Cover of Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution

Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution

by Chesnut, Robert

Published: July 28, 2020

Read: January 4, 2021

★★★★★
Goodreads

Review

INTEGRITY CHALLENGE: You are the CEO of a small company and get an anonymous tip that John made a huge loan to his secretary and that he might be sleeping with her. What do you do? Integrity isn't as easy as following some 10 commandments and neither is creating a system of policies and punishments to instill it. It is nuanced and complex, and luckily the author doesn't shy away from very specific historical examples and scenarios. For a book about integrity, this book is pleasantly grounded in reality and practical policy implementation over casting grand visions. Integrity is shown as more than just the right thing to do, but good business sense. I don't leave this book with too many new big ideas, but instead a much more refined understanding of good legal workplace ethics. I will note that Airbnb(the book's author works there) is just a marketplace selling trust as a service. For a premium, you get the Airbnb brand and guarantee over a random Craigslist listing. The external perception of Airbnb as trustworthy and acting with integrity is much more important to its success than other companies. Key Ideas: “As a leader, the character of your organization will never exceed your own." A boss shouldn't be out of work friends with subordinates, creates at least the appearance of conflicts of interest.

Notes

#Book by [[Robert Chesnut]]

  • Intro
    • [[Integrity Trap]] is circular reasoning that goes like I am confident I have integrity and will point me in the right direction. I will always choose a solution that represents integrity so it’s ok if I break a rule because obviously I have a good reason.
      • Ambiguity, silence, and bad incentives set integrity traps. 
    • As people don’t believe in social institutions, they hope for their companies to do good while making money and 73% believe that is possible. 
    • Maintaining integrity requires a process and should be a reflex
      • Airbnb has an ethics email and 30 people ccd.
      • Natural human response is to act in a self-interested way and rationalize it if they won’t be punished or caught.
    • Problem: a recruiter successfully recruited someone, after being hired gave $200 gift.
      • Author thinks is unusual not unethical as recruiter just present candidates.
      • Recruiter reporting means she trusts the system.
    • Makes economic sense to pursue integrity: attract and retain top talent, forge trust with customers, and avoid costly scandal
      • 2018 Accenture report noted loss of trust can lead to billions in lost revenue.
      • Airbnb realized integrity had to be foundation for business that was just Craigslist with trust. Good for all companies.
      • Highly coveted tech talent can’t be easily replaced.
      • Edelman believed employers can attract and keep employees by:
        • establishing an audacious goal consistent with the company’s business
        • supplementing mainstream and social media with presentations about current events on company channels
        • supporting local communities and encouraging employers to give back by volunteering
        • requiring CEO to soak up in support of values like diversity, inclusion, and social issues like immigration and homelessness.
    • Some leaders worry discussing integrity runs the risk of virtue signaling and seeming hypocritical and trying to advance powerful.
    • With social media, employees can criticize one another and become more emboldened. Makes economic sense to pursue integrity .
    • Intentional integrity means stating clearly and with specificity: here are our values.
    • Someone is always watching with our modern surveillance state and workplace.
    • NBA commissioner Adam silver believes leaders must model highest possible ethical standards. Not about liability and law, about doing what’s right.
  • Chapter 1 Spies Jarts and racism
    • [[Robert Chesnut]] is white guy with marine father who left at 16.
      • Harvard law.
      • Worked at eBay as 3rd lawyer in late 1990s.
    • Early eBay relied on people being generally good and acted as [[common carrier]]
      • In early eBay had to send money order or check, wait for it to clear then shipper would send goods. In authors 1k interactions always worked.
      • eBay had urine, bombs, animals, narcotics. The plan was if it was legal to sell on land, it was legal to sell on eBay.
      • Wanted to be common carrier and not moderate to avoid all liability.
    • Eventual push to trying to preempt problems like banning gun sales and alcohol, legal challenges.
      • Internal pressure between integrity team and those going for sales or volume numbers.
      • Allow lower quality sellers even if buyers have bad experience, came back in numbers eventually.
    • Early [[reputation system]] allowed for retaliation which made it lose trust.
      • Airbnb gives both parties two weeks to review and doesn’t post until after 2 weeks.
    • He believed that if they were transparent and reasonably, regulators would be reasonable too
      • Got email saying they were all going to jail for selling jarts, javelin lawn darts that were banned for sale in US.
