How Businesses Can Leverage Their Code of Conduct to Manage Interpersonal Conflicts
Guest Author: Iggy Perillo, Founder of WSL Leadership
Have you looked at your organization's code of conduct lately? It's probably garbage.
In this guest article, we learn from Iggy Perillo, Founder of WSL Leadership. She’ll teach us why your business code of conduct is trash and what to create instead to build stronger organizations where everyone can thrive.
Why Should My Business Customize Our Code of Conduct?
I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice, but it is likely that your code of conduct is absolute trash. 🗑️
We work with our closest teammates to create a respectful and psychologically safe culture, yet often, our organizational policies and procedures don't live up to this same standard.
What if you systemically altered how your organization treats staff and functions when conflict arises to support a culture based on trust, respect, and justice?
It’s possible.
If you are challenged by managing interpersonal conflict in your organization or retaining excellent staff, take a good look at your code of conduct.
Toxic Assumptions Embedded in Most Business Code of Conduct Documents
I haven’t read your code of conduct (yet), but I’ve seen plenty of them, and here’s what I think I’d find in yours:
It talks down to your teammates. (There’s a rule that sleeping on the job is not allowed? And insubordination is a nearly criminal offense? And is there a dress code that features specific attire and hair requirements for men and women? Yikes!)
It doesn’t address interpersonal conflict. At all. In any way. (Because… that never happens at your organization?)
It’s based on surveillance and punishment. (Hit your metrics, which may or may not be apparent, and get your carrot. Rock the boat, question the process, or step out of line in some unspoken way and get a performance improvement plan that is, in reality, a slow and tedious firing process designed to make it so uncomfortable that the person in question will quit before you have to take action definitively.)
These types of code of conduct tenets are setting the stage for toxicity to flourish in your organization because:
No one wants to enforce it. Most people don’t actually like talking down to their teammates, so they don’t enforce the silly rules. But that looks like favoritism (aka it is favoritism because I bet you find select ways and places and times to implement it when you don’t want someone around), and that is not the path to effective leadership or a psychologically safe organizational culture.
Stressful interpersonal work relationships are ignored. Your current code of conduct has allowed this to fester slowly, destroying your teammates' morale and confidence (and perhaps their souls) because “well, it’s not a disciplinary issue, so what am I supposed to do about it?”
Holding people accountable never goes well anyway. When leaders (AKA you) do “hold people accountable,” it does not go well because the procedures for this are nonexistent or embarrassingly juvenile (how many lives have you changed with the verbal warning, written warning, threat of firing, or your disciplinary action matrix based on grade school-level shaming from 1985?).
How Does Your Business Code of Conduct Compare?
Have you already paused to look up/find/unearth your business code of conduct?
Are you having a hard time finding it because:
You and your teammates have already internalized it, so you know it word-for-word, or
You haven’t seen or heard of it since you signed that thing saying you read it during your business formation or
You don’t have one at all.
What Are Your Company’s Core Values?
While you’re racking your brains for your code of conduct, take a moment and jot down your organizational core values.
Did you have to look those up/dust those off too?
Are they honesty, integrity, transparency, and/or something clever from your business founding story? Another time, we can get into how your values may be a pack of lies not awesome, but for now, we will stay focused, people.
Maybe it wasn’t such a struggle to find your code of conduct and organization's core values - those might be readily at hand or on your website somewhere. They may not be dusty “legacy” documents written on vellum from the dark ages or hidden because they’re framed up next to the motivational posters with the mountain and the one with the people rowing the boat and other gorgeous outdoor scenes you haven’t witnessed from any window in your entire working life. (You got those posters to be ironic, right?)
Take a breath because you don’t have to fire anyone right now, and look closer.
Reread those values.
Are your values enacted through your code of conduct?
Or does your code of conduct assume your teammates are lawless, heathen-two-year-olds?
Are they present and evident (or at all mentioned) in your code of conduct? Or does your code of conduct sound like it was written by someone who was very, very angry (or by lawyer-bot 5000)?
Can you see the influence of those values in your code of conduct document? Or are they two unrelated things that never intermingle except to cause whiplash in the minds and hearts of everyone you work with?
#1 Foundational Flaw within Most Businesses: Punishments don’t fix problems
You’ve (inadvertently, if we’re being charitable) created an edifice of toxic no-way–to-win leadership balanced on a foundation of garbage. Your code of conduct is part of the problem. Throw it all in the trash.
(Also, fatal flaw #2: carrots and sticks are not motivators - but that’s a story for another day.)
We can do better. And that’s the point.
There is a lot of tradition, expectation, and inertia around what goes into a code of conduct, but you can have it say anything you want. Truly anything, there are no requirements for what MUST be in your code of conduct.
[Remember, I’m still not a lawyer; this isn’t legal advice, and I’m NOT talking about your mandated anti-harassment policy, mandatory reporter policy, work-hour requirements, or similar legal things. Talk to an honest lawyer before you mess with that stuff. I’m also not suggesting that you add in things that are fraud or theft or, you know, a crime. I AM saying you have much more freedom than you might expect for everything else in your code of conduct.]
How Your Code of Conduct Sets the Tone of Your Organizational Culture
What if, instead of a “code of conduct,” you had “behavior expectations” that supported people to engage in interpersonal problem-solving?
Or a “code of community” intentionally designed to redirect people toward procedures for repairing or building stronger connections?
Or, as one organization I worked with decided to call it, a “community commitment code” where people find how they are expected to work for the organization's good in clearly defined ways?
Instead of procedures that cultivate toxicity, you can have a deep alignment between values and policy that supports an organization where people can thrive.
Making this happen is the process of creating alignment among your people.
Instead of policies designed to surveil and punish, you can have policies designed for intrinsic motivation and repair. You and your people can create and sustain a culture of trust and respect where the people and the business thrive.
It is possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Iggy Perillo works with thoughtful leaders to create organizations based on trust, respect, and justice. To work with Iggy to improve your business code of conduct, get in touch with her here.
At the very least, you should grab a copy of her emotionally intelligent conflict management checklist here.
