Ep.6: The Call Is Coming from Inside the Company
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About this episode. We are always urging people to "Speak Up": and we have policies, procedures, and hotlines to facilitate "speaking up." But what motivates people to do it? What inhibits speak up? Who are the one's speaking up? And why? Enter Professor Kate Kenny, a leading researcher and author on the topic, whose new book, Regulators of Last Resort: Whistleblowers, the Limits of the Law, and the Power of Partnerships, explores how public whistleblowers prevail despite employers' attempts to silence them.
In this episode, Zach, Hui, and Prof. Kenny bust some common myths about those who make disclosures (like, for example, that all so-called “whistleblowers” are “outsiders”). They discuss the language we should use within an organization to describe speaking up (spoiler alert: stop using the term “whistleblower”). And they use headline-grabbing cases to illustrate the cultural and behavioral dynamics that influence, and sometimes inhibit, individuals’ willingness to speak up about observed misconduct.
Who? Zach Coseglia + Hui Chen, CDE Advisors; Prof. Kate Kenny, University of Galway
Full Transcript:
ZACH: Welcome back to The Better Way? podcast, brought to you by CDE Advisors. Culture. Data. Ethics. This is a curiosity podcast for those who ask, there has to be a better way, right? There just has to be. I'm Zach Coseglia and I'm joined as always by Hui Chen. Hi, Hui.
HUI: Hi, Zach. Hi, everyone. We are very excited to have a very special guest with us on a topic that we've really, really been wanting to address for a long time; and we really have just the right expert with us today. So, I'm gonna go ahead and do a brief introduction of our guest: Professor Kate Kenny. She is a professor of Business and Society at the University of Galway in Ireland. She has held research fellowships at Cambridge University and Harvard University. Professor Kenny is one of the leading researchers on whistleblowing. That's our topic today. And she has published extensively, including several books on whistleblowing. The most recent one just came out and it was published by Cambridge University Press called Regulators of Last Resort: Whistleblowers, the Limit of the Law and The Power of Partnerships.
Welcome, Professor Kenny.
ZACH: Welcome to The Better Way?
KATE: Thanks. Thank you very much, Zach, and thanks Hui for having me on the podcast.
ZACH: We're really excited about the discussion today. But before we get into your work and your research, I'm gonna ask you the question that I ask everyone when they come to the better way for the first time, and that is for you to introduce yourself. Who is Kate Kenney?
KATE: Oh well, I'm a university professor here on the west coast of Ireland in Galway, and I research whistleblowing and business ethics and have done so for probably 10 or 12 years now at this point.
HUI: So we always like to start with definitions here. So, we're gonna start by asking you how would you define either whistle blowing or a whistleblower, or both?
KATE: Sure, absolutely. It comes up a lot because I think the word whistle blowing is used in lots of different contexts. So, we in the research community like to kind of land on a definition. So, I think the one that most people would. Use is that a whistleblower is an individual who speaks up about wrongdoing that they perceive in their organization, and they speak up about that wrongdoing to somebody who can affect change.
Also, for some, whistle blowing is an activity that attracts retaliation. And if you don't receive that retaliation, you're not actually a whistleblower because if you think about it: loads of us every day. We will, through the course of our normal day-to-day work speak up about wrongdoing. That's part of a job.
So, that doesn't mix whistleblower. Some academics will say, well, it's the reprisal, the suffering that you had experienced for doing that part of your job that makes you a whistleblower. So, there, I suppose that's probably the, the most useful definition.
HUI: Thank you. That was, that was very helpful. So, as you can imagine many of our listeners are people who work in corporate compliance and ethics departments and they often are the ones running those speak up hotlines and, and work with whistle whistleblowers. And in this community, I think there's, you know, we've heard, we've certainly heard some presumptions that are sort of common in, in this circle. And I would love to put out some of these assumptions to you and ask you to help us clarify if these common questions or assumptions are truth myths or somewhere in between.
KATE: Great, happy to do it.