      • He got on plan to talk with CPSC(consumer products safety commission) as it indicated eBay probably had many banned products being sold.
      • Not about liability, but how can this company be responsible and set tone of partnering with gov.
      • Had page on site describing cpsc, warnings on categories like children toys, and removed most common recalled items.
      • Gov never filed legal action for this issue.
    • Airbnb in 2016 had calls that blacks had listings canceled when hosts saw profile.
      • Violated fair housing act.
      • Airbnb didn’t talk about liability, but instead changed its system to make hosts pledge to allow all, move profile pic until after booking, and statement in defense of equity.
    • Six Cs: Critical steps to fostering integrity in the workplace
    • Lack of processes and structure inevitably creates problems at fast growing startup. Airbnb created standard code like follow law, not discriminate, reject conflicts of interest, to protect privacy and company in, prohibit sexual harassment.
      • Chief- CRO must embrace importance of integrity. Hypocrisy and ambiguity are enemies of integrity.
      • Customized code- specific published code of ethics that reflects values and core. “You’re always at work when you’re with someone from work “
      • Communicating the code- new employee orientation. Higher up communicating is better.
      • Clear reporting system- make it easy to report ethical problem. “Bad news is good news if you do something about it”. Ideally multiple reporting avenues.
      • Consequences- warning to termination applied at every level. Code not consistently enforced is a weapon used.  Scour records to figure out a reason to fire someone.
      • Constant - integrity, videos, and electronic papers created a constant drumbeat. Researchers have shown constantly reinforcing expectation makes a difference. Dashboard of issues and identify hot spots. Teaching moments when contrevasarh arrives even other companies.
    • Tell Airbnb employees that everyone one of them with deal with code moment in the next year. Often you will be faced with many code violations as someone is ashamed and dishonesty spreads.
  • Chapter 3 Chief: Integrity begins at the top
    • Airbnb host had their place ransacked and vandalized. Bad to worse PR 2013. Brian decided not to try to control situation, but think about how he wanted to be remembered. At that time, Airbnb didn’t take any responsibility for host damage. Called director about 5k insurance and director told him to add a 0. And issued Frank and sincere apology.
    • Costco cofounder said about intentional integrity “only one thing matters. It all starts at the top.”
    • Appplied materials ceo said “as a leader, the character of your organization will never exceed your own. Make sure you exhibit every trait and quality you want your people to exhibit.”
    • Easy integrity traps like prioritizing growth and rd over regulation and safety because you can solve it down the line and better long term this way.
    • CEO obviously has best interests of company so why can’t he accept gifts.
    • Bezos every quarter looks CFO of each group in the eye and asks them if there is any entry that makes them uncomfortable. Ben Horowitz sat with accounting team each quarter and investigated any very positive numbers. Might go bankrupt, but not go to jail. Not cost of ethics, but it’s the only way to build great culture.
    • 2018 Starbucks manager wanted two African Americans to leave for not purchasing anything, CEO noted it was a policy issue of ambiguous policy requiring bathroom users to have purchased something. Changed policy and had half day for racial bias training.
    • Case by case responses make employees lose trust in system.
    • Relationships at work
      • 2018 no one on executive team can be romantic with Airbnb employee.
      • Other relationships are ok as long as not management chain.
      • Senior employee held responsible if this is violated.
      • Also a control relationship like Hr supporting team.
      • As GC could be called to investigate anyone, best to not get romantically involved even if you could revise yourself.
      • Some rely on commitment to move employees if relationship forms, but relationship already happened.
      • Some ceos believe they shouldn’t be reined in by rules just bottom line but consequences often not just between these “consenting adults”.
    • Uber apparently had god view tool that let employees track people’s location.
    • CEO’s like being the ultimate deciders.
      • 2017 Neumann describe convo with vision fund Mass where masa told him crazy guy beats smart guy in a fight but Neumann and his cofounder aren’t crazy enough.
    • CEO is first, but general counsel and Head of HR also essential.
      • Google gc had child with one of his direct reports and she was moved into sales to avoid this conflict after child. 2018 google gave large severance packages to those accused of sexual misconduct.
    • Over one covered violation exists, they tend to multiple like rabbits. Conflicts of interest that use company money. Affairs with vendor open room for blackmail. Inappropriate personal favors for greater food are very common. Call and tell them why. Could lead to press.
