Pav Gill on Whistleblowing that works

Welcome to Human Risk, a podcast dedicated to the understanding of human behavior as a risk. Here's your host, Christian Hunt. Hello and welcome back to the show. On this episode, I'm exploring whistleblowing. It's a topic I've covered before, but today I'm exploring it from a completely different angle. My guest is a whistleblower who helped uncover one of the biggest financial frauds in recent history. Wirecard, a multi-billion dollar deception that saw one of Germany's most high-profile fintech companies collapse

overnight. His name is Pav Gil, and as former general counsel at Wire Card's Asia-Pacific operations, his decision to come forward ultimately led to the company's downfall and exposed deep flaws in corporate oversight. But this episode isn't about Wirecard. There are plenty of other podcasts you can listen to to hear about Pav's experiences. And I've covered the story before in a discussion with journalist and writer Dan Mcrum, whose book Money Menmen details the entire scandal and the efforts to bring it to light. If you're unfamiliar with it, you might want to

listen to that first. There's a link to it in the show notes. What I'm exploring with PAV are the dynamics of whistlebl and the not so obvious. As well as exploring why whistleblowing matters and the conditions required to allow it to occur, we also talk about the challenges of encouraging whistleblowers to do the right thing, whilst also ensuring that rewards don't create perverse incentives. Why does some whistleblowers struggle to move on while others manage to use their experience as a platform for new opportunities? How does the stigma around whistleblowing affect

future career prospects? And how can organizations differentiate between legitimate concerns and malicious reporting? Why is closure so important not just for whistleblowers but also for the organizations involved? As I say to Pav on the show, the kind of issues he raises in our discussion are a little bit like whistleblowing on whistleblowing. It's an inner expose of some of the complexities, contradictions, and challenges behind the process. We also talk about the thinking behind Confide, the end-to-end whistleblowing platform that Pav's new

startup of the same name is developing. As someone who's handled whistleblowing cases inside organization and been one himself, it's a challenge he's uniquely qualified to manage. So, we also discuss what it takes to build an effective whistleblowing system, the psychological and logistical challenges of speaking up, and why whistleblowing isn't always as simple as we might assume. So, whether you're interested in the dynamics of getting people to speak up, or have a professional interest because you're in compliance, risk, legal, ethics, HR, or just business leadership, I think you're going to find this

fascinating. my discussion with Pav Gil on whittleblowing that works. Pav, welcome to the human risk podcast. Thank you. I'm so excited to have you here. You have someone that I've wanted to get on the show for ages and the story that has really brought you to prominence and really defined what you do now is obviously the Wire Card one and that's a well-known tale. So, I'm not going to get you to retell that, but what are you up to these days? Tell my listeners about a little bit about what's happened to you since Wire Card. Well, I'm now a founder and CEO of the codified platform, which is a company that I came

up with. What we do and function as is as the world's, you know, only end to end whistleblowing solution. When I say that, um, why it's the only end toend solution is because a lot of these solutions out there focus primarily on receiving reports only. But based on my experience not only as a whistleblower but as experienced general counsel I think the true function and value would be not only in receiving but in being able to manage everything on platform for the audit trail and I think it's

it's really interesting because you're obviously well equipped to understand from the perspective of someone that's going through it what an organization needs to do and and I always sort of say as shorthand people often think of whistleblown as being a logistical problem right if we just put a process in place with, you know, we'll put a reporting line in, we'll have a phone line, job done. And I think there's a lot more complexity to it. And we often think about the sort of logistics of it. We don't necessarily think about the psychological piece and the management of the process, recognizing that ultimately what this is is human beings

stepping up to doing something that is unusual, that isn't something they've necessarily done all the time. And so I love the idea that you you clearly have approached this I hate the word but holistically looking at the entire situation really recognizing not the sort of theoretical dynamics which is you know we need people to speak up and logically they should but recognizing the realities of it and therefore the things that need to be managed behind the scenes. Yeah. Exactly. And that's also in a way a check and balance. So if you think about you know there's always doubts as to how trustworthy the case manager is of the other side where his

uh interests and loyalties are but then if you have a platform where you have raised this to that very case manager and everything that he's going to be doing is going to be audited and logged I think that in itself serves as a check and balance because even if he's like a pure sophan type trigger I think he'll be forced to behave a bit more sensibly if he knows that you know whatever he's doing in terms of the investigation and managing that case is going to leave an audit trail. So I think that's where these kind of subtle effects if you want to call it that also kick in which is at

the end of the day what companies need right if you think about the scenario today if something happens in any company and things blow up everyone's scrambling around looking for where things started who dealt with it who was involved what happened at the end and there's just a broken data process out there you know you may have received something in a hotline in an email then you had various meetings you went to different Jira tickets or Slack conversations s why do we need to do that when you can have like a single source of truth. So that is actually

like the objective that I was trying to solve. Uh it's really about using tech to be more efficient and managing a lot of these things. At the end of the day to me whistleblowing is a form of risk management. Uh that's what I still see it as. And I think um if we approach whistleblowing or the whole raising of concerns whether they are financial crime concerns or HR concerns for example bullying harassment and even like data breaches right like oh there's been a data breach uh how do we report this I think we need some form of safe

escalation mechanism in place because they are as I said risk issues and from an operational risk standpoint from a business risk standpoint any kind of risk standpoint you need to be able to flag it and raise and also then have the company deal with it. And and so you I guess you're looking at two things here, right? One one is the sort of is the logistics bit, right? Which is making sure that you can manage it, you have documented it, you've got all everything is in order, put it that way. But the second bit is as you make is that is that psychological thing, right, which is to say to the employees, actually, we've

got a system here that really takes things seriously and means we have to take things seriously because if we didn't, that would cause us a problem. And so when you hand something over recognizing that you know as is in your case right there's plenty of reasons why people you know might not want to come forward might not trust the system you know it's difficult challenging for them it's not something they're regularly doing you're thinking about that and so so it's it's really a contract I guess with the employees as well to say look we will take this seriously right we were investing in this properly and we really care about it and even if you

think we don't care about it we have to because we've created that audit trail. Yep. And a lot of these uh existing mechanisms in place, what happens is you just launch the report and you might, if you're lucky, get a random update. Uh but you don't have control over the process. You don't have the ability to dynamically engage with the case person. I mean the one managing it. So I think at the I mean at the end of the day as a human being like even if you're in the street and you saw something wrong I think our reaction is to look around us

in the immediate vicinity and try to tell someone hey do you see what I'm seeing right you want to be able to discharge that obligation and I think human beings need to be given that opportunity and at the same time companies need to be given that opportunity to fix it which is where there's this balance cuz of course we can go binary right we can be like, oh, it's all about whistleblowers. They need to be protected. They need to be able to flag things. The company shouldn't be doing something wrong anyway. And then you can also go your company and start

attacking whistleblowers. But I think where we need to understand is balancing both because it's not fair. If you're a senior executive, you've been in a situation where one day you woke up and you you read about your company in the newspaper, for example, and you legitimately didn't know. But had you known, you would have been able to rectify or do something about it. So I think we got to be fair both ways. And that's also why I posted what I posted on LinkedIn because that goes into a

whole I would say controversial, not often discussed topic. And as you could see from some of the comments, it it got quite charged. But I think we need to be alive to the fact that not every whistleblower is an angel, for example. and also what constitutes whistleblowing versus what constitutes actually gaming the system and actively blackmailing a company. And I I love the fact that you unpicked that because I think you're absolutely right that the the common narrative is here's somebody who's doing the right thing against evil company.