HUI: Okay, so the first one I'm gonna put out to you is it true that whistleblowers usually start by raising their concerns within their institutions and only go outside of their institutions when those internal efforts have failed repeatedly?
KATE: Yeah, that is absolutely unequivocal truth. Hui. So, whistleblowers are typically the typical profile of whistleblower is somebody who's tried to raise their concern internally, maybe to a line manager, through a hotline, [or] to a senior manager. I mean, it's not what most people think when they think about whistleblowing, but that is the fact and research in country after country, sector after sector shows up the same thing. We're looking at 80 to 90% of whistleblowers going inside first. So, what that does is it makes this whole idea that a whistleblower is somehow disloyal or somehow traitorous to the organization . . . that has no backing in research at all. These are people have tried to change things from the inside first, and follow the channels.
HUI: And when they go inside, is there research that tells us to whom do they usually go first?
KATE: Sure, absolutely. I mean, with the glowing is the disclosure of wrongdoing. And I think if we take a step back and people consider their own work in ethics, compliance audit, or any job really usually; the first port of call, if you witness wrongdoing is to the person closest to you in the chain of command. So, many people will go to their line manager first, unless, of course, their line manager is involved in the wrongdoing—and then usually they'll speak up to the next most senior person. Whistleblowers are on a journey, usually to find who's gonna help with this? Who can stop this wrongdoing? Who do I need to contact? What we find is people will often keep going until they find a resolution or somebody who can help, but there's lots of reasons why someone would give up their whistleblowing complaint along the way. Retaliation being one of them; and the second biggest reason people would just quit disclosing is—it's an interesting one—the fear of futility. So, what we're finding in a lot of research . . . we ask people, why didn't you whistle blow? Or why did you give up after the first attempt didn't work? They'll say because I looked around; I saw who else has spoken up in this place. I looked at things I've done in the past trying to change things. Nothing will change. It's futile. That's actually another big reason people will quit or even not start to disclose in the first place.
ZACH: So one of the questions I have about this actually goes to this is really important point that you make in one of your earlier books: and that's about how this is not an event. Whistleblowing isn't an event, it's a process.
KATE: Yeah.
ZACH: So, here’s my question. Hui and I have both led investigations functions. We’ve been participants in that process. And a lot of our listeners are ethics and compliance officers. Here’s the part of the process that would keep me up. We want people to report things to their managers. And we know from your research that that’s where a lot of people start. How do we balance that reality with the need to ensure that things that require the ethics and compliance team’s attention—or legal’s attention—actually make their way there?
KATE: Zach, I mean, that is a great question and I think you know in say, for example, my research into banking and finance, I interviewed a lot of ethics, compliance, [and] audit professionals who were classed as whistleblowers because they just kept trying to enforce and ensure that ethics and compliance and auditing procedures were simply followed. They were just sort of doing their job. And in many cases, they would have gone to their line manager in the first instance. The fact that disclosures sometimes don't get past an individual in the hierarchy is actually the reason driving legal legislative change all over the world.
So, here in Europe, we've had the whistleblower Directive 2021. This was landmark law. This is the strongest piece of legislation, and it's across all EU, European Union Member States. Countries have to implement it. It's a whistleblower directive and it was coming from a lot of the scandals coming out post financial crisis, particularly the Lux Leaks scandal and what happened to whistleblowers in that case and other sort of major tax scandals across Europe. The whistleblowers in those cases were vilified. They were silenced, exactly as you described, Zach. The manager in question managed to keep the person quiet and to deflect their accusations. Nothing got done. The European Commission woke up to this and there was a lot of lobbying by politicians, union activists, union people, activists and academics; and they all said we need to enable insiders to come forward and they came up with a scheme for how to do that.
