Making Compliance Easy with Mary Shirley, at Masimo
Making Compliance Easy with Mary Shirley, Head of Compliance at Masimo
MedCompli’s CCO Executive Leadership Series of webinars continues to explore innovative approaches to compliance in multiple industries with a focus on the pharma and healthcare sectors.
During the webinar led by MedCompli’s CEO, Christopher Gingras, our guest, Mary Shirley, the Head of Compliance at Masimo and co-founder of the award-winning Great Women in Compliance Podcast, shared insights from her incredibly popular books on compliance, drawing upon over 18 years of experience in ethics and corporate work. The webinar is now available in recording.
This report provides a key takeaway recap from the webinar to help organizations live up to their objectives and make their compliance programs actually work.
65 Hacks for Compliance Officers
While hacks and cheat codes are not something most of us expect of corporations aiming to achieve compliance, Mary Shirley uses these terms for the title of her new publication to provide a fresh perspective. In her book “Living Your Best Compliance Life: 65 Hacks and Cheat Codes to Level Up Your Compliance Program,” Mary subverts the reputation of compliance from formal and boring to fun and actionable.
Translating cheating from dodging into making compliance as easy as possible, the author offers a rich menu for compliance practitioners to choose from depending on the culture of the company, its resources and the current state of its compliance program. During the webinar, Mary explains how “65 Hacks and Cheat Codes” can become Compliance 101 and offers actionable recommendations for the teams on how to use the book as a practical resource.
Making the Most of Your Compliance Week Events
Describing one of the hacks out of her book related to compliance week agendas, Mary offers a new approach to defining training KPIs. Instead of probing traditional KPIs like completion rates, Shirley suggests a broader perspective, focusing on the training points the participants need to learn.
In suggesting innovative ways for compliance professionals to get across their message to the teams, Mary highlights the importance of testing the underlying assumptions even if they make absolute common sense. As an example, Shirley shared about surprises many compliance professionals had when testing participants’ knowledge of very basic things, such as the name of the CCO or using the company’s reporting hotline.
Drawing from her rich experience and well-resourced book, Mary suggests easy and actionable ways to make the most of the compliance week, including contests and giveaways producing tremendous results despite their seeming simplicity. During the webinar, Mary Shirley and Christopher Gingras shared experiences of developing branded characters to personify compliance and make it more approachable and well-known by anyone across the board.
Improving and Monitoring Your Compliance Program
Continuing with the other themes from the book, Mary explains the importance of continuous monitoring and improvement as fundamental to any compliance agenda. Shirley suggests challenging the traditional approaches and refreshing the KPIs in light of the new developments, including behavioural science, data analytics and artificial intelligence, among others.
In an attempt to create a two-way feedback mechanism, compliance teams are suggested to encourage all types of responses, both positive and negative. While having unsolicited positive feedback is an obvious goal, having a different message still means that a person cares enough about compliance, taking time out of their busy schedules to share information. Meanwhile, only when the teams believe that their reporting misconduct can result in actionable improvements, they will be motivated to provide genuine and authentic feedback.
Toning from the Top: Have Your CEO as Your Baby Compliance Professor
As one of its most powerful suggestions on “toning from the top,” Shirley suggests giving the compliance program a personal touch by the top management by involving the CEO and other senior management. But instead of relying on formal addresses by CEOs, having chief executives share their views and stories about compliance can be invaluable in elaborating and personalizing compliance for every organization.
Mentioning McDonald’s Code of Conduct as one of the best examples where business executives share their views on compliance, Shirley encourages other companies to follow the lead and to incorporate quotes by their leadership into corporate policies.
Having a CEO, a business executive, or, if possible, a board member as an ally in a compliance program can be invaluable for any compliance efforts. The teams are encouraged to seek such involvement at all times to get the compliance message across in a very powerful and personal way.
Sending the Elevator Back Down to Help Others
Drawing on a comment by another webinar participant, Caitlyn Tobey, on how helping others becomes the most meaningful way to succeed, Mary shared her vision on the importance of looking at leadership from a servant leadership angle. Building on the theme from another book under her pen, “Sending the Elevator Down: What We’ve Learned From Great Women in Compliance,” written in co-authorship with Lisa Fine, Mary suggests using existing opportunities and creating new ones to serve others.
While this piece of advice is not directly linked to the compliance sphere, being involved in projects outside of compliance changes the reputation of a CCO from a sheriff to a business partner and enabler. By sending the elevator down outside of their core jobs, compliance officers can get an invaluable resource to have unsolicited positive feedback, create opportunities for organic networking within their organizations and develop mentor-mentee relationships.
Learn More About Compliance with MedCompli
The MedCompli CCO Executive Leadership Series, sharing insights from Mary Shirley, Christopher Gingras, and other participants of the webinar, is now available in the recording.
Dedicated to bringing comprehensive solutions for the healthcare and pharma industry and engaging healthcare professionals, the MedCompli team is set on a track to bring fresh perspectives to compliance. For more information about new approaches to compliance and the latest updates, please check our blog or get in touch with one of our team for an initial consultation.