And of course that is going to be true, right? There are see I mean you're a great example, right, of calling something out that needed to be called out. But this is a really nuanced thing. And so I love this idea that you've you've kind of exposed it a little bit because I think if you sort of said to people what is whistleblowing you're right it would be one plucky individual speaking up against the evil machine and of course that's not that you know the real world is complicated and challenging and nuance and so I love the fact that you've kind of just gone well what do we mean by that and you know as you and I were talking earlier I've seen examples of people who have engaged in

criminal activity who are sort of trying to reframe themselves as whistleblowers. It's kind of like well you know I got caught uh but then I cooperated with the authorities so that makes me a whistleblower and I can understand the attraction of that and and of course there will be people who I think have been incredibly helpful have gone beyond the duty and so so probably sit close to that but this isn't a kind of binary thing. There's a heck of a lot of motives and dynamics and fact patterns that that go into this whole exercise. So I love that you've just started to unpick it and say we really need to

think about it. And the point you made in the LinkedIn post was that there's a very fine line. you know, somebody could sit either side of that line and what's a good whistleblower versus a bad whistleblower, malicious. So, I think this is really interesting on stuff that again, the topic is quite difficult to to to get to grips with and you get that, but I think it's really important that we open this box and start to reflect on the fact that it's not as simple as it might seem. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you can call it like the gray zone problem. To give an example, you know, there's a real pattern that I've observed. For example, someone notices

serious accounting irregularities. Instead of reporting it, they meticulously say document it over months while drop dropping subtle h into management about their concerns. What they're actually doing is building leverage not protecting stakeholders. I mean the challenge is they're using the same documentation practices which legitimate whistleblowers would need for protection but we must here look at the intended pattern of behavior right and personally like firsthand I have been in situations even in the wire case

if I have come across these individuals what they're actually doing is just angling for a payout but technically if you use a legal I mean that's a problem with the definition, right? Like what is a whistleblower? If you go by the legal definition, someone reports maybe in the public interest and you know about wrongdoing in a company potentially, let's say SEC or or reward for that. It could also be someone raising a concern to the relevant authorities or to those in power. So technically that uh would

cover both legitimate whistleblowing as well as illegitimate bad actors. But then where do we draw the line for blackmail, right? Of course, whistleblowers need protection because of the risk that comes with the role with any kind of raising of concerns to people in power. But then, you know, it's it's a very complicated topic like we could go on for hours on this. So what's also interesting is how I've progressed because initially I used to and I still probably do say we shouldn't consider motive so much but I think now

um yeah and the reason why I say we shouldn't consider motive is because if you're a business executive and you receive the whistleblowing report why do you care what the motive behind the report is if objectively on the facts of the report you need to do something um because if you don't there will be a real bad outcome on your company's business. Right? So that kind of motive. I think what I was trying to say is we should look at the facts of the case of the report objectively at the very first

instance instead of what seems to be to me the knee-jerk reaction at the first instance which is who is this person? Why are they reporting? What's their gain? So I think that question should be part but then at the same time as I came up with this LinkedIn post those things would potentially be relevant but the question is when and how right it's interesting you because I'd always sort of glibly just said what are we trying to do with whistleblowing we want people to speak up at the right time right

because there's no there's no good them speaking up after the event right we want to catch things beforehand and then I always used to just add for the right reasons and I couldn't ever quite justif ify it. It just seemed to me that we didn't want to encourage people to maliciously use it. And you could sort of see this. Somebody was a poor performer, felt that they were under threat. You know, what's the first thing you do? Well, I I'll grab whatever I can as a means of protecting myself. And so, you could sort of naturally see that if you come across something, you can make a big issue out of something small. You might actually genuinely know something that you might otherwise not be

motivated to do that. And so, I thought it was relevant and and significant. And I think the way you've articulated it helps me to think about that a bit more because it does it does matter motivate. You know, it's not just purely, oh, we've got some new information that's somehow come to us. We do need to start thinking about that. But it's almost one of these situations where in order to protect those obvious cases where people genuinely are doing the right thing, you we have to build that. So those protections can also help people that are doing it I guess maliciously in extreme. So it's a really interesting challenge, but I think shying away from the complexities of it doesn't help us,

right? We could we could pretend that this was really simple you know that it is just a simple case of people well it's always going to be this but actually you know what is whistleblowing why do people do it we if we really want to get systems in place that will work and that will encourage the right behaviors then we need to think about this and we need to unpick those dynamics so the box that you're opening if you like I think it's a really important one yeah and I I mean having thought about it as well I don't my concern comes more from compliance and

legal experts doing this more than the generic employee that saw something bad and was like, "Okay, I'm going to raise this because it doesn't make sense." But more those experts that actually perhaps for an insidious reason and again I actually has met these people in my lifetime go into companies and carry out a gap analysis and then build that gap analysis to a situation where what they're actually doing is making themselves more indispensable because of the knowledge they know about the wrongdoings. um to the seauite and then having that

kind of leverage is well I guess in a mavelen way um strategic for job prospects but then is it truly ethical I don't know um and then what happens if things go down right and you get into a blackmail scenario so you know assuming now you've been caught out for whatever and the company wants to fire you and you start saying Look, you want to fire me, then I'm going to now expose you for all these things because technically

I've got a case. I've got a channel to regulators to flag these uh wrongdoings. I don't want to be fired. So then in that situation, how would the company react? It's super complicated. How do you now deal with this employee that's got uh because what you have what has happened is a kind of like a Quinton Tarantino film, right? You've got both parties pointing guns at each other. Who's going to shoot first? So that's why it's complicated and that's why I think from a leadership from a from a management standpoint it's very

interesting because what I'm coming up with in this example is not so out there that it doesn't happen I think or at least that's my view but again it needs to be dealt with because the reason why this could also potentially be an important discussion point is would regulators see this kind of behavior and potentially then disqualify rewards cuz if they could then I think that's some form of addressing the situation but if they don't then the bad actors

pretty much got away with it. That's really interesting isn't it? Because I think what you know what's fascinating is the logic of rewarding whistleblowers you know makes perfect sense because you you you'd sit there and say we need people to come forward and on a basic level financial rewards and we we know this from from other situations where we need people to step outside the norm and and and do things that might be perceived to be personally risky. Um if we put a reward in place we will get a different behavior. And one of the reasons you might reward whistleblowers is if if there's a perception that it could cost you your job you're going to

need some kind of income stream going forward. So that so there's a very simple logic of incentives that say this is why we have to have that but at what point does an incentive become a kind of honeypot where you go well that that looks like an easily accessible thing and back to you know for example I don't know rogue trader or something deciding that they're going to engage in that activity and my back stop position is well I I can also frame it as a whistlebl so if I get if I either just before I get caught or after I get caught I can then use that and that could become an attractive mechanism so it's it's a brilliant example of an unintended consequence and so I love

