Ep. 190: Gordon Graham - The Ethics and Risks of Whistleblowing

Connect with Gordon: www.intrepidbrotherhood.com

Full Episode Transcript:
Adam: (00:06)
I'm Adam Larson and welcome to Count Me In, the podcast that explores the world of business from the management accountant's perspective. Today, we are talking to author Gordon Graham about his memoir, the Intrepid Brotherhood: Public Power, Corruption, and Whistleblowing in the Pacific Northwest. This is a really fascinating story. Gordon was a senior technology leader at the public utility who uncovered blatant persistent corruption among executive management at the company. But while others accepted the corruption as an unfortunate fact of life, Gordon fought hard for change, even in the face of fierce retaliation from the executive wing. His decision to fight and ultimately become a whistleblower, provides a riveting example of the lengths people will go to on both sides of an ethical dilemma. Here's my conversation with Gordon Graham.

Adam: (01:01)
So Gordon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate you coming on and let me just start by saying, you have just an amazing story that you wrote about in your book, and I hope we'll get to hear a little bit about it today, but one of the biggest items that you talk about is standing up for what is right. And now this can be especially hard when you feel like the weight of an organization or a local government on you and you probably feel very alone. Can you give us your take on standing up for ethical professional treatment at the expense of one's career?

Gordon: (01:32)
Difficult choice, to say the least. I think one of the reasons I wrote the book was just so people who may be experiencing the same thing or recognize, and same characteristics in their organization can have something to refer to help them try to determine how they can help their organization, maybe get out of that circumstance, how they can help themselves, maybe the people within the span of control that they have, or have responsibility for. They can help them deal with it. It's a very personal choice to decide to actually confront those issues. If you recognize 'em in your organization. And a lot of people are going to choose differently than I did. My circumstances sort of dictated that I needed to personally dedicate myself to trying to help the organization that I had invested so many years in.

Gordon: (02:33)
I really feel like I didn't have any choice. There was no other decision for me to make. And unfortunately even though I exercised what I think were the right steps, the right maneuvers to try to get people's attention, to build recognition of the problem, I failed at that. I have to admit that I didn't get that done. And in the end it caused me to have to change my employer, my career path a little bit, I had to relocate, a whole bunch of things happened, but that's, you know, I really can't advise anyone on specific approach or steps to take to you know, ultimately deal with that situation if they recognize it in their organization. But hope hopefully the book provides some tools to evaluate how to make that decision.

Adam: (03:29)
Definitely. I mean, that must have been a very tough decision to make, especially job location and friends I'm sure. And like community, you had to kind of disrupt everything just to make that decision that you made.

Gordon: (03:43)
That's correct. Yeah. There was a lot of circumstances and factors that weighed into our decision. I say our, because my wife played a huge part in that analysis to say the least. So yeah it really was life changing and, you know, I would've rather that it would've resolved differently, but that's just the way things evolved. And we made the choice that we did because we felt it was the right one.

Adam: (04:17)
Yeah. So let's say I'm in a similar position and I'm starting to see signs of abusive leadership somehow in a management position at the company I'm at, you know, what steps should I take? Like what are the steps that someone should take when they start to see those things?

Gordon: (04:35)
So if you recognize some of the things that I've outlined or specified in the book are happening in your organization coincidentally, I just, I just did at the request of my self-publishing company, I just did kind of a deep dive into that very subject and came up with a piece that will be shared with people that joined my email list and that type of thing. And there are certain things that I think constitute the right way to approach trying to resolve that in your organization. The first one I believe, and probably the most effective, if it is successful is to approach the individual or individuals that you think may be in control of the situation. So if it is your CEO, if it is your general manager that is truly turning the company upside down, or at least in your perception is doing that.

Gordon: (05:33)
I think that's the first place to go. What better place to resolve it than right at the source, if you can gain some recognition and at least get the conversation started about, you know, why maybe you are misperceiving things. Although in most situations, if you recognize the things that were happening in my story, I don't think you're misperceiving anything, but at least to try to raise awareness with that individual or those individuals and get them to think about what may be the long term consequences, if it can be resolved at that level. I think that's probably the best solution. Failing that, or at least not achieving the level of success you might have liked. I think the next resource might be peers in your organization. So if you are at a mid or senior management level, there are other people that are in your group, so to speak, that you must interface with on a regular basis.

Gordon: (06:37)
And if you can gain some recognition amongst that group, then you can sort of initiate an intervention, so to speak. So you've got a group of people who are of a like mind that can approach upper management or the senior management and let them know what you are observing collectively and what you think would be a better path to pursue. If you can't build that coalition, then the next place would probably be to try to get the attention of one or more of the elected board members, appointed or elected, however your board is constructed. There's really nobody else in the organization that should care more about oversight and really nobody that has more responsibility for that function. So if you can get the attention of at least one of those individuals, then I think they can actually spread the word amongst the rest of the board members and try to intervene and maybe right the ship so to speak.

Gordon: (07:58)
So that's probably the next best place and then failing all of those things. You're kind of in my situation or the situation I was in. And really the only alternative I had at that point was to take my case to the public. And, you know, that ultimately ended up in blowing the whistle and having to file a petition to protect my employment, which ultimately failed. But that's the last resort. And I certainly can't advise anyone to take that step. The other alternative or the last alternative, I guess, to that step would be to just check out mentally or physically, you may just resign yourself to the fact, you're not gonna be able to change anything, move on to a different position, if you can find one. And there's a lot of advice out there in the community to do just exactly that, if you can't thrive at your job, if you are being harassed, if you're being subject...