In 1976 a maverick English football manager by the name of Malcolm Allison tried to motivate his Crystal Palace team to win an important cup match in an unconventional manner. He declared that a famous porn star by the name of Fiona Richmond would join the players in the team bath should they be victorious.

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As a ten year old at the time I had no awareness of what a porn star was. But the mere fact that a woman might be asked to do such a thing, and that she might agree to it, troubled me deeply for reasons that I didn’t at that time understand. It just seemed so wrong. Close to forty years later I now realise why my young self was right to be so affected.

As I recall the team lost the game and the event with the players never took place. Mr Allison nevertheless availed himself of the opportunity to share a bath with Miss Richmond and when a photograph of the incident hit the press his tenure as manager of Crystal Palace soon came to a quick and ignominious end. (You can find the picture with a quick Google search).

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I was reminded of the feeling I had at that time when reading this weekend that in the US Volkswagen has admitted to intentionally installing a ‘defeat device’ in their cars to detect when an emissions test is being carried out and to cheat the results. Not quite as salacious as the goings on at Crystal Palace admittedly but the feeling that at a fundamental level something really wrong is going on is troubling me again. How can such a practice pass all of the quality assurance procedures and management practices of a company so large and so well respected as VW? It just doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe that the global board of VW would have allowed this to occur had they known, opening them up as it does to a potential fine of $US18billion. That would be corporate suicide. But at some level are they not responsible for leading a culture in which staff would think that it is acceptable to do such a thing?

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In my role as leader of Arup’s Sydney Buildings Group I have responsibility for a Group of around 150 staff. We have a low attrition rate but from time to time new joiners come on board, typically as we expand and when we take on our graduate cohort for the year. I have made it my practice to go for a coffee and a one-on-one chat with each new member of staff within the first few weeks of their joining. There are a number of reasons that I do this.

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Firstly I want them to understand that we are a non-hierarchical business. I want to get to know what makes them tick and to give them the opportunity to find out a bit about me. It also helps me in my pursuit to remember everyone’s names, at which I consistently fail. One of the things I like to make clear to our new staff during these chats is that the values of our company are really, really important. And I invite them, if ever they see or hear something that they believe is wrong or runs contrary to the stated values of the firm, to come and talk to me about it.

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I wonder whether if leaders at VW had adopted a similar practice they might not now be looking down the barrel of an $US18billion fine and an impact on their brand reputation that could be equally as damaging.