Open-ended Questions

In contrast to close-ended questions, open-ended questions asked by business people is another headache to compliance officers. They like to give you a long story (usually disorganized) and then ask a borderless question: Any compliance concern?

What they are looking for is a quick-fix reply which lists out ALL compliance issues and ALL the solutions. They don't even use their brains to figure out at least a few key problems. In applying compliance coaching skills, you should ask them questions to ensure that:

• more relevant information is obtained
• the logic underlying the facts is clarified
• the motivation behind the enquiry is found out

Okay, once you identify a real problem and give them a solution which is however unfavorable to business or quite costly, they would immediately yell to you. When you quote a regulatory piece, they even dare to ask you to get a waiver from SFC without justification (e.g. "Please ask SFC to waive this guy from taking Paper 1 exam when approving his licence"). This is insane.

Some people are even a bit wicked by giving you an email with a chain of forwarded emails & attachments and asked you to endorse the whole stuff. They treat you as an idiot.

Of course not all business people are so unreasonable. But if your company is full of those crazy guys, please carefully think about your career plan!