A psychological phenomenon known as the intention-action gap could help explain why your employees are hesitant to speak up when they see unethical behavior. Compliance consultant Vera Cherepanova explores this phenomenon and how companies can work against it.
Getting daily exercise, eating healthy, using dental floss — there are many things we all know we should be doing — yet we still struggle to do them. Behavioral science calls it the intention-action gap, when we have every intention of doing something (and we know why we should be doing it), yet this rarely translates into actual behavior.
In the same vein, if asked, many (if not all) of us would say they would actively intervene when confronted with unethical conduct, but in reality, most won’t.
Consider a recent survey conducted among the employees of a large Australian bank. When asked whether it was right to tell people who were breaching a physical distancing rule at the building entry, most employees agreed. However, when asked whether they would take action, many stated they were unlikely or even very unlikely to do so.
The intention-action gap and resulting bystander inaction appear to be closely connected to speak-up culture and whistleblowing. When normalized, these two can be the key reasons why employees remain silent when…