this idea of the simple analysis is well we'll just reward people right that solves the problem. the more complex analysis. Well, hold on a minute. As with all reward schemes, there are unintended consequences. And that's the one you've just you've just highlighted. So, we need to think in a really interesting nuanced way about how do we structure rewards? And I guess to your point, you probably need a layer of judgment there because the moment you start to codify, well, what is a genuine, you know, well, we would pay out under these circumstances, but not these circumstances. It's start, it's a really challenging example of codification because you I guess you

need human judgment in each case to say, well, look at the facts of it rather than trying to pre-codify this stuff because you don't you as is common with all lots of whis you don't necessarily know what's going to come up. You don't know who it is that's going to bring information. You don't know what it is. You don't know the set of circumstances. So trying to codify this stuff is quite hard. Yeah, I would suggest like clean hands principle would apply in this sit situation. So of course if you have a legitimate whistleblower whoever whatever role that person may be in they raised an issue because they wanted it

fixed and for no other reason there was no evidence of them wanting to financially get rewarded or be silenced for their knowledge. It's you know it's it's a clear step process. raised the issue, tried to get the issue resolved, tried to stop the wrongdoing, in the end had to suffer uh retaliation and were left with no choice but to now defend themselves for the very simple fact of they tried to raise an issue and it offended people. Right? I think those scenarios would be what I would term

clean hands whistleblowing and it's quite easy in a way to categorize people that way. where it gets complicated and it's again I'm insisting this is not an uncommon issue because we know that in most organizations there has been cases of settlement agreements that have been put in place. Now why are these settlement agreements in existence, right? Um it's clearly because something was wrong and you now needed to settle financially with someone so they go away and they don't disparage you or or sue

you or raise that same thing that was settled for. So I think it it broadens the scope from whistleblowing to these things as well. But yeah, I mean it it's a complicated scenario. I I'm a strong believer of financial rewards because of the fact that in a lot of clean hands whistleblowing cases, careers are damaged. Retaliation is mentally, emotionally, and financially strenuous. And when you go into things like what happened in the Jaguar whistleblowing

case for example, you know, the company took an active step to blacklist that person from future job opportunities. Now you have killed the person professional role not only in the company but they've also done it outside to the market. So now you have kicked the rice law and and all that person did was try to flag something in good faith. Right? So I think in these situations morally we need to find a to support these people because what

happens if for five six years they don't get a job and have families to speak right and then of course if the government wants to throw a sweetener in it uh like the way a lot of tax authorities do then yeah by all means everyone kind of for lack of better term wins in that case so yeah I am for that what I'm not for is extreme cases in some jurisdictions like the US where you know the rewards are just so obscenely enticing that there's just very little

incentive to raise this issue and get it resolved internally, especially if it's very serious. And then you have like in Malaysia where there's a whistleblowing act. But in order to qualify for protections under that act, your very first point of contact where you raise that issue has to be the regulator, not anyone inside the company. Because even if you told your boss or whatever and it failed and now you went and tried to get protection under that act that failed. So you you don't qualify. So in these extreme scenarios we need to stop

pulling people out at first instance out of companies whether for protections or for financial rewards but find a middle ground where they raised it internally then failed and then they went outside. So that that's really interesting because I I've got this CEO in mind that you mentioned before that sort of like is blindsided by something. Well, nobody told me. And you're right, if you've designed structures externally, the government structure is come to us first. And you can sort of see the logic that gets you there, which is kind of FBI informant logic, right? We don't

want you revealing the investigation, right? So we want to keep the secret so that we can prosecute. So there is a kind of governmental logic to that. But that doesn't help us. If I'm being actively disincentivized to report these things internally, particularly if there's a big pot of money at the end of it, you could totally see why that would go wrong. And so that's fascinating. And the level of nuance that you're talking about here, it's quite challenging. So I could even see well-intentioned politicians who recognize the need to financially reward people could design things that don't really reflect the

realities of the challenges that people face. And that's where I think your perspective as someone that's been through this is incredibly valuable because, you know, I can I can sort of imagine what it must be like and the pressures that you're under. But as with all these things, right, until you've done it, I think it's really difficult to know exactly what that would that what that would feel like. And I'm guessing as well in a situation of huge stress, it's quite hard to think clearly sometimes, particularly where you you're weighing up the kind of the internal pressures that you we need to really help people here and have very very clear paths. And I think it's

interesting that that when we think about how difficult it is sometimes to get people to speak up, if we don't have clear structures, then we're we're obviously going to get unintended consequences because this stuff is difficult. This isn't back to the earlier point I made. This isn't something people are doing every day. This is a big step for many people. And so we really have to think through this this clearly. And that level of nuance isn't obvious unless you start to look at the topic. Yeah. Exactly. And I think the reason why I think about these things also is because I'm you know I have been a general counsel a few times

um and I work most of the times with the I see Sweden have in my capacity as councils come across bad actors within companies or also obviously drafted settlement agreements for a lot of these employees. Um so I see it from that side. You know you have to balance as I say protecting the company um sometimes just dealing with with a person in the most sensible way. So yeah I mean in Wyatt Par's case for example right I was the head of legal for the Asia-Pacific region. There was an internal

whistleblower that came to me. I protected that person and that person was extremely fearful of their lives and I never revealed who it was. So within wire guard I was dealing with the whistleblowing case and then I became the whistleblower but outside my employment of wire guard. So it's a case of two kinds of whistleblowing in a way but where I see the rewards would be to that person that came to me right because you know what happened to that person is she okay? Did she then get a

job? Has she been retaliated against by the very people that hired her who she sought to expose? I wouldn't mind in any sense of uh conscience to say that I think that person deserved some form of reward for her courage and what she had to go through and probably maybe hopefully not uh might still be going through. So I think that level of thanks should be there and reward. Uh for myself I never got a single set. So even though I I um and the reason why

was also because of anonymity right I was extremely concerned and put complete focus on being anonymous and that also meant I couldn't go to regulators including the SEC or DOJ for example because by doing that I would potentially have to reveal myself so it it's just very different but then on hindsight you know people always ask me in my keynotes do you regret is what you did I say no then they ask would you have done anything differently of course as a human being like all human beings. If someone wants to pay you a huge amount of money for what you went

through or what you did, would that be nice? Yeah, definitely. It's going to be that could fund my existing step up all the way um and do something good out of it. So, yeah. I mean, maybe that's one thing I would change would be potentially it would have been nice to get some form of thank you, even a verbal one or one on a letter from somebody out there, whether it's a German government or whoever, right? Because I think this is important in terms of sending a message to people

that okay, you may not become supremely rich with rewards financially, but you would be because of the the the thanks, the the pat on the back or whatever you want to call it, the assistance, maybe, you know, helping you get another job or whatever. It shows that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Uh a bright light and it's not just all gloom and doom. And that's that's really interesting because if we think about other cont you know because you could you could make an argument and saying well we're well obviously speaking up is

the right thing to do and therefore we would expect people to do that but I think we can think of lots of other contexts where if we if we think about the way you know somebody that goes above and beyond in in a military context or in a in a health care context we do reward those people on some level and there is recognition that this is an important thing and so I think you make it an interesting point there that if we just relied on the fact well obviously it's the right thing to do. We're taught that as kids, right, that we should do these things. We should speak up if we see something that's inappropriate. But

