Adventures of a Small-Time Whistleblower: Transformations through the Four Phases of Whistleblowing (Part 1)

Transformations through the Four Phases of Whistleblowing (Part 1)

The individual is transformed in four phases by the events that lead up to her whistleblowing and that follow that defining moment.

1. Divorce

In the first phase, the individual comes to understand that her goals and the organization’s are not aligned. If she once felt loyalty to her company, that feeling dissolves. She may now be prepared to harm the company, or her readiness may come in the second phase.

Daniel Ellsberg described a long lead-up to his release of the Pentagon Papers. Revelatory conversations with generals in Vietnam during 1967 began his transformation. He moved closer to his split when attending anti-war rallies in 1969, and he finally released the Papers to the New York Times in 1971. Edward Snowden recounted a years-long approach to his 2012 decision to release secret documents describing government surveillance to a reporter at The Guardian. Both Ellsberg and Snowden moved gradually from supporters of the government’s strategies to severe critics who were prepared to act as whistleblowers.

I was no whistleblower in 1992 when I signed a loan agreement that violated a key MAI Systems bank agreement. Instead, I believed that the agreement was critical to MAI’s survival and my own success. I was no whistleblower in 2005 when I hoped to delay exposure of fraudulent meal counts at the Gilroy nutrition site of Catholic Charities. Instead, I wanted time to sweep away the problem before it harmed me and the company. I was no whistleblower in 2006 when I signed a borrowing agreement that I knew HomeFirst would soon violate or when an attorney advised that HomeFirst was at risk of violating licensing requirements at its largest shelter. Instead, I saw my own future bound up with a successful turnaround of the company which needed my complicity.

I was not prepared to blow a whistle at HomeFirst until after Jenny Niklaus joined the company as CEO in 2009, after the company’s program director cried at the news of Niklaus' selection, after its development director quit in frustration and Niklaus fired in succession the two replacements she had hired, after the company reported four successive years of losses, and after Niklaus insisted on wildly optimistic assumptions in order to balance the company’s 2013-14 budget.

The events that transform anyone from a reasonably loyal, if not especially respectful, employee to a whistleblower are not always pretty. Others may find them inconsequential; the events do not always plainly justify becoming a whistleblower. The events that preceded Chelsea Manning’s disclosure of documents that revealed misconduct in the Iraq war are painful to read, but they do not logically support an ethical decision to reveal classified materials. After her unique personal journey, each whistleblower arrives at the point where she is prepared, in a way she was not previously, to violate loyalties and to initiate a doomed project that will result in her punishment.

2. Witness

In the second phase, the potential whistleblower witnesses a questionable activity. No longer fully aligned with the company, she does not assume that the activity will benefit her and the company. She suspects that something is amiss. After investigating, she decides that the activity is wrong or a mistake and mentions it to her boss or another responsible person. Depending on her approach and the value of the activity to the company, her observation may be ignored or dismissed or she may catch some blow-back.

When the company does not deal with the problem promptly, she begins to doubt those in charge, and she watches closely what happens next[1]. As she investigates further, she finds not only that the initial problem remains uncorrected but that other problems exist as well[2].

Organizations that misbehave in multiple instances are sometimes portrayed as “bad barrels” that turn previously good people into bad apples who commit wrongs[3]. Cynics judge that the nature of organizations is to misbehave in furtherance of their objectives[4]. From the whistleblower’s perspective, the question is not why the misbehavior occurs but whether it will be disclosed.

I first suspected the County overbilling at the end of preparing the 2013-14 budget. As we had done privately and in earlier meetings with the Finance Committee, Niklaus and I exchanged barbs in front of the Board over that budget, which I considered perilously unrealistic. In a different mood I would have ignored the possibility that we had billed the County of Santa Clara improperly. I had done so in the past, and the County would not find the problem on its own. This time, however, I probed further.

Niklaus, who was unhappy that I found the violation just prior to our annual audit, said she and the Program Officer would work it out with the County staff. In a different mood I might have dropped the matter after she had relieved me of the responsibility to fix it, but this time I tracked their progress. No resolution emerged, and I became more annoyed.

On August 26, 2013, Niklaus, the Program Officer. the Development Officer, and I met as we did on most Mondays. As the meeting closed following a discussion of the County overbilling, I asked whether HomeFirst’s largest shelter violated the State of California licensing requirement. There was no external pressure to evaluate this issue, which would not be discovered by the State or anyone else on their own. We had all ignored the risk for years. Niklaus went crazy, which I found interesting.

My exchanges with Niklaus over the budget had widened my separation from her and the Board. I was prepared to view potential misdeeds differently than I had in the past, to investigate them, and to look for other misdeeds that might confirm my assessment of the organization.

Psychologically separated from the company and with a suspected misdeed in hand, I was prepared to become a whistleblower.