Art Weiss (art_weiss@tamko.com) is Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer at TAMKO Building Products in Joplin, MO.

If you were to walk down the halls or sit in on a meeting in my organization, you would be sure to hear someone speak of “keeping it between the hash marks.” This is a metaphor coined many years ago by our president and CEO. He compares doing business to a football game. If you are the running back running down the sidelines with the football under your arm, you may accidentally step out of bounds. Worse yet, a referee may accuse you of stepping out of bounds. Either way, the play is dead. In football, that may result in your team’s failure to reach its objective (a touchdown). In business, where the referees are often the government, it may lead to a much more costly result.