went viral. But I represent Don Wootton,

(01:04:42):
who's the nurse at She was the nurse at the
Erwin County Detention Center. Whistle. Yeah right, blew the whistle
on all kinds of medical mistreatment, including that women were
suffering non consensual, unnecessary gynecological procedures that went totally viral.
You know, her life is completely changed and she can't

(01:05:02):
she can't either get a job or retain a job
as a nurse during a pandemic in her local community
because she is blamed right as the one responsible for
ending that contract at that facility. Now that's very dramatic
example because she's so well known essentially, right, But and
I'm not saying that's true for all whistleblowers at all.
You know this problem, I mean, I think it's but yeah, yeah,

(01:05:26):
that that praises another question for me because you know,
another expert that we spoke to for the show actually
mentioned that there are certain industries and and she called
out health care and defense where you may never work
again if you speak out. And so I guess it
does seem like there are some industries where there there

(01:05:50):
is a stigma. I will I'm gonna call both on that.
That those are the most regulated industries. I would say
your more likely to have a problem in an industry
that doesn't have those eyeballs. So let me tell you
why I based this opinion on on the claim of
health care and defense. In the last year, I've spoken
at three defense conferences and three healthcare conferences trying to

(01:06:15):
understand and better like better understand the outcome and positive
natures associated with these compliance. Of all the two industries
that reach out to my research, No two industries reach
out to this research more like I can't even think
of a third healthcare and defense. You're hearing the failures
of it, and so if you hear censored data, you

(01:06:36):
will always get a censored by as sample from it.
And I would say, generally speaking, defense industry. Of all
the industries that reach out to me, defense and healthcare
over and over and over again have a huge focus
on this. I would say compliance in those two industries
while there are and it makes sense because the problems

(01:06:56):
if somebody dies, if something goes wrong, or got secrets
getting leaked out, it makes sense that compliance would be
huge in those industries. Dana, did you have any thoughts
about that? Yeah, I mean I think I actually think
this could be a both and situation in that I
agree that these heavily regulated industries where the stakes are

(01:07:19):
very high, have some of the most sophisticated ethics and
compliance systems. They understand why it's important to them, and
they have they're they're just far more advanced. I still
think even when you hear those outlying pieces of data,
it's still a sign of failure in that ethics and

(01:07:39):
compliance system. When you have a Boeing whistleblower who basically
said I was raising concerns about safety issues and suffered
reprisal and they weren't addressed. And the only reason now
that you're hearing about it is because they suffered reprisal
and the problem wasn't addressed, and the stakes of that
response is endangering people. Right, I'm so like, do you

(01:08:06):
need like? So, You're right, it might be an outlier,
but that failure is still a problem. It doesn't mean
that everything is bad at that company and that every
but it's like if you're talking about one plane fallen
from the sky, you kind of want to prevent that,
right and no, So, so so let's be clear. What
I'm saying is that when they do something wrong, go

(01:08:30):
hard on the paint on them to hold them accountable.
But when we're talking about means and averages in those industries,
the mean firm in compliance, the mean firm associated with this.
In defense and healthcare, they the reason why they have
these advanced systems. They try to get ahead of it.
So when somebody in in that network does something wrong,

(01:08:51):
oh my gosh, all the more, all the more should
they be held accountable because of how advanced their system
should be. Okay, I'm a little confused, So I just
want to clarify something because I think lots of companies
have like hotline reporting systems for reporting, and I have

(01:09:13):
seen experts who have pointed out that those mechanisms are
only as good as the culture behind that system. You
agree with that, okay, but you don't agree And I
get that data is hard to get here, but you
don't agree that there are industries healthcare and defense are

(01:09:37):
two that have been mentioned by other experts where there
is a problem, a cultural bias against hiring people who
have had a history of whistle blowing. But don't you
think it's kind of apples and oranges? And I think
this is why I maybe you're struggling and and I
am too. Is that it's still about people, Like if

(01:10:00):
you raised a concern internally and it was dealt with
through the ethics and compliance system, you're actually not I mean,
you're a whistle or because you raised a concern, but
it doesn't become a problem because it's about the management
response to the report. That's what really becomes the issue.
It's how does management respond to the report. That's why
we don't hear all of this data that you hear
about Kyle. It's like, that's why it's a gold mine