I think recognizing that we do need to have these extra things in place, I think is really important. And I love the fact that you've brought up Yeah, of course, you know, financial is one thing, but I think this recognition piece is a really interesting one. And it strikes me this is a really key dynamic. We need to think about the humans and what motivates them. And we can't just rely on the well this is the right thing to do therefore people will do it because this is difficult and challenging and and there's a human being there that's being asked to step out and do something and and I think rewarding that in terms of saying it's the right thing recognition absolutely key but that's missed right it feels

unnecessary I guess but you know based on your experience I think is a clear demonstration of why it does matter. Yeah. And we could go one step further and say that this is truly what it means to be tone from the top, right? Because this would be the ultimate tone from the top. Oh, I love that. Where it is society and the government changing that mindset of as to how these people are viewed instead of viewing them as rats and snitches or whatever. It would be it could spark a

ultimate tone from the top down that these things would be uh rewarded with a pat on the back and again what what this pat on the back is whether it's financial or it's um you know we not everyone is driven 100% by money like if I was sitting here and I had a nice plaque from the EU for example for the German government say thank you for your um service in exposing you know this massive scandal for example I think I could just look at

that piece of paper with a lot of pride and I could use that and live till my end of days saying this is what I achieved I may not have gotten any money out of it but that's what defined me and made me feel proud of myself and you know that just that simple thing could have a lot of motivation type effects on a human being it could chart their career it could chart their path like in a way what it's done to mine um and it could also give you some form of recognition for like-minded individuals, right? They may want to um talk to you.

They may want to get you to to to speak to motivate other people and then that creates a kind of chain effect where that top down as I said um changes it changes everything. So yeah, again very very complicated quite hard to articulate these things but I I hope you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. I'm struck as you're talking there about, you know, other people and networks and appreciation. Obviously, one of the things that's interesting, you you mentioned this when you were

talking about the solution that you're you're coming up with is recognizing the loneliness because as you're going there's an interesting thing there where as you're going through the process, you are very much on your own by default. There's a secret there that you're trying that you need to reveal and there you have to be careful what you do that. So, that's quite a lonely thing. And so to a certain extent what you're talking about here is I guess balancing that out really to say that okay the loneliness the difficulty the challenge the stress is worth it because I get I guess I get the human touch at the end of it right I get a feeling that society whatever that

means views what I've done positively and so the reason the reason I would go through this really difficult challenging bit is because I will get that warm glow at the end of it and that's the sense probably the light at the end of the tunnel right yeah that's true and um I think You know there are business leaders out there that would value such individuals because they would rely on if not the sheer honesty of these people to tell them when something's wrong. And I think you know if you you are right a soundminded

reasonable CEO or business leader you would want to surround yourself by people that would actually tell you the truth right and not just yesmen. So I think especially for a general council position, for a compliance position, even a risk role, you need that level of honesty and you need to be able to be due to hire people that will tell you um if something doesn't make sense, if something is wrong or if anything is happening with within your company that you should be aware of. I don't think this is ratting on on anything. It's

actually just elevating or escalating uh risks and bringing awareness to things that are problems. But that's where that distinction that you made earlier between what you might say malicious whistleblowing and actually clean hands whistleblowing is is really important because I think the narrative you know you see a lot of narrative of nobody wants to hire whistleblowers right because they're viewed as troublemakers and and part of that is polluted by I guess a fear that I don't want to hire this person because they're going to

cause a fuss or they're going to cause problems or they're a bit awkward and so the way that positive framing you know that works works if somebody is seen, you know, not to have had a personal gender, right? It's just genuine doing it for the right reasons. And so to avoid a little bit of that pollution, I think that all the, you know, as you're talking, it strikes me that we need to get into this level of detail because if we want to solve that problem of nobody wants to hire whistleblowers that the the reasons you wouldn't want to hire them is you I don't want a troublemaker on board. Well, yeah, and I know one person's troublemaker is another person's constructive critic, whatever

you want, whatever you call it, but but we do need to get into these topics because that's part of the reason, I guess, why you'd say, "Well, I don't want to hire anybody that's been a whistleblower because that's just going to cause me problems. What might they do in my organization? Look at the problems they caused over there." If you could start to to to think about these topics much more, we could start to recognize the exactly the power that you're talking. Yeah. And it's funny in a way because companies do engage in gap analysis exercises often times very expensive ones you know they hire audit firms forensic firms or what even

lawyers right tell us where holes our gaps are I don't know maybe if that could be a role there for a whistleblower if you think that person does nothing but look for issues within your company maybe that's a job creator for them um so and in that way it's also managed right u it's managed I mean and this is not again It sounds funny, but that's exactly what happened now that I think about it in the hacking space, right? You had the black hats um you had malicious uh hackers and then people

hired them to do the very same thing and then they became white hat um hackers. So, in a way, it's it's there is a parallel there. You know, I mean, this conversation is making me really think of all these things. But I I think that's yeah but I think that's interesting because I was thinking in the context of you know lots of people that call in consultants auditors lawyers bring in someone external to tell us what's going on. But in many cases that's done because it's controllable. Right? So we we all know situations that you know strategy consultants have brought in to basically

confirm the strategy the CEO's already decided is valid. Right? Let's provide give oh look we got you know well let's name net right we got McKenzie or whoever it is right in and we know that this very tightly defined thing. In other words, there's there's less risk of embarrassment, right? They are they're generally speaking, if something's gone wrong, then somebody comes in and and they're sort of allowed to expose things. Yes. Particularly if there's been a change of management, right? You can do that was the that was the last lot. We could uh we see the same thing in politics, right? But but there is a certain amount of control

that you have. I guess the interesting thing about bringing whistleblowers, you you don't call they might find anything, right? which is exactly what you ought to want and you probably claim to want but I can see that that being a challenging thing which again I guess is is down to we need to have a a sense of that we've got people doing it in you know for the right reasons willingness but I but I do love the idea of saying it's a skill that I've developed and we we you know you're right because because it's sort of like if you're a forensic accountant right you spent or or a detective or whatever it happens to be

you've you've built a career out of things you've got experience in uncovering things. And so I love this idea of saying actually if somebody has had an experience in their life that has demonstrated they have the capability and willingness against often against great odds and challenges to speak up that's a skill that we ought to value and therefore actually that you know finding the right outlet for that skill is a really great way of looking at it. I love that. I love that idea. So we just need to start constructing I I think you know people would say we don't want a mischief maker on board. I would

argue that, you know, it's a case of saying find a construct that allows them to deploy that. I guess they might be viewed with suspicion within the organization, but that's a secondary challenge to solve, but the idea of here's a core skill set that's useful to us, I think, is really interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's no different in a way from internal audit. That's a very isolated uh isolated role in given away because everyone looks at them and like, okay, these guys uh probably going to find um issues here and there, right? But I think the whole the problem is the

