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Contrary to popular belief, judgment can be taught. As I wrote in last week’s post, “Matters of Judgment Can Be Taught: Starting with Leader (Mis)Behavior”, most leaders know the rules, but some choose to disregard them, in a misguided belief that the same standards don’t apply to them, that they won’t be caught, or that their great value to the organization overrides any misdeeds.

Where ambiguous workplace issues are concerned, it has become even trickier to determine when certain behavior crosses a line or whether it is merely a nettlesome business issue that requires careful factual analysis and an examination of the issues within the broader context of multiple circumstances.

For years, I’ve heard people say that you can’t teach judgment. Admittedly, I’ve said it myself a few times.

However, I have recently realized that it’s just not true.

There are two basic areas where judgment in legal, ethical and values-based workplace behavior can be taught.

The first area involves instances of leader misbehavior, as we saw with HP CEO Mark Hurd or even more blatant instances where leaders fraudulently violate rules for their own personal interest or financial gain.

Every organization should have a few clear and unambiguous rules and principles that are followed and enforced at every level. These principles build culture and set standards that can readily and credibly spread throughout any organization.

A string of executive controversies over the summer months have brought this issue into stark contrast. Two bewildering examples drawn from recent headlines include the firing of the:

• University of Georgia’s athletic director following a DUI arrest (when part of his responsibilities involved encouraging fans not to drink at UGA sporting events)
• HP CEO for breaches of trust and conduct who had pledged to lead his business ethically

In setting standards, I suggest leaders and boards figure out what’s really important. If you don’t live up to these rules, you’re gone, no matter what position you hold or who you are.

After taking over as CEO in 2005, Mark Hurd revived HP, turning around its performance, making strategic acquisitions and trimming the workforce. When other technology companies and the stock market faltered in recent years, HP’s performance kept rocketing upward.

Late Friday, we read the shocking news announcing Hurd’s immediate resignation from HP as the result of a sexual harassment investigation.

While Jodie Fisher, a former HP contract worker, has charged Hurd with harassment, reports seemed to indicate that Hurd did not have an affair or sexual relationship with her. Instead, HP reported that he covered up his activities with the claimant by filing inaccurate expense reports, and may have authorized payment to her for business services she did not perform.

For Mr. Hurd, with a solid business reputation as a buttoned-up, cost-conscious and results-focused leader, this is a tragic plunge in professional fortunes and an irrevocable blot on his career. His name is now linked with the scandalous circumstances that caused him to leave HP. He will be the ridiculed on late-night television, and more facts may surface in the mainstream and tabloid media. In ways we can’t yet anticipate, it will also affect HP’s direction as it unexpectedly begins searching for a new CEO.

That was the question posed during a recent client meeting. How do we get people to care more about each other? How do we get people to be more engaged and trusting? How do we eradicate negative behaviors from our workplace and encourage a higher level of professionalism?

Watching our clients shake their heads in frustration and wonder out loud about why it was so hard to get people to change, I smiled . . . and waited.

When they grew quiet, I asked, “Do you remember the first time you used hand sanitizer?” Blank stares.

Some time ago, I had lunch with a colleague, a compliance officer for a widely known and respected organization who told me he’d spent several months reading almost one million emails as part of discovery in an employment case. Now he had only about 72,000 more emails to go.

During the discovery process, he reviewed executive correspondence, middle-manager emails, and exchanges between entry-level personnel. He discovered what certain people really thought about their team members, their jobs, roles and the company strategy. He read jokes, some proper and some not, and saw lots of exchanges that had no work purpose whatsoever.

From time to time, conversations with prospective clients go like the one I had last week.

“They‘re simply not getting it. Managers, executives and employees are saturated with information and they’re zoning out. We give our leaders and employees great training videos to watch. We have them go to classes that address our issues. We deliver engaging e-learning and we send them reminders. But something’s not working. Not enough are getting key points and applying what they’re supposed to learn. How do we fix this?”

Two unrelated trends will soon collide at work, triggering a perfect storm of workplace discontent and employee disengagement

Bad doctors lose patients they shouldn’t, cause avoidable complications, distract team members who may deliver the wrong medication, or cause others to keep quiet when they should speak up about problems. I’m not talking about physicians who lack clinical skills, though some may. Rather, these bad docs may have great and even extraordinary talents. But they scream, berate, physically intrude, threaten, and demean team members – including other physicians, nurses, and other professionals – so abusively and repetitively that patient care may suffer as much as from acts of technical incompetence.

“We’ve completed the investigation, and the matter has been resolved.”
“Did you verify what I told you? Has he/she been disciplined? Will this stop? What happens next?”
“All I can tell you is that this has been resolved; if you have further issues, please let us know. We are required to keep our findings and actions confidential. I’m sure you understand.”

Checklists save lives. That’s the key theme of Brigham and Women’s physician Atul Gawande’s insightful new book, The Checklist Manifesto.

“We need your help – a doctor abused our patients. He’s gone, but this can’t happen again, ever.”

I’ve wondered when it would happen – for years there have been stories of athletes, proxies for other celebrities, who say and do what they want while their behavior is ignored, minimized, or attributed to “locker room” humor or conduct.

David Letterman is lucky. Some may question how that can be when his private affairs, literally, are now so public. And some may say, if he can do it and keep his job, so can I.

I just returned from a fantastic bike trip in France with my daughter, Rebecca, and my first cousin Craig, her godfather. We biked along the coast of Normandy and saw where our courageous soldiers stormed the treacherous beachheads to begin the D-Day invasion.

Steve discusses the top HR challenge(s) organizations are facing.

In late October, I had the privilege of speaking to 300 leaders employed by the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) in Nova Scotia.

I vividly recall a conversation I had in 2002 about a training company called ELI.

Recognizing that unprofessional, disruptive workplace behavior can adversely affect patient care and safety, JCAHO (the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) announced new accreditation standards this month for healthcare organizations and their leadership.

The blatant cases of harassment and discrimination are gone, people keep telling us.

I have had several back-to-back trips this past month, flying from one city to another.

Our training sessions with Memphis, our German Shepherd pup, have continued.

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday -- he would have been 79 -- and as the upcoming holiday celebrating the man and his achievements approaches, I'm reminded of something he once said that is a driving force behind what we're all hoping to accomplish in the workplace:

Memphis Rae, our newest family member, is an 8-month-old German Shepherd puppy who we found through the Georgia Shepherd Rescue. She’s a great looking dog, very bright and mostly friendly, and gets along with our whole family, including Monroe, a gentle, regal Shepherd also from Georgia Rescue, who is about 2 1/2.

I just got back from a long roadtrip from Atlanta to Boston to New York to Atlanta. Like just about everyone else I saw, I carried my version of the necessary road warrior package – a laptop, Blackberry/cell phone, ipod, and camera, plus separate chargers for each.

We just completed a major renovation to our office space, and I’m happy to say my new office is clean and it will stay that way.

The New York Times Test is mentioned often in the context of corporate misbehavior.

With millions watching a game that will make football history, the Super Bowl is a high-stakes event – the very definition of stress, tension, and intensity.

We’ve been hearing stories of bloggers who’ve lost their jobs for writing entries that their employers decided were inappropriate.