(01:10:22):
because here people that report internally and the company dealt
with it, right, So I'm dealing with when the company
failed to respond appropriately, right, And it happens a lot.
We are so busy, like we have a lot, you
know what, we can't help everybody, right, Like there's a
lot of failure. And they're in health care and they're
in defense, like they're in all of these industries, right,
they're all always failures. And so when I think about

(01:10:46):
how we care about the power of an individual who
sees a problem, right, and when they it's either experienced
retaliation or the problem isn't dealt with. That's when they're
prompted to go outside, and once they're public, it becomes
very hard. I think even you know, as anyone in
a play, you know, here's someone who blew the whistle
before publicly, like GM. That's why I made that example.

(01:11:09):
It's like they basically use that as as a way
of telegraphing to their culture and to their workers into
the world. We like that this person is a whistle blower.
We care about our accounting cleanliness. We're not afraid that
is like not reflexibly. If you know that someone is sued,
you know, has sued an employer in the past, and

(01:11:31):
you're an employer hiring someone, you're gonna think out of
what this person because they're gonna blow the whistle on me.
I just think it's it's so embedded in terms of
how we and I think it's where like the blacklisting
comes up again, for a public facing whistle blower, you
have to either embrace it and may be really enlightened,

(01:11:55):
or you're gonna be like, oh, this person is going
to see all the problems and my we're going to
say we all, we'll give you, we'll give you the
last word, and then we get we get a rep.
We we all agree that it's bad. And uh, the
one thing that I that's the important that we agree.
We agree that if somebody is getting blacklisted for this,
that it's bad. So what I would say and what

(01:12:19):
I tell compliance professionals and people that reach out, is
that first everyone that wants they want to have an
organization and a great culture. Most leaders do want that,
I would say, on average, And so we hear about
these bad stories, and I would say that the Special
Victims Unit of whistle blowing is important to understand and

(01:12:43):
identify and tell stories from. But make sure our narrative
is is the average human isn't the type of perpetrator
that makes people go to this SPU unit of whistle blowing,
And that there is a lot of good that's happening
and we never hear about it. I don't know that
we'll ever hear about all of it, but we should

(01:13:04):
understand the s V unit, but understand that that is
the sampling doesn't show the whole population. Okay, sadly we
have to wrap this up, but this has been a
fantastic conversation. I so appreciate both of you. Kyle Dana,
thank you for being on the show. This is super fun.

(01:13:25):
It's fun talking to Dana too. I've seen it from
a distance for so I was like, I'm gonna get
to do this with Kyle's and now we know tie,
So this is great. You're doing great work on this podcast.
I appreciate that, and thank you both for the work
that you're doing so so great and so important. Keep
it up. Alright, folks, We're not giving anybody a B

(01:13:49):
S score today, but I do want to drive this
point home. In a perfect world, corporate mouthfeasance would be
stopped as soon as it's discovered. Fraud would be dealt
with internal, and systems that incentivize poor behavior would be
redesigned to encourage people to do the right thing. We
wouldn't need whistle blowers. But the point I want to

(01:14:11):
make two leaders of organizations everywhere, you have a massive
opportunity to embrace and support whistleblowers and see them for
what they really are. There, in many cases your most
loyal people. They are your bravest people. They are an
asset to your company, to your culture, and to your

(01:14:32):
bottom line. Treat them that way. If you're a whistleblower
or looking for support and resources to become one. Here
are a few organizations in addition to the sec that
Mary Inman recommends that you check out. The Signals Network
is a not for profit that assist whistleblowers and connects

(01:14:55):
them safely with journalists. Taxpayers Against Fraud supports whistleblowers, and
Vault is an anonymous reporting tool that allows whistleblowers to
find each other safely within organizations. You can find details
about how to contact all of them in our show notes.

(01:15:16):
And I want to thank Mary Edman, Kyle Welch, and
Dana Gold both for the work they do and for
taking the time to talk with me today for this
special episode. Links about them and their work are also
in the show notes. And if this episode made you
want to do the right thing, subscribe to the Calling
Bullshit podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(01:15:39):
or wherever you listen to people speaking to your ears.
Please take a minute to rate us and let us
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(01:16:03):
team Hannah Beale, Amanda Ginsburg, D S Moss, Hailey Pascalites,
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and it's hosted by Me Time onto You. Thanks for listening.