  • Chapter 4? Who are we? Defining what integrity means to your organization
    • After Enron, 2002 sarvanese oxley act requires a specific and written code of ethics for every publicly traded us corporation and disclose fundamental business values. Commonly 5 parts: 1. an intro signed by ceo with basic mission or purpose
      • A specific statement of core values and principles. Deliberate commitment to values like honesty or excellent customer service
      • Specific rules and practices tuned for specific workplace accompanied by examples.
      • Detailed consequences and resources for employees to report
      • Employees who want to work need to understand and pledge to follow the code. Code violation is discourage anyone from reporting or retaliate.
    • Platforms need community standards.
    • Step 1 what do we stand for?
      • CEO and board need to kick off what company stand fo and what basic moral and human aspirations company commits to? Business values and values for brand? Unique position integral to brand. Draw line from value to every rule in code of ethics. 2018 Brian chesky said companies to extend their time horizons in the 21st century tech changes companies but management hasn’t changed. Rejects Friedman idea that consoles should make as much money as possible while in science with rules of society. Walmart committed to low prices. Patagonia to environment. Airbnb 4 values are champion the mission, be a host, embrace adventure, and be a cereal entrepreneur. Creating sense of belonging. Walmart didn’t accept gifts as that would increase cost of doing business. Airbnb didn’t set prices and meds montages and to give gifts so would be weird to give and not revive. Trips given must have organizer gift giver attend and approved.
    • Step 2 driving the core process
      • No one wants a committe, but you need a committe to reflect all the stakeholders and have buyin. Don’t want Moses syndrome with gc going on retreat.
    • Step 3 well mapped ground
      • Airbnb looked at well respected companies. What tone makes sense for your company. Challenge every committee member to write 5 ethics it business practices issues in their domain. Can’t learn age or women becoming pregnant on job. In ca, can’t ask a job candidate what their current salary is . Often you get pushback on code creation by people who want a case by case basis by fixating on rare exceptions. Like we can’t prohibit gifts because in Japan refusing is insulting and we might do business in Japan someday. Exception can be done, like saying you shouldn’t have speed limit because you need to get someone to the hospital.
    • Companies can limit free speech, can even ban all topics not related to work(except labor organizing). No personal space inside a workplace, it matters a lot whether someone has flyer in bag or pinned to the wall. Can’t discriminate against certain protected classes like race gender national origin and religion. So you can’t ban religious symbols and must make reasonable accommodations. When an individual scandal explodes, you need to recognize how much the system resulted in the outcome and change the system especially with leadership taking responsibility. Don’t believe what people tell you are the options, there are more like a NDA and massive severance.
  • Chapter 5 The 10 most common Integrity issues
    • Happens all the time. Should I reimburse Meal with coworker where with conversation was how is work going. Should I pretend I don’t know law and plead ignorance? Should I stay out At holiday party before finish answering  emails? Should I ignore discover that colleague inflated post revenue entry? No! Each feels private and easy to rationalize. Each lower level choice makes bigger ethic violations easier. Code reds are catastrophic brand devaluing scandals that will be remembered in history.
    • Inappropriate relationships
      • Blanket policy banning won’t work. 58% of people in survey by vault.com had office romance at some point. Creates toxic secrecy culture. 10% met spouses at work. Can easily destroy careers or lead to brand ruining illegal and improper activity. Reporting chain specifically causes any advance by superior to feel like coercion and make everyone around relationship feel disadvantaged. If relationship develops senior person is expected to report it and be transferred. Manager direct report is classic conflict of interest. When it ends, manger could damage career or subordinate could threat to report the relationship as coercion. Now is sexual sushi and blackmail and more. 2018 head of security had affair with consulting firm he had hired. Snap fired him and his manager. Inappropriate relationships as much a failure of managing as an ethics violation. If managers had close friendships, created in group of friends and out group of others. Can create same kind of favoritism. Don’t cultivate favorites with anyone. Relationships can undermine your credibility as a fair and impartial leader. Avoiding after hour manager employee hangouts makes this easier.
    • Alcohol fueled behavior and illegal and legal drug use
      • People blame alcohol as if it’s done independent this party. Try to de emphasize drumming y at events by having many alternatives. Could ban drