(By Joe Koletar) It is an old saying in every branch of the military. It stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid!”
It reflects the reality that we often tend to over-plan and over-prepare, to limit risk and increase our chances of success. While a fair degree of planning and preparation is necessary, too much of it can limit success. Another old axiom in the military is that the best battle plan goes to hell the minute the first shot is fired. Battle is messy, dangerous and fluid. The ability to adapt on the fly is crucial. Loss and experience tells us that orders given to front line troops should be precise and concise. Let them go forward with clear, simple guidance, and adapt as need be.
What does military experience tell us about regulation and prosecution in matters of organizational misconduct? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal is instructive:
“Jurors: Dewey Trial Proved Too Confusing.”
(October 21, 1015, page B-1)
The matter in question was the trial of former executives of a failing law firm, Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. The allegations were they had engaged in “creative accounting” to prop up the firm’s financial standing with banks. The former executives were charged with in excess of 150 counts of violating complex accounting rules in the process of trying to save their firm.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office spent days and weeks and months trying to educate jurors on financial matters that would be confusing to a college accounting student. After days and weeks of deliberation and several instructions from the presiding Judge to “Try again,” they remained deadlocked and a mistrial was called. The prosecution advised it may try again in yet another trial, but their initial strategy obviously failed – too many counts, three people being tried at once, too much complicated data to interpret.
Per the article, several jurors threw up their hands early on and decided guilt or innocence. They refused to look at evidence again or engage in discussion with other jurors. They had simply hit their frustration limit.
In an age of increasing complexity, from dishwashers to Wall Street, how do we as a society try to better cope with the crucial task of pursuing justice? Jurors are picked at random under the assumption that people of reasonable intelligence, with normal life experience, will have the good will and moral fiber to make appropriate decisions. This is fine in cases of robbery, assault and murder, but it seems to begin to break down in the increasingly-common instances of complexity. Both the prosecution and defense may call highly-educated expert witnesses who will likely disagree on matters obscure to the average person.
How do we judge? How do we decide? How do we go forward in a productive manner?
It is a matter of great import to be addressed.
Perhaps we can build a machine to make these decisions for us. We built the machines to begin with; we created the complexity. We have machines to tell us the quickest way to drive from point “A” to point “B.” We have machines to predict the weather. We have machines to move aircraft through the sky without running into each other. We have machines to diagnosis our bodies.
As a character in the old comic strip “Pogo” once said:
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Join us for more insights into behavioral forensics (behind fraud and similar white collar crimes) from the authors of A.B.C.s of Behavioral Forensics (Wiley, 2013): Sri Ramamoorti, Ph. D., Daven Morrison, M.D., and Joe Koletar, D.P.A., along with Vic Hartman, J.D. These distinguished experts come from the disciplines of psychology, medicine, accounting, law, and law enforcement to explain and prevent fraud. Because we are inspired to bring to light and address the fraud problems in today’s headlines, we encourage our readers to come back and revisit us regularly at BringingFreudtoFraud.com.