There is no shortage of institutions – public or private – looking to implement reforms these days. A transportation company struggles to rehabilitate its corporate culture after allegations targeted at its leadership team. A financial institution spends massive amounts of time and money reforming its internal practices following a public scandal. An automobile manufacturer rebuilds lost public trust on the heels of reports it falsified safety records. And multiple major city police departments strive mightily to restore their tarnished brand after long histories of unconstitutional policing.
But these are just the tip of the reform iceberg. Countless organizations – from small businesses to multi-national corporations to domestic and foreign governments – engage in systemic efforts to change internal policies, practices, and/or culture all the time. Indeed, it seems “reform” has become the rule, not the exception.
Implementing meaningful, lasting reform, however, is not an easy task. The Internet is littered with stories of institutions heading down the road to reform only to have their path blocked by new leadership holding a new map. As a Government Contracts/False Claims Act lawyer often called upon to implement ethics and compliance programs in the corporate sector – and as the judicially-appointed Monitor responsible for overseeing the New Orleans Police Department’s (NOPD’s) compliance with a 492-paragraph Federal Consent Decree – I constantly am looking for ways not only to implement sensible, practical, and meaningful reforms, but to ensure those reforms are sustained.
While there is no foolproof formula to prevent backsliding in a large organization, there are a number of strategies that can help sustain change over time. Let’s call them our Eight Aids To Sustaining Reform. My colleagues and I use them in New Orleans as well as in the corporate sector. They are simple, logical, and practical. They are useful for any organization interested in self-improvement, and they hold promise whether the reform effort is compelled by a directive from an enforcement authority, “suggested” by the results of an internal investigation, or a purely voluntary act of self-improvement.
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