entire assumption that has underpinned this whole level of thinking is the fact that once a whistleblower always a whistleblower but I think that's not necessarily true because I think most whistleblowers were forced into that position or they're just unfortunate enough to be uh in that situation. I don't think they actively thought again and this is where the extortion example kicked in. uh I don't think they actively went to a company to pick to find uh issues which they wanted to

escalate for for some kind of rewards. They weren't just in an unfortunate situation. They paid the price for it. But the question then is what do we do with these people? So in my case for example, you know, after I came out publicly, I was working in a crypto company and crypto has always been viewed with suspicion from a regulatory angle, right? How clean is it this this how this and that. But what the company actually did was they PRED my whistleblowing experience um in order to justify that what they're doing is

definitely going down the right track because what they were saying is we would never have IPV as our uh head of risk and compliance for example um if we wanted to do the wrong thing. the yeah if we want if we want literally a yes man right you're you're not the guy to hire so so that's an extremely powerful PR exercise because even from the regulator standpoint they're like okay that kind of makes sense so yeah I mean it's really but who's advising these people who's giving them

counseling who's giving them support who's motivating them with even these topics that we're discussing right they are as you said very isolated they're lonely they're battling all kinds injustice feeling a feelings of injustice um you know internal psychological could be also from the family why did you do this why do you have to be a hero now we've got no salary uh was it all worth it so there needs to be some form of um maybe education or counseling I don't know but I think that's where the problem really

lies there's an interesting dynamic that I've observed and I don't want to generalize here but I've seen certain people that have been whistleblowers that seem very very angry and and adopt a a kind of if you're not with us, you're against us. And so I've had I've had exchanges to people on LinkedIn, to put it mildly, where it's kind of like, you know, anybody that isn't hiring whistleblowers automatically is part of the problem. That that's sort of quite quite divisive language. And when I first saw it, I was like, well, no, not surprised no one's going to hire you because you're clearly just an aggressive. But having stepped back a

bit and reflected on, I can completely see the dynamics that you're talking about because it is I I mean, it must be traumatic on some level. And I'm assuming that there in the same way that we haven't really thought through some of the other structures that there's not going to be a kind of you know even in the military where we know it's obvious right we don't necessarily look after veterans knowing that they will have PTSD and other challenges. I'm guessing here there's next to no support, right? Because because it's sort of back to I guess that presumed, well, you're doing it for the right reasons. How we don't

need to pro, but actually there's a level of psychological support that seems to me to be really significant and important here that clearly isn't there. Yeah. Um I mean, of course, I know a lot of these individuals myself, and what I found is the common theme, well, at least that's my theory is there's not been any closure. And these whistleblowers who are who remain angry and disgruntled is really for the very fact that nothing was ever done. Instead, they were the ones attacked and they suffered. And these

same people that they were trying to expose are now even more empowered, more successful. Nobody cared. Um so I think it's that lack of closure, that sense of injustice, which makes them very upset. um because they're still stuck in that position where why why did this whole thing happen? Like where's the level of sanity here, right? Why did I have to suffer? Why did the wrongdoers get even more emboldened and more enriched and successful? Like why isn't anyone listening to me? So I think that's the

reason why they they become very aggressive and they still are on that same mission and in a way it's very hard to move on. So again, it's it's it's a very serious issue. So on one hand, they can be really annoying even to me because they just flood your LinkedIn pro posts and they just uh attack everyone and in that way don't they they further ironically isolate themselves. But then on the other hand there's a level of empathy and sympathy as to how

do you how do you help this person move on? probably kind of jujitsu their angst into something more positive like maybe like what we discussed give them some some role and a forensic person I mean someone that can now go in and channel that energy into other companies that might be doing these things or funny also support other whistleblowers in that space so I think that it's it's a very big topic um it spans legal compliance risk uh psychology behavioral

science Yes, but it's something that I think you know at some point would need to be discussed. So maybe even you could with your skill set uh explore a lot of these topics. I I do think it's really interesting and it plays into you one of my key themes is that we often design the world and this is compliance programs but I guess society sort of things we're talking about for the way we would like people to behave rather than the way they're likely to behave. Right? In other words, we have this sort of rose tinted view of the world. And by designing systems for

the perfect human being that can tolerate a whole load of stress, that will just do the right thing all the time, that doesn't have a whole load of other things going on in their lives. We design systems that just don't work. And so we have, you know, little, it's a little bit like performative compliance training, right? We've all, we've all been there through pointless training where they teach you stuff you don't really don't need to know, that's never going to be relevant, that's boring, that doesn't achieve any objective, or we design idealistic rules around things and idealistic principles. And so I think this is a really interesting illustration of this isn't just a case of switch on switch on the whistleblowing machine, right? And we'll

just say we want this stuff and job done, right? We'll announce that we want this and how important this is and that's where I think this this comes back to your thinking about the the psychological bits of it as well. And so I think that's a really that's a really fair challenge to me to say actually you need to you need to expand this thing because if this is a dynamic we genuinely want to have happen and we say that we do but question whether we do then we need to build we need to create an environment that makes that more likely that supports exactly that and I think that is it's a really interesting point you make and and we've got nowhere

near that but the only way we can get to that back to the early conversation is if we're honest about the underlying dynamics right that we don't look at everything as a very simple people that are speaking up are good, companies are bad or organized societies bad. We have to we have to get into that nuance and really start to appreciate it and that's complicated. It's much easier to keep it at a simple level. Yeah, it's true and you know I'm a big fan of the law and economics movement myself. Um but again that's predicated purely on cost analysis and assuming human beings are rational actors. I think just when you

when during the course of discussion as well I'm also thinking of the analogy to um threat actors in the cyber security space right so they have hacked your company um they now want to pay out um but the moral dilemma and the practical dilemma is always okay we pay these people out they have agreed that they will u leak the data that they've stolen but then that underlying threat is always there how Can we trust them? How

do we know that this thing from a company standpoint has closure as well? Right? So I think if we parallel that from a back to the whistleblower uh we've signed a settlement agreement or somebody has rewarded them, would this actually mean mean the case is closed or would this recur again? So again, yeah, it's very complex. I think there's analogies to various things and I love that idea of because you talked about closure on behalf of the whistleblower, but but that's a really interesting flip, right? to the closure on behalf of the company. Is this now done or is this

ever going to linger over us? And and I guess you know it's interesting thing if we look at what's happening with NDAs and some of the egregious uses of NDAs that we've seen where there's a movement there quite understandably and quite rightly to have that the power that those have and the situations in which those are used heavily restricted. you could start to see actually the dynamics that you were talking about there become more challenging because companies kind of go well actually if you know if if I wanted closure from a corporate perspective I want to close the door and don't don't want to have this topic rearising again

the some of the mechanisms that one might have thought could secure that are starting to so this gets even more complicated and again if we start to think about the predictable and likely behavior of people within organizations who have it you know incentivized to protect the status quo nothing to see here good PR all that stuff. You can see why this is really challenging and so so I I guess to a certain extent I can see why the box that you were opening with these questions and thoughts I you should open it but again it's really difficult right which almost it's almost like you are whistleblowing on the