So, to directly answer your question, best practice is that you have to have multiple lines of reporting. Regardless, you know at the start of this debate, maybe five years ago, everyone was asking, well, what's the one best channel for reporting. But best practices? I'm sorry, there is no one best because everyone reports in different ways. You might love a person-to-person conversation. Hui might prefer, for example, to make a telephone call and disclose that way. I might be very techie; and I love, you know, using online systems and I would love to log my call. I log my disclosure through an intranet. Someone else is just maybe paranoid—for good reason—about what management will do to them, and they need an outside ombudsperson or an outside channel . . . and that should be provided by the organization too. So, there's five or six different avenues, such as the ones I described. What you want in place is a suite that people can choose from when they're disclosing. That's really the only way. Otherwise, we can't have one person, one senior manager, for example, who has the power to block disclosure.
ZACH: Or even only relying on a hotline.
KATE: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Some people, hotlines don't suit. And then we have a lot of multinational companies, for example, and then the issue of disclosing through different languages becomes salient in that case. So, we really have to look at the context and say what's needed here and always stick to the high level spirit of the thing, which is if someone with reasonable belief perceives that there might be wrongdoing going on—they don't need to prove it, by the way.
In good whistleblowing law, someone should be protected against negative effects just for simply believing that what they see is the case. It's not up to people to be their own detectives. That would be completely unreasonable for an ordinary worker. So, the spirit of the thing is to protect someone who has that reasonable belief and wants to raise the concern to somebody who can investigate it and see if there's anything there, and to do so in a safe way. So that's basically what's driving it, yeah.
ZACH: Hui, what's another myth that we should try to bust here?
HUI: Another one is about who to whistleblowers are. There is, again, an assumption, or at least a perception, that whistleblowers tend to be people who are socially . . . who socially don't fit into their teams. So, you know, they're essentially outsiders in their their work environment. And that's sort of one image of whistleblowers that we often hear. Any truth to that?
KATE: There's two elements to that. This is a . . . this is a typical academic answer, and I'm sorry. There's two elements to it. I can tell you that from researching and interviewing and studying whistleblowers often, one thing they have in common is they have in some way come from the outside. So, for example, someone might have just moved to that country or come into that industry, maybe from a neighboring industry, or be a recent graduate. Or they might be a woman in a male dominated organization. There's often some characteristic that would stop them fully absorbing the culture. OK? That would sort of make them less likely to be an absolute cultural insider, who's one of the—I'm going to say one of the guys, could be one of the gals. So., 'cause often that trait, but it's very difficult to pin down what that trait’s gonna be. Now, that trait is often something that would have them a little bit outside the culture.
The other side of the answer though, is do they fit into the organization? And one of the things that we find, across many particularly persistent . . . the kind of whistleblowers that end up disclosing serious wrongdoing; at systemic level, those kinds of individuals are often completely the opposite of not fitting into what the organization wants. We often see very loyal employees. We often see people who have raised, who've gone to the top of their career or near the top, who've had years and years of really solid job evaluations. In fact, it's that that gives them the confidence to think that they can whistle blow and be listened to. And often these people are surprisingly optimistic about it. And that's because they are company people. They're organization people. They have faith in the industry. They have faith in the organization. They feel they're very well considered, and they whistle blow from that perspective. It can be really devastating for those individuals to receive reprisal from people that they literally thought would celebrate them and thank them coming forward. So, there is a kind of sense of immunity sometimes that people have.
Interestingly, you talk to say, for example, a number of whistleblower lawyers. So their first question to potential whistleblower is often, “show me your last five years job evaluations, please.” Because they can only take on cases that are fairly solid and that's one of the most . . . the strongest piece of evidence. If something goes to court—or even, if it's the court of public opinion—[the question often] is how well was this person considered up until the moment they blew the whistle?
HUI: Very interesting. And tell us if there's also some research that would tell us a little more about the sort of the demographics of whistleblowers, if there is such a thing. Is there a sort of sort of a profile? Is there, you know, predominant status, seniority, tenure in the company, gender, age. Any anything like that, that that sort of can shed some light on, yeah . . . ?
KATE: Yeah. There isn't really. There are certain sorts of tendencies, OK. If someone is speaking up about systemic wrongdoing—deep-seeded stuff that goes across the organization, has impact on multiple stakeholders outside—they're usually senior, just because that kind of person has access across the silos. Junior workers don't have the access, number one; but they don't have the big picture framing to see the implications, right, across the organization in many cases. So often, to really understand the seriousness of the wrongdoing and to call it out as definitive systemic ongoing wrongdoing, you need to be quite senior. That's kind of how that breaks down. So, I think that's a big thing.
ZACH: What’s an example from a recent case—maybe one that’s been in the news—where the whist blower fit this this profile? Or maybe where it was the nature of their job that put them in a position of power, influence or access to information that became the subject of the disclosure?
KATE: Take, for example, Eileen Foster at Countrywide, which was then bought out by Bank of America, who spoke up. Her role was Vice President for Mortgage Fraud Investigations. So, she was going to be Vice President for Mortgage Fraud Investigations by investigating fraud—and not letting that go. And you know, she had, I think when I think of her—and this is quite common; very common across whistleblowers—she had an unusually visceral and felt sense of the impact of the fraud on ordinary people. And also, was really concerned about the impact of the fraud on her own organization. Bear in mind she's managing a whole group of staff who would be out of the job if the organization folded; and she could see that this organization, because of goals that had been set, were offering mortgages to people who had no chance of paying it back. And so she wasn't really able to sleep at night with that going on. And also, as she repeatedly said, I had a job description. You know, I was just fulfilling it.
ZACH: So I have a question that's less of myth to bust and more a hypothesis. And this goes back to definitions. It also goes to a topic we talk about a lot here at The Better Way?, which is: words and the power of words. A lot of companies call people who speak up “whistleblowers.” They also will sometimes call the process their “whistleblower process”; or their hotline, the “whistleblower hotline.”
We're deeply interested in the human. It's a big part of our mission and our point-of -view; and our hypothesis has always sort of been that those terms may not be great from the human perspective. That they could confuse the average employee, for one. But even if they don't, they might intimidate them. You know, it's one thing to report something.
It's one thing to speak up, but to become a whistleblower, it feels heavier. It feels like a burden to bear. And I'm wondering whether or not you've encountered that in your research, or if you just have a point of view about the language that companies should use in order to motivate people and to not scare people or intimidate them to speak up.
KATE: I mean, Zach, that's very insightful. And you know, people have worked in this space for a number of years, became aware of hanging a label on to an individual, and “whistleblower” has negative connotations. So, in many countries across Europe, there is no word for whistleblower directly in the language; I’m thinking of German, for example. And I believe the same is true in Italian and French. There is a word for informant, which then gets translated into “whistleblower.” So, say, in France they had to kind of invent a phrase: “lancer de la alert.” The person raising the alert; rather than use the common word, which was a direct translation of informer.
So, the point there is that whether it's whistleblower or another label, why do we need to single out an individual and hang a label on them? So, for that reason, what we talk about instead, is the disclosure; and we talk about protecting disclosures. So, the spotlight, if we have one, shifts away from the figure in front of us, the individual, and on to the thing, the information, they're disclosing. So, if you look at clever legislation, say, for example—and I'm not just saying this because I'm Irish; but the Irish legislation, which was brought in after a major policing scandal in 2011, Ireland brought in whistleblower . . . we call it whistleblower law. But it was called the Protected Disclosure Act. And so, the entire language of that piece of legislation, of that piece of law, intended to protect people speaking up. The entire language does not refer to individuals at all. It refers to protecting the person who brings the disclosure forward; so, it doesn't label them. And I think that, to your point, is critical because once we start to sort of name someone in a certain category, it can feel stigmatizing, even if we’re doing it to celebrate. Because people have found, even years after whistleblowing, it can still have stigmatizing consequences.
ZACH: Well, let’s pull on that thread. You mentioned Eileen Foster before, from Countrywide. What, if anything, do we know about her post-whistleblowing experience?
KATE: She had spoken up. She had been let go for doing that; but then she persisted, and she took a claim with OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Authority, which has a kind of whistleblowing protection scheme—and she was awarded damages, over $900,000 in damages, for what she had experienced in whistleblowing retaliation at Countrywide Bank of America. So, she's won her case, and that's very difficult to do, but she's won it.
Then she receives the Ridenhour Award, which was named for a very famous US whistleblower, Ron Ridenhour, in the 1970s, I believe; and it's given out every year to the discloser or the person speaking up who's made a massive impact. So, Eileen wins this award. She still talks about having sent out almost 150 job applications; so, her CV went to 150 different empty vacancies, and she was extremely well qualified, and she'd received all these accolades . . . and was turned down every single time. She ended up working in a job paying 50% of her original salary while at Countrywide. She speaks about this; but if that person finds that whistleblowing is a stigmatized label, what chance does somebody else have? So, it's just to make that point that you say, and I think it is really insightful, it's so critical to take the spotlight off the individual.
ZACH: I really love that. We try to put the human in the center and this is a really great example of maybe where that isn't the better way; and to your to your work, right, it's the process. It's the information. It's the disclosure. Not labeling that person. I like that.
Okay, so I want to pivot a little bit. Because, Professor Kenny, one of the things that you write about, is how . . . and these are my words, but “not all disclosures are the same.” And the journey of the person making the disclosure can be very different based on whether the disclosure gets to the core of what the organization does; or is just so very deep within the organization; or maybe even involves someone who’s just too influential. Hui, I know you were recently reminded of one of these real-life cases, which I think Professor Kenny has also written about.
HUI: You know, it's interesting. I really, just coincidentally, just a couple of days before this conversation we're having, I read an account about Erica Chang, who was the whistle blower for Theranos. And I remember reading her account before, but I just didn't . . .
KATE: Oh yeah.
HUI: I had forgotten this part that one of her closest allies in in her whole whistleblowing venture was the grandson of George Shultz, who was the chairman of the board. And yeah, so, you're talking about the situation where they do have something that goes to the very root of the organization, but they also had the kind of access that no other whistleblower I can imagine have. I mean, they first raised this issue with the chairman of the board at the Schultz family dinner—and even with that . . .
KATE: Hmm. Yeah, that's true.
HUI: . . . they couldn't, sort of, get the board to pay attention to this issue. Or take this issue seriously. And if they can't do that in that kind of context—if I can't go to Grandpa's house, and he happens to be the chairman of the board, and tell him something is seriously wrong with the core of our business, then then you know, really, you can imagine what chances do other people you know, other whistleblowers who don't have this kind of access have?
[Switching gears]
I [also] appreciate so much the fact that you mentioned Eileen's [Foster] story a number of times because I was—I thought—her story was really quite powerful. And this is a story that, for our listeners who are interested, you would find in Professor Kenny's book entitled Whistleblowing: Toward a New Theory. Because I guess part of me, really empathizes with her because she is a fellow, sort of, compliance person. And I also really love the fact that in your book you have a couple of quotes that I think some of our listeners would probably feel like, you know, it resonates with them. So, there's a couple of compliance officers who said, one quote is, “compliance function feels like a man in a rowing boat trying to slow down an oil tanker.” That's one quote. The other one is “ordinarily in banks the compliance officers are seen as business prevention officers,” which I am sure that that is a common saying and people have heard that in their organizations before.
And there are times when I read a whistleblower account. And I see that they have approached their manager, with no result; they approach somebody else; and then they ultimately take it outside. But often times, they never went to the corporate compliance people. It's as if they are not aware of these people. I don't know in, to what extent that's come up, in your research. What is the perception? I mean, what is the reason why people might not think of going to ethics and compliance people—or choose not to go to them? Is it because [of] how these people are perceived in the company in terms of the perception of their ability to do something about the disclosure? Or is it just because they're so invisible in the company? Any sense that you get from the whistleblowers that you have interviewed?
