Should you, should you not, should you, should you not... blow the whistle, that is. Report a wrongdoing. Squeal, rat, tattletale, whatever they call it. If you don't have the nerve, take heart. Many others don't, even at higher rungs of the corporate hierarchy. Infosys' whistleblower e-mail box might make for a nice news report, but that still doesn't mean the boss will get to hear everything he ought to. India Inc's whistle mechanisms have traditionally been so weak, that even senior managers prefer the safety of tightlipped thumb-twiddling.

Not that everything's always out in the open in the 'open market' of the US, where BusinessWeek declared 2002 the 'year of the whistleblower', Time picked three female whistleblowers as 'persons of the year' and The Economist devoted a whole page to a Mattel squealer. Heard of Sherron Watkins of Enron, Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, Coleen Rowley of the FBI or Christine Casey of Mattel lately? There's a good chance that they found the media exposure only slightly more helpful to their corporate careers (if not modelling) than Russell Crowe's character did in The Insider, a film that deters whistleblowing perhaps as effectively as it inspires.

The Right To Squeal

Getting people to speak up is difficult even when there's no wrongdoing involved. The reason? Fear. Better to grin and bear it than suffer forever. In the late 1980s, the chief of an Indian steel major was shocked to find that the technical managers did not have the courage to send word up that the Rs 800 crore sanctioned for plant modernisation was simply not enough to do the job.

This was because this was the sum agreed upon by the chief and their direct boss, the shocked chief's deputy, and the technical heads feared that any grumbling would trigger a shootout between the top two, trapping them all in the crossfire. It was only at a casual luncheon meet with the engineering general manager that the chief finally identified the cause of the hold-up.

Information short-circuits are terrible for business. All the more so when it involves misconduct, even if it's minor. Forget fudged accounts, corner-snipped quality and dangerous effluents. A rudely-spoken word on the phone to a potential customer, for example, is also something the chief ought to hear of-but never will-because colleagues like to 'mind their own business'. What could make the difference, however, is a culture of transparency. Where squealing is not squealing. It is ennobled-as whistleblowing. Based on a common principle and common right. The right to raise the alarm.

Instituting appropriate whistle mechanisms, backed by systemised processes, are just a step towards that. And these need not take the form of an e-mail, a la Infosys. Take LG's Pizza-with-Kim system. At LG, according to Y.V. Verma, VP (hr), every Saturday is observed as Pizza-with-Kim day. That's the time for an employee to bare his soul. "The pizza meeting with the managing director," says Verma, who is present only as an observer, "adds to the informality of the situation where each employee is free to voice concerns."

Similar meetings at Hyundai Motor have helped the company bridge its Korean-Indian cultural differences, reports G.S. Ramesh, VP (HR). The trick was to get people shrug off their inhibitions and talk openly to senior management. Now they're all 'Hyundaians'. "That's Hyundai plus Indians," explains Ramesh, adding that the company will soon launch an intranet communication module that will capture people's "expressions and impressions" in digital format.

Whistles, Bells And Credibility

In the view of Adil Malia, VP (HR), Coca-Cola India, any good system must have three clearly enunciated stages to it-recognition, reporting, and action. Indeed, alarm-raising would have no meaning if it leads to no action. And that's why companies need to separate cry-wolfers from real calls, and then work hard at the whistle mechanism's credibility.

That often involves turning ethics into a sort of categorical imperative by making it very clear what the company stands for as an institution, regardless of individuals. According to Malia, Coca-Cola's Code of Business Conduct mandates every newcomer to be taken through "a very structured presentation in which company values, both acceptable and uncharacteristic, are highlighted through videos and personal presentation". Moreover, claims Malia, none of the organisational processes come without a redressal mechanism. "In case a junior manager is unhappy with his appraisal, he can take the matter up with me (the hr Head)," he says. Besides, every Coca-Cola employee has hotline access to its Atlanta headquarters, where a group of ombudsmen are all ears.

An ombudsman, a Swedish term, is an independent official who is supposed to owe his loyalty solely to the force of good. "One should anoint a very senior person within the company as its ombudsman," feels Yogi Sriram, VP (Corporate hr and Personnel), Larsen & Toubro, "since only he would be in a position to understand the context of the situation... moreover, the person should understand the business, and most importantly, should not be declared an 'official ombudsman'." Why not official? Well, this is the age of cynicism. And naivette is vanishing even amongst young trainees. If the ombudsman acquires a watchdoggish reputation, he may come to be seen as just another figure up the totem-pole controlled by hidden vested interests.

Are We All Deluded?

Assuredly, recent measures taken by companies such as Wipro and Infosys (encouraging people to blow the whistle on harassment, discrimination, accounting malpractice, crime, breach of contract, or other workplace perils), will result in the copycat creation of whistle mechanisms at other companies as well.

But will this really make things better? Or is it just another illusory exercise? In 1999, KPMG had conducted a business ethics survey spanning hundreds of firms. "The survey," says Deepankar Sanwalka, Executive Director (Forensic), KPMG, "highlighted ways to reinforce company policies, and looked at reasons why codes of conduct are reduced at times to a mere paper document, and also a range of conflict of interest issues." Insider trading is a classic conflict-of-interest issue, as illustrated by last year's story of a senior employee at an it major who played the stockmarkets on insider knowledge of its financial results. He was sacked. But it's not easy catching such misbehaviour.

According to the KPMG Fraud and Misconduct Diagnostic Survey, 2003, as many as 72 per cent of corporates in India do not have a 'conflict of interest' declaration signed by employees. As many as 50 per cent don't even have a policy. This makes whistleblowing important, concludes Sanwalka. Though, "It is equally vital for a company to protect its whistleblowers."

At the end, transparency works in the company's benefit. As Bill Gates is known to say, the winners are firms in which bad news travels up faster than good news. A simple idea. Deceptively so.