If a compliance professional manages to establish a leadership position in his or her organization, he or she can nonetheless lose credibility, and therefore become ineffective, quickly. The most common ways of doing so are:

Crying wolf.The best practice is not to draw and share conclusions prematurely. It is preferable to validate whether an issue exists, and to define the issue with some precision before announcing that there is a major problem.

1. Straying from core competencies. Compliance professionals come from all sorts of backgrounds. While they may have core competencies that prepare them well for their position, they may lack some experience or knowledge necessary to tackle a given compliance issue. Compliance professionals should not hesitate to bring in additional internal and external resources when they lack a competency that is necessary to handle a compliance issue professionally, credibly and completely.
2. Shooting from the hip. Compliance professionals should be armed with as much backup detail and authorities as possible if they are going to communicate potential non-compliance to other professionals. Communicating a conclusion about non-compliance without doing the necessary homework is a sure-fire way to lose credibility.
3. Being inflexible.  A compliance professional who is simply a “one-trick pony” who always says, “no” will not maintain credibility for very long. Proposing creative solutions and alternatives will show that the compliance professional is not interested in being a perennial naysayer, but that he or she is also interested in the organization’s overall business objectives.
4. Taking things personally. Compliance is a tough job. It becomes tougher if the compliance professional voluntarily takes on the added burden of being responsible for ensuring compliance across the entire organization, and then considers it to be a personal failure when there is non-compliance.

It might be useful for the compliance professional to assess whether he or she is engaging in any of the unsuccessful practices described above. In future posts, we will look at some of the positive things a compliance professional can do to help establish a culture of organizational integrity.

This article is available in full at The Healthcare Compliance Blog.