whistleblowing dynamics. Yeah. Which is not my intention. I mean I just want to raise these topics. We can't shy away from them. I think if we deal with difficult questions they don't that's how we become wiser as society. um and people and it's very important which is why also when I was designing the comi platform I had to make sure it's end to end but finally the biggest difficulty became the end process right so how do you finish a whistleblowing report how do you conclude it yes you

can have your internal report that goes to your board but how have you concluded that with the person that was reporting right was a closure there did they sign a form saying yes this is now settled then we get into the slippery slope that case was closed from the company standpoint but maybe it wasn't done to the satisfaction of the person that reported it didn't happen then what happens then right and this is very prevalent for example I mean I wouldn't say prevalent that's a wrong term to use but I can see this happening in the HR

space because these are emotional these are personal um and intangible to that sense you can't really put a you know what what might be justice for the victim would be very different justice from the company's standpoint so If a a woman has been sexually harassed, for example, by a senior member of staff, behind the scenes, the company could have spoken to that person and said, "Look, the heat is too much. You have done something really wrong. I think you should resign, but we can do it quietly, right? Let's just find a balance here."

So, they may have agreed with say the CEO that he would resign in 3 4 months time and reasons would not be published as to why the person's resigned. From the person reporting, they're like, "The company's not doing anything." they have just taken my report. They told me they're dealing with the issue. Um they have taken steps to deal with it. But what is it? And then what happens if the company actually says, "Yeah, we told him to resign. He'll get 3 months notice per whatever he will leave." What if that's just not good enough for this person and they want even more they just

now want like they they find this whole process wasn't to their satisfaction. And then what happens, right? So I think that's where closure on all fronts, it's a theme. It's a key. uh it needs to be thought about and it also goes to NDAs because NDAs in a lot of contexts are meant to be closure. You're meant to take that money in these kinds of cases like the Stormmy Daniels case uh with Trump is supposed to take that money and then go away and not close it back later and you know demand more because if we

allow that then what's the whole point of the NDA in the first place? the person that paid the amount to settle the case. Um, he thought he's finished his side of the bargain. You accepted it. You know, from an offer and acceptance standpoint, that was a deal that was done. Why is it being reopened now? Cuz if we go down this track, then you're making a mockery of the law technically and contract law. So, yeah, it's it's fascinating as much. I guess as you as we said at the start, this could go on forever having these discussions, but I think they're super

exciting. I think if you like intellectual conversations, if you like think about stuff, uh if you don't like to be in one camp or the other camp, um then then these are things that will fascinate and the debates and discussions which leadership teams should think about which people in our community in governance, risk and compliance should think about and let's just talk about it. And you you I talked about people that are angry. You seem exactly the opposite, right? You seem very chilled and and happy and

engag and you're smiling, right? And we're talking about a really serious subject and I think it's it's fascinating. It seems to me that you have one because you found an outlet for the experience that you've been through and that's that's driving your work and and what you do. But I I'm assuming a little bit as well because you worked on the other side of the fence. you've got a more of a viewpoint as to what's going on behind the scenes and so you understand the plumbing and the dynamics of what what organizations are going through and I'm assuming to that extent it makes it a little bit easier for you

whereas the the average employee isn't going to have that level of visibility and knowledge and understanding of the process and so you even if you couldn't see all the time what was happening you've got some awareness of some of these parameters right so you would understand how this thing might close out or not close out you've seen other people go through this you understand why organizations might react in a particular way which gives you a really unique set of circumstances. I'm assuming that's a key part of your ability to smile about this and sit and do what you do now and driving your mission because I guess you were you

were in the best possible position to navigate this really given your experiences. I don't think anyone would be when they are um when they suddenly find everyone against them for doing their job of erasing a concern. Of course, I had a lot of challenges of my own. Uh there were Yeah. So I wasn't suggesting it was easy but I'm just thinking about relatively speaking. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. U it's it's just a journey I think which it goes back to what I said like that I had to find my own way to close this out um and move

forward. I don't want to um it's it's a difficult response to give because it could be seen as yeah he was a lucky guy and now he's happy there telling everyone what to do. I don't want to be in that situation. Uh I think I think everyone is by virtue of being a human on earth. I think everyone um suffers daily and we we go through life with all kinds of challenges, injustices and stuff. But idols is how we come out of

that. Um do we want to ruminate on them? Do we want to go down that spiral or do we want to say okay I accept what happened? uh I may not agree or I may not be happy with it but now what do I do and what do I learn from this and how do I make something positive out of it it's very difficult it's extremely difficult but I think I told myself okay I've been given this platform it was a very rare case of successful whistleblowing so now what can I do with this platform and this voice and just you know talk about it

and spread the message and and shining some light on people who are suffering and on companies to do the right thing so that's That's where I find myself. Um, yeah, it's difficult. I mean, you know, look at Wire Guard. There's still these people on the run and a lot of them are are not even charged with with cases and there's huge injustices to, for example, investors and pension funds, innocent ones that lost their money, employees that lost their money. You know, all the lawsuits

are failing against the auditors and also the regulators and that is that level of injustice still there. So what what do we do and how do we deal with it? I think we can only deal with ourselves and our surroundings and from that level and and this is also from a top down thing. So I did post on LinkedIn without wanting to rant. Well, I did post on LinkedIn that it's always too easy for us to just blame uh the top down and the culture and the company is bad. But if we are business leaders or

we are anyone in the company, we can create that little subculture among us and we can be posted. We can be nice to our own peers. We can be nice to our subordinates. So what if our bosses are horrible people? Um if we can create that subculture, then we don't need to fall back on the top down thing, right? So yeah, that's the that's how I I how I view things and and how I try to live every day. I love that because there's a re there's like a really empowering message here, right? And I think I think this is the what I love talking about

this this situation is is it it reminds me of you know I mean you was you were saying we should look at other situations right we can learn some lessons from other contexts. I think what's interesting about this is that you're raising some points that are fundamental across how we look at the world as humans how we react to things recognizing that life is not always going to go the way you want it. And you know, I'm I'm really sure this is an extreme example of, you know, this is not career as planned, right? We can make these amazing plans for what we want to do with our lives, but things will happen that are totally out of our

control. And it's a case of how we react to those that I think is is the make of it. And so, I love the I don't know, there's just a really positive sense of empowerment, like really positive energy that just like it screams across the screen at me now as we're talking to each other. just like you you've just you've just you've just gone well what can I do with this right so this is it I mean is the classic turning a potentially you know a threat a challenge into something positive and driving it and that plays itself out into much broader context than just the things that we're talking about here but

the energy that you bring to this subject is is like it's infectious which is not something you know it's kind of like it but it is this is something really really powerful that you've that you've kind of grabbed and I love that. Yeah, I mean I was asking myself right like what was the bigger purpose behind exposing Ward? Um and it took me a few years and that's how Pun Fight came about. I mean I asked myself like what do I want my legacy to be? Do I want to be remembered as the wild card whistleblower only because I'm pretty sure they're going to be bigger and more and sexier frauds

