Blowing the whistle on the "Barclay's Way".

The best way to deliver a change strategy within an organisation is to get the full support and backing from the CEO and the Board.  The banks and financial services industry generally have been working hard to put strategies in place to change their cultures and conduct to rebuild trust in the sector and their organisations. Barclays had also set on this path with its values of “respect, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship and its “Barclay’s Way”. 

 Page 20 of the “Barclay’s Way” document is about “speaking up and raising concerns”. It states that employees need “courage to challenge actions” and that they need to “act with the highest standards of integrity and honesty in all that they do”. It is likely to be quite confusing for the employees of Barclays to discover that their CEO, Jes Staley, hasn’t complied with the letter or spirit of this policy as he investigated who spoke out about a senior manager, doing extensive damage to the trust of stakeholders (or reinforcing what many still think, “one rule for them another for us”). 

The Board has cut Staley’s variable compensation as punishment and there is now an investigation into the systems, control and culture of the organisation by the regulators. This example surely builds the business case for ethical decision making as the costs are just too high, both personally and organisationally, to just pay lip service to such an important issue . To quote the Barclay’s Way further “sometimes the actions of a few may put our reputation at stake”.  The CEO has proved this is the case. It is a shame that he didn’t also take their "stewardship" value more seriously ie being passionate about leaving things better than he found them”.