KATE: I think there's a couple of things that are going on with regards to the compliance function. So, where a culture is set up to really pursue a mission; so, for example, you know 1/3 of all US home loans or whatever that mission might be and compliance is seen by senior management as potentially getting in the way of that, well that cultural message will spread pretty quickly. So, for example, Paul Moore, who is sadly passed away now. He was head of global risk—so the senior risk manager in the whole of Halifax, Bank of Scotland. His disclosures to the Treasury Select Committee of the UK Government after the financial crisis had occurred—actually in the run up to it—they brought down HBOS; and they were really instrumental. What he spoke up about in helping the UK to understand what had gone on, prior to cause the financial crisis as it manifested in the UK. So, Paul talks about how he would be there in his global risk function without any seat on the board. So, here he is, the senior risk person, and he's seen as not worth a regular position around the executive board table. I mean that sends signals, right? So, he has to, you know, pass on his reports through an intermediary. He talks about meetings, and weekly sales report meetings where they have this jokey thing called the cash for cabbages ritual. So, if you were the lowest performing salesperson at the time—so, if you'd sold the fewest loans that week, you got a big smelly half rotten cabbage put on your desk, and everyone laughed. And if you were not, and if you'd gotten the most loans that week, you got cash—that was like the cash or cabbages wort of ritual. And he was saying, what chance has a risk person got that you know, to, to compete with that?
More recently, though, what I would say is we're hearing that people increasingly might fear that certain elements of risk and compliance are becoming more and more legalized and more seen as risk detectors on behalf of the corporate entity. So, they're kind of almost there to find out who might disclose or who looks like they'd be a risk to the profit mission of the organization, and that when people would go through risk and compliance, they might not always be on their side. And that the sort of, increasing legalization of the function means that it's more formal and intimidating to bring things forward. Now, they're only in certain sectors, and I'm just talking about what we're kind of hearing at some industry events where people are talking about what is the culture and how does the culture of some organizations interfere with the natural functioning of risk and compliance, which is of course to support employees and workers to take reasonable precautions in a humane way—you know, with due regard for the fact that people can make mistakes, but to overall ensure that regulations are followed and that the long term interests of the stakeholders, which is ultimately the survival of the organization. Normally we would hope that those interests are upheld, if that makes sense.
ZACH: It does. I have a lot of thoughts actually in response to that. I think that the observation about the sort of legalization of compliance and risk is I don't like it's a trend that's emerging. I think that it's very much reality. I mean, we see compliance teams . . .
KATE: OK. You'd know more than I would.
ZACH: Many compliance teams are filled with lawyers, but I think two things can be true at the same time. In other words, we can support the business and support the employee. But I guess my question to you is: you give this example in, actually, I forget which of your books, but in one of your books, you give this example about the company—a bank—moving their reporting or whistleblowing process from compliance to HR because compliance was viewed as more of a policing function and HR was viewed, I think the term was, more of a function that “put employee well-being first.” And to me, just moving it from one place to another seems like putting a Band-Aid on the problem—when the bigger cultural sort of message there is, why do people view compliance or risk functions as a policing function? And so, to get to my question, can compliance be viewed as a function that puts employee well-being first, or is that a fool's errand?
KATE: Of course it can be and should be. I mean, and I always think Warren Buffett was asked for a comment when the Wells Fargo scandal erupted just a couple of years ago. And he was saying, look, forget the systems and the policies and this kind of thing. If the leaders of an organization are not on the ground asking employees, hey, what are you seeing? Do you have any concerns? What's likely to blow up? Then they're inviting these disasters to be held. So, from his point of view, compliance and risk are baked into the health of an organization, you know, just as we would kind of bake in medical checkups to the health of ourselves. And so, anything else makes little sense.
HUI: So, I have to ask you one more question before we get to know you with our Better Way? Questionnaire, which is the motivation of whistleblowers. This is something that we often hear people in our circle argue about. Are they motivated by financial gain or potential financial gain? Or are they motivated by genuine moral concerns?