that happen that make people forget about wire guard someday. But uh well you just I mean just inflation is going to drive you know it's interesting isn't it because it's not like a static it's not like a league table that ros the same right inflation is going to make that easier over time. So yeah it's a great observation. Yeah. So I told myself okay I could do confide as well. So I left a tangible uh product out there and I I kind of you know linked that original legacy to this product and yeah okay if it fails one day that's fine but people would remember that you tried and they would

remember the the word confide uh because it's so powerful for anyone in a speak up context because often times you know when you are in a situation where you want to raise a concern you don't know who to confide in right or you could be confiding in the wrong person who then throws you under the bus or worse you could be just prevented from confiding by things like NDAs or legal privilege and the like. So I think yeah that's fine. It's I have now put this energy into my keynotes into the product and I hope that would be a lasting one but

even if it isn't I'm happy that the word went out people became aware and let's see what's next. And there's two things I want to pick up on that. One one is I love this idea that if you if you sort of have something and I could see it be really easy to you are the wire card guy, right? which is not you sort of go okay go okay go okay go okay go okay go okay go okay go okay go okay go okay well if that's it if that's the then what's the point what am I going to do with the rest of my life and I love that idea of sort of go okay that's happened right so what we build from that that's not the pinnacle of achievements or or the badge right because otherwise it's like what would you spend your time

doing you'd be sitting around doing nothing right I love the idea that you've taken that and gone okay that's there but but I kind of I need to I need to build on that I need there's something else there right there's there's a chance so I think that's that's a really amazing thing and I love that the second bit is you you talk about language And I was going to ask you about the word confide because it's clearly carefully chosen and I think you've nicely articulated there why you've done that. I think language really matters for the reasons that you've just you've just outlined and so I wondered what what are your views on the word whistleblow. Is that helpful or

not? Because I' i've heard arguments made both ways. On the one hand generally in life when somebody blow you know in a sporting context the person that's blowing the whistle isn't on our side. So that feels a negative thing. On the other hand it does describe making a lot of noise. the term exists for a reason. What are your views on I mean you you clearly use the word to talk about yourself. Is it do you think that's problematic or is is it shouldn't we worry too much about I mean at some point it's it is what it is right like it has become this thing people see it

in in mostly a negative light but I think trending wise it's becoming something more acceptable um and at the end of the day it's it's it's a fundamental human right to exercise the ability to articulate a concern right to speak um and I I think that's what it is at the end of the day. So look, if we should be in a sit in in a society where we can say what we feel and society can police that. Uh so of course if you're saying some pretty crazy stuff, then at

some point you'll be you'll find yourself in a in a smaller and smaller circle. And so that kind of self chat process I believe is healthier than not being allowed to speak or being forced to censor everything that you are saying. And yeah, it's weird, but I also ra this on LinkedIn about in fact it was my first post of this year where I wanted to open with the thought about um self policing because I think as human beings when we are in a context or in a

situation where we know what we're saying is going to be judged by in a in a more important way or in a more impactful way, we just uh we just think through what we say hopefully and then we cut we we massage it. We we use different phrases. We try to be diplomatic and especially in a work context, right? But then that is that fear or is it selfcensorship or is it just what is that? Because if as business leaders we ourselves scared to truly speak our minds, then

how are we going to be telling other people to speak up if they see a concern? So I think that and if and there's some level of hypocrisy there and fraudulent sense right because we can always we can just tell everybody yes speak up but then are you as a person yourself speaking up the same way you want other people to in the work setting because if you're not then well what's going on there's so much in that because I I I think you're right we don't want to be rude to people or upset them but also we have to be honest right

and so we choose sometimes choose the language that we use very carefully and and and organizations and leaders in those organizations are careful sometimes with their words which to your point can be inauthentic and I think that's a really interesting challenge. I think the the other bit I find fascinating is your point around leading with example. It was always so was the classic one. I always used to like the naughty question within organizations I've worked for where you'd have someone in the senior leadership thing would say something like we need people to to report errors or report mistakes, report incidents, right? To find things that are not working the way they should. And

so the question I'd always asked back is,"Well, when was the last time you reported something?" And you get some nonsense about, "Well, I never see anything." And I'm like, "Well, that's not credible, right?" Because there must be in your environment, there must be things that you're not happy with that aren't working perfectly. And if you're not doing it, why do you expect the rest of us to do it? And it always shocked people. You know, that question was almost viewed as sort of disloyal. And it's like, why why are you embarrassing me? And I'm like, I don't think the question's embarrassing. I think it's your answer that's embarrassing. And if you genuinely want people to do that in the same way that you claim to lead in

other fields, I think you need to do it in this field. And so I think that's a really it's a really important challenge that's kind of that's missed, right? Which is we need the rest of the organization to do this, but what are you doing and how are you expressing yourself? And I think you raised some really strong points there, which is all of this stuff to be think about because it's it's kind of like we need humans to be human, right? To speak up, to do those things that actually if we're unencumbered, we can naturally do. But we also need to think about the human dynamics that will drive or prevent that. And that's why I really like your

use of the word confide because I think that's that speaks to us on some level. We understand what that means. And so as we look at interactions that organizations have with their employees, we need to be thinking about well how does this actually come across? You know, what does this make human beings feel? And therefore, what is it likely to make them do or not do and is that the outcome that we're looking for? And I think that's often missed. Yeah, that's true. And one of the real life examples would be, you know, I was talking to my co-founder and he would

say, "We need to hire so and so. That person's super intelligent. He's got a bit of ADHD, which is why he's completely like just speaks his mind and sometimes offends people." So what it made me think how come if we say that person has got potentially ADHD for example why is that then suddenly okay uh do we really need to rely on do we really need to you know have that as a fallback or can we just have people that are people and no matter what they are

they speak their mind of course no one's asking you to be extremely rude and offensive and vulgar or profane or whatever but I think we need to have that we need to go back to I how things were. Uh without wanting to sound old where we could just we could just sit around and we could just, you know, feel safe among um our peers and we could say things and we could leave that table potentially having upset someone but not feeling that fear that that would have a permanent uh impact or they would judge

you in a very adverse way in a lasting way. So, so, so kind of almost like the family relationship, right? Where you're bound together by something. And so, yeah, you can have arguments typically holiday seasons when you get together as well, but but but you've got that construct that means actually ultimately it's okay, right? We'll work this through. And I think and it's interesting when you talk about you know neurodeiversity. There's a a guest I had on the show called Professor Lud Miller Preslova who's written this book called The Canary Code which is looking at how do we make the world better or or you know

how do we get the best out of neurodeiverse people and her point in there is to say well actually if we design the world for neurodeiverse people that caters for what they we also improve it for other people and so if we can be become more tolerant of different perspectives people who might express themselves in different ways we help the neurodeiverse people but we also help everybody everybody else. And so I love the idea that you've brought that that dynamic in there because I think we need to think about the totality of humans and say what works for everybody because you're right. You don't want to be creating exceptions going it's okay for

