Chronicle: RTS Governance

Raphaël H Cohen, Academic Fellow at the University of Geneva and Academic Director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership specialisation of the eMBA

A great deal of ink has been spilled over the mysteries surrounding RTS. The question that should give many managers pause is this: how is it that RTS is now being pilloried when, in many respects, it had done everything right from an HR standpoint? According to the statement by the President of SSR, the institution in fact had at its disposal the full array of HR tools most commonly recommended for preventing harassment cases: “a whistleblowing platform, a contract with Movis, a company recognised in human resources, and, lastly, a mediation group with three representatives appointed by the employer and three appointed by the unions.”

If such an arsenal failed to prevent the incidents, it is because this set-up is not enough to compensate for the weaknesses of the culture-governance pairing. And as long as that pairing is not fit for purpose, all HR instruments will be no more than sticking plasters on a wooden leg. The problem is that managers who have put in place all or part of the same range of measures as RTS think that this shield protects them from what RTS has experienced. Since the story shows that this shield is not enough to prevent it, that means those who thought they were safe are not. Realising that one is vulnerable is not only annoying but, above all, deeply unsettling...

See also: At RTS, the corporate culture in question

Everyday micro-abuses of power

The system put in place by RTS was in reality intended to deal with extreme cases. In other words, the array of measures in question merely limits the damage. By focusing on the highly visible symptoms, these apparent safeguards do not address the root of the problem.

The root of the problem lies in everyday experience, shaped by micro-abuses of power. That experience depends on how the pairing of managerial culture and governance is articulated, governance being the rules by which institutions operate. To illustrate: although Switzerland and the United States are both federal states, the divisions laid bare by the latest American elections would be unthinkable in Switzerland. This is due to the difference in culture and governance between these two federations. At the level of an organisation, since the combination of culture and governance forms an interlocking system, it is not enough to patch up HR procedures to correct flaws in one or other component of the pair. To ensure the psychological safety of all employees — and this is the issue that, incidentally, ought to be measured — a systemic approach is essential. Not simple, but certainly feasible. Managers who have mastered this system may cast the first stone at RTS’s managers...

Read the investigation again: RTS, Darius Rochebin and the law of silence

Daring to challenge what ought to be challenged

For centuries, Switzerland has had the audacity to set itself apart from neighbouring monarchies by devising a different form of governance and a different political culture. By daring to do something other than what seemed to be the norm, Switzerland, which had been one of the poorest countries in Europe before the nineteenth century, was able to become one of the wealthiest. To improve psychological safety, organisational leaders should likewise dare to adopt other models of the culture-governance pairing than the dominant version that produces the results so sadly highlighted in this column.

These new models are not figments of the imagination. Even without considering the liberated company, there are other ways of operating that upend neither structure nor hierarchy. Participants in the University of Geneva’s CAS in Responsible Leadership have, moreover, been introduced to them for years. Rethinking the culture-governance pairing is nevertheless conceivable only for leaders who are ready to question certain limiting beliefs about governance. Those who do not have that openness of mind may continue to believe that the mechanisms that failed to protect RTS will protect them. Rethinking the culture-governance pairing therefore represents an extraordinary opportunity to boost their teams.