KATE: Absolutely. So, the financial gain has come into the spotlight since the US—but also we have in Nigeria, we have in Korea, we have in a number of countries, where whistleblowers can receive rewards as a percentage of the monies that are recouped because of their disclosure. So, if I go to the US government saying, “hello, there's tax fraud happening here to the value of 100 million.” I might be entitled then to 10% of whatever the government gets back. And there's been some really high-profile cases of huge rewards going to whistleblowers. So, it's led to a kind of a debate right now, by the way, the UK has just introduced watered down, but a reward system. It was very controversial because the UK and countries in Europe kind of say “no,” you know, “people should disclose because they're ethical, not because there's money.” But the reality is this: the percentage of whistleblower coming forward for that reward program—who are actually taken on by the government—is tiny. My understanding is less than 1%; so it's really not a viable income generating strategy for anyone—and it would take somebody 5 minutes on Google to sort of understand that.
So, I think that you could argue, well, some whistleblowers do it for the fame. Maybe they hope to sell a book or be the subject of a movie. But again, spending anytime at all looking at this, the stress and exposure and career vilification would not make it a lucrative choice at all. So, I think, it’s definitely not the finances [driving] motivation. Because it's a process; and you start off by saying, “hey, I think this thing is wrong”; and you start by talking to a few people—maybe then you escalate it to a manager and maybe then you receive to retaliation. A persistent whistle blower keeps going through all of that . . . is generally motivated by an inability to rest until that wrongdoing is at least addressed, or at least until they've done what they can. That kind of heightened sense of moral responsibility—and now there's a term in psychology, moral injury. Moral injury happens if you're the kind of person who will, you know, really suffer when your values are out of whack with the organization or the system that you're in. You will experience more of injury. Someone else might not in the same situation, but if you're that kind of person, then it's a big form of suffering. And so, if that's, that's something that people tend to find that they keep going because of that heightened sense of, I guess, empathy for in any case where there's wrongdoing happening, there's usually someone somewhere at the other end of that who's suffering as a result. If you're the kind of person who can't stop imagining that end recipient it’s going to be really difficult to give up a whistleblowing claim in that case. You know, so I think that's it.
But the topic of my recent book is all about: if you're going to do this, find allies. If you're, if you've tried internally and you find yourself going externally, you really do need to know the risks. But if you're going to go forward anyway, despite the risks,—and there's lots of research on the risks—you're going to persist anyway, you need alliances and allies and people who know how to strategize around these. And what we've seen in the last five years is: those kind of tactics and strategies that work are becoming the subject of research. And so, there's plenty of information, and more so every year, about what what can work in those situations.
HUI: Well, there's so much so much that we could be asking you about, but hopefully we'll get you back another time for more questions. But Zach, is it time for the Better Way? Questionnaires.
ZACH: My favorite time! The Better Way? Questionnaire. Professor Kenny, this is sort of inspired by Marcel Proust, Bernard Pivot, James Lipton (if you're a fan of Inside the Actors Studio), we just have a few questions that we’ll ask you to get to know you even better. And Hui, why don't I start?
HUI: All right.
ZACH: So, question number one is a choice of two. The first question is: if you could wake up tomorrow. Having gained anyone quality or ability, what would it be? Or you can answer is there a quality about yourself that you're currently working to improve, and if so, what?
KATE: Well, I mean, that's easy for me. I live on the West of Ireland, so we are gifted with constant supply of beautiful Atlantic Ocean waves, and my favorite hobby is surfing. If anyone has ever surfed, they'll know that it's an endless struggle to master this particular skill. So definitely, I think if I could improve—and if I could master that particular activity—that would be my answer.
ZACH: Amazing. I just. I've never surfed, but I imagine myself probably . . . I have trouble standing on ground, so I feel like the surfboard would be a real a real challenge.
HUI: I have to say that that has to be one of the coolest answers to that that we have had.
ZACH: It is very original.
HUI: Very.
KATE: Hui, if you saw my surfing, you know that it's not cool.
HUI: So I'll ask you the next question, which is also a choose from one of two options; you can answer either: who is your favorite mentor or who do you wish you could be mentored by.
KATE: I love to read, so I feel like I'm mentored by my favorite authors. Some feminist philosophers have kept me going for 30 years. One stands out. In particular, Professor Judith Butler at Berkeley University. But there are many other feminist philosophers who I read, and I find great strength from because they tend to both engage in really interesting theory, but they live the theory as well, which allows for really nuanced analysis.