them to do that but the rest of you can't. That feels unfair. But again it's basic it's a basic fundamental human thing. And so if we start to approach these questions really by looking at really I mean these are really basic human needs desires instincts that you're talking about here. And if we can start to bring that in then I think you know I mean it brings us neatly back to the the whole principle of confide right you are thinking about you've thought about well I want to give this a name that is human because you could I mean you could have come up with some funky

name you know AI report or something right I mean I'm astonished it's not confai or something but you know but but it's as you look at it right as you're thinking about what is the visceral human experience that we have and what drives our behaviors and that's why you've chosen that name and that's why that's that that I think is the key to thinking about these things is that often we we stylize the world. We design it in a particular way the way it logically ought to be. But humans are complicated and messy and we need to reflect that. Yeah, that's true. And

which is which goes back to confide because I was inspired by things like confessionals in the Catholic church. You could go behind that screen and you could just speak your uh offend the priest on the other side, but it's fine. You're just saying what you want to say, right? but you're letting it out. So I think if we could create a product that would allow at least in the corporate setting people to let it out and we are able to create the product in such a way where rents can be classified as rents where serious issues can be classified

as serious issues. They can be whether by the person or by the receiving at the receiving party or even automated to some in some extent someday then we are providing a very safe space using technology for these things and you know often people like they're like oh we don't want to have this product in place because we don't want to have people abusing it for all kinds of trivial things. That's something that's real, but we've also found a way to deal with it. And I always tell these same

business leaders, do not downplay these so-called trivial issues because if you had, you know, 10 people ranting about how bad the coffee is in the pantry, that's a very powerful data point if you step back and think about it because it could go to explaining things like why no one's coming to the office before 10:00 a.m., why everyone wants to work from home or something, or why the morale is down, right? It may not be a whistleblowing case. It may not be a serious issue, but it's still a data point and it's still such an invaluable way to get feedback to get into the

minds of people that are working for you. And I love this cuz I've I've always said to people, if you think about like reporting things within an organiz, it might be a loose piece of carpet or as you say, the quality of the coffee or anything at all, right? Stuff that is sort of trivial. If you're not taken seriously with the trivial stuff, then it's not unreasonable to assume that they're not going to re they're not going to take the big stuff seriously at all. And so, one of the things I've said to my clients is is look at what are the reporting processes that aren't the high level stuff, right? What happens when I

report a low-level thing? Is it taken seriously? Does this organization suggest that it's interested in my views on things? Or are my views utterly irrelevant? I'm ignored and you don't really care and you make it impossible for me to share things. then you don't be surprised when those higher level things get you know that that factors into it. I'm not saying that you say, "Well, they didn't answer the coffee, therefore they're not going to be interested in this more serious point, but you should look across the thing." And I think again, that's very very human. We It's It's a little bit I got a survey from a company the other day and I was just like, I'm really pissed off

with this company and I I want I can't be bothered to fill it in. I'm just not even going to bother. The relationship is destroyed. I'm not interested in telling you how to improve your customer experience because we're past that. I'm never going to be your customer again because you've irritated the hell out of me at another point. Now, I'm not there's not a direct analogy between me what I might say to an employer and whatnot, but I think it's worth thinking about how humans react and what you've beautifully outlined there is that we don't neatly bucket the world into big serious stuff and small and trivial stuff because there are small things that can really irritate me. Don't take

me seriously on that. You've got, you know, you've sent a signal to me and we know that from our other relationships. And so, I love the idea that you're looking at those things as well and thinking about the totality of human experience. And I love the idea of letting stuff out, right? That is the key bit. It's like when people are not able to say what they think and get things out of their system, it just stews up here. And I think that's a great way of looking at it. And I love the Catholic Church analogy, by the way. I think it's a really good illustration. It's a very powerful way of recognizing a basic human need to get stuff off your chest. Yeah. And to me, this is very important because in the whistleblowing

context, uh people go outside the company and they become your enemies when they feel that they're not being heard, right? Cuz you're you're ignoring them. In fact, you're going against them. they don't have an outlet. They're getting pushed into a corner and at some point they'll be like, "There's nothing in this company that is safe for me. That's fine. I'm going to go outside and expose it." So that's what I think people need to understand and and prevent. But it's interesting because that it's it's like companies spend loads of money on their alumni programs, right? Because they recognize that

people might get they may come work for you again. They may act as your recruiters. You want people that have previously worked for you to to have a good experience, right? Remember you positively. So if we spend money on that, why are we not thinking about this? Because it's not just a case of people can be positive agents for you, right? They can act as negative agents and that can have all sorts of impacts on you. So I it's it's kind of interesting where we we we kind of get the issue, but we don't go to the point that you've made, right? Which is thinking that through of saying, well actually an employee is is an agent on

behalf whether you want it or not, an employee is an agent on behalf of the organization. Now you might think they don't have a very powerful voice. They're never going to be a customer of ours. they're never going to come and work here again, but they're out there acting on your behalf and so why not try and influence that more positively. Yeah. Yep. So yeah, that's what we're trying to do and make small changes uh as we can. But again, you know, I'm very positive. I think we have seen massive movements take place like there was a me too movement, there was the uh ESG movement. You know, just a few years

ago, if you told anyone that potential employees would be asking uh potential employers whether they have oatmeal in the coffee or how many trees they're planting, people think you're met, but it happened. It happened overnight. It happened in such a um on such a scale. I think at some point this would hit the speak up aspect because ENS has been covered. Now it's it's G, right? And a lot of these things feed into that. Amazing. I could keep talking to you forever because I find what you say fascinating. You get my brain racing,

which is always the biggest compliment I can pay anyone. I want to say thank you for everything that you do because I think you're an amazing voice, a very calm, considered voice, but a very powerful voice. I love what you're doing with Confide. So, thank you for all of that. If people want to get hold of you, what's the best place to do that? If they want to hire you to speak or they want to find out more, well, probably LinkedIn. That's where I'm the most active. Uh it's sad that's my social media cast but uh uh yeah probably the easiest way is that or you know Confides website which is www.confidplatform.com.

Amazing. I will put links to those things in the show notes and I can confir he's not sad that you're active on LinkedIn because I love your content. It spurred a load and you know as this conversation demonstrates right you always make me think about things in a positive way. It's a very engaging thing. You are somebody that I highly recommend people follow. So we'll put links to all of those things there. So, thank you for that. But above all right now, thank you so much for being an amazing guest on the show. Thank you for having me. So, that's it for this episode of the show. My enormous thanks to Pav for appearing and to you for listening. To find out more about Pav and his platform Confide and for links

to some of the LinkedIn posts we discussed, have a look in the show notes. You'll find those there. If you're interested in finding out more about this topic, you'll find links to related episodes, including the one featuring journalist and author Dan Mcrum on Moneymen, his book about Wire Card, as well as my discussion with Zelda Perkins, the whistleblower who broke her NDA to reveal secrets of Harvey Weinstein's behavior. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for joining me. You'll find over 300 episodes for you to catch up on at humanispodcast.com. And you can hear and subscribe to the

show wherever you get your quality audio content. It's available on all of the major podcasting platforms.