When We Lose (Part 4) – Being Alone

When We Lose (Part 4) – Being Alone

Whistleblowers are individuals who confront wrongdoers.  They stand up against the system.  That’s the myth.  It is true that most of us act singly when we disclose misdeeds.  But I did not feel exactly alone on my project.  Not until the end anyway.

Citigroup promoted Richard Bowen to senior vice president in 2006.  He soon discovered that 60% of the $90 billion of the mortgages his area bought and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed the bank’s credit tests.  He alerted Citigroup management to the problem because it was part of his job.  He didn’t oppose the organization.  He acted as a vital member of the institution.  When management didn’t respond, he approached the Citigroup board of directors.  They, too, didn’t act, and he went to the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Then he testified before Congress.

At each step Bowen believed that he was doing his job.  Each time he expected to be welcomed in the deepening circles of authority.  As it turned out, he did not belong.  Officials at each level failed him.  In 2009 he was fired.  His severance was less than $1 million – a small amount compared to his salary and his lawyer’s take – and Citigroup later received a $45 billion bailout plus $300 billion in asset guarantees from the government.

Whistleblowers’ stories are not always about ethical norms.  They don’t necessarily reflect the defense of good against evil although they may later be cast that way.  Lots of times they are about being part of a work unit, a management group, or some other community.  Until you find your friends have no use for you.  First comes the ostracism.  Then the reprimands.  Then justification for retaliation makes it perfectly clear: you were not on the team after all.

When I revealed HomeFirst’s overbilling of Santa Clara County, I was just doing my job.  When I objected to the board chair’s admonition not to disclose any more violations, I assumed the other board members present would help because they valued me.  Privately afterward, the board audit chair encouraged me, and I thought I was embraced and safe. 

But the board continued to support the CEO despite more identified violations.  Its willingness to believe that I was the unfit one, not she, made evident that I had no entry into their circle.  But I still believed that government monitors would respect and welcome me.  One by one, they too let me know that HomeFirst was their partner and I was not.  The Department of Justice attorney stated it most plainly: they did not like going after organizations they thought did good.  The other agencies spoke through inaction.

A 2013 survey by the Ethics & Compliance Initiative found that 92% of those who report wrongdoing do so first internally.  Bowen did that; I did, too.  We believed that others in our company needed to know.  We were not loners standing up courageously.  We were not speaking truth to a foreign power.  We communicated with our colleagues, we thought.

Most of us successfully spend years in organizations like the one that rejects us.  Bowen rose to senior vice president at Citigroup because he served his employers well.  I was CFO of five companies and did some good work, even at HomeFirst.  Whistleblowing is hard because we need the organizations that eventually toss us out.

The expulsions can leave us isolated.  James Holzrichter called out overbillings by defense contractor Northrup Grumman.  The company fired him.  It blackballed him, blocking him from another auditing job.  He and his family were homeless for a time.

Attorney Jesselyn Radack thought she was doing her job when she advised the Department of Justice that accused terrorist John Walker Lindh needed to have his attorney present during interrogations.  She was pressed to resign.  After the DoJ publicly denied receiving her counsel, she leaked information to Newsweek.  The agency responded by getting her new employer to fire her and state bars to investigate her.  That made getting another legal job nearly impossible.

Through a combination of factors, including their personal skills and the significance of their claims, some whistleblowers become well known for what they did.  Bowen is one of many inspirational speakers on whistleblowing.  Holztrichter also speaks, consults, and encourages whistleblowers.  Radack works for the Government Accountability Project in defense of big league whistleblowers.

Like many in the little leagues, I believed the whistleblower myth.  I expected the protection promised by long-term loyalty and the law.  But the state determined that I was not a whistleblower at all.  I did not belong in that circle either.  I was alone.