HUI: Again, such an original answer, I love that.
ZACH: That's a really good one. All right, question #3 is what's the best job, paid or unpaid that you've ever had?
KATE: I love being an academic. I love. I love my role at the moment as professor and getting to research whist supplying work with activists, work with new post docs, PhD students all around this space. It's the very collaborative and friendly research space people tend to support each other. So yeah, I'm pretty fortunate in that that element. Yeah, right now this job.
HUI: That's wonderful. Now, putting that aside, the next question is: outside of being an academic, what is your favorite thing to do?
KATE: I love to write and so I'm always trying to perfect my writing. I'm obsessed with nonfiction writers from Gay Talese to Joan Didion. I love the structure of Roseanne Gay, as well of really good nonfiction. I think it's the future. For any kind of academics to become more skilled at communicating in that space, and merging really good investigative journalists and nonfiction writing, with the output of research so that it's more accessible. That's my mission.
ZACH: That's great. I so I have a . . . this is not an official question, but do you . . . I often hear writers talk about writing being a painful task. Do you find it that way, or do you actually enjoy the process?
KATE: I enjoy it. I love it. I find it very joyful. At one point, Joan Didion did say, “I write to find out what I think about something.” And I feel like that enactment of thought through . . through pen to paper is something that describes how I deal with the world. So, it's good to know that about myself. So I can have some paper hndy.
ZACH: I like that. I like that. All right. Question #5 is, what is your favorite place?
KATE: Sligo in the West of Ireland, I think it's very, very beautiful and everyone should go there.
HUI: Have to make that on my list. For my next trip to Ireland. Next question is what makes you proud?
KATE: I have two wonderful children, and they make me proud every single day.
ZACH: What e-mail sign off do you use most frequently?
KATE: It's a . . . it's usually a link to my latest book, an instruction as to where they can buy it.
ZACH: Good for you. Why don't we actually take this opportunity for you to tell people what your latest book is and where they can go to find it?
KATE: Sure, absolutely. Thank you so much. My latest book is with Cambridge University Press. They have a US online shop; it's very reasonably priced at 30 U.S. dollars, unusually for an academic book. It's called Regulators of Last Resort: Whistleblowers. the Limits of the Law, and the Power of Partnerships. And it's all the ways in which whistleblower is working with allies have been able to take on large organizations, with much better resources, spot the accidental slip ups that those organizations make and find ways to use those to their advantage to make public interest disclosures about serious wrongdoing. So that's just out.
HUI: What trend in your field is most overrated?
KATE: That's a great question. Academia in the UK, Ireland, and Europe is obsessed with peer reviewed journal articles. It's the medium for promotion. It's the medium for kudos and esteem; so in, particularly in, the sphere of kind of business and some social sciences. So, articles at the expense of books at the expense of public engagement; at the expense of working outside of the university. That is completely overrated, in my view, and probably takes up way too much intelligent labor that could be used to much better effect for the public good.
ZACH: We've heard this before.
KATE: Oh good.
ZACH: All right. Yes, we have. We have. We have. Finally, what word would you use to describe your day so far?
KATE: I would say happy.
ZACH: That's great. I like that. Well, Professor Kenny, thank you so much for joining us. I echo Hui’s sentiment. I have so many more questions, so we hope you will rejoin us on the better way. But this has been a really great discussion and thank you so much for being here.
KATE: Thanks to you, both have really enjoyed it.
HUI: Thank you so much.
ZACH: And thank you all for tuning in to The Better Way? Podcast. For more information about this or anything else that’s happening with CDE Advisors, visit our website at www.CDEAdvisors.com, where you can also check out the Better Way blog. And please like and subscribe to this series on Apply or Spotify. And, finally, if you have thoughts about what we talked about today, the work we do here at CDE, or just have ideas for Better Ways we should explore, please don’t hesitate to reach out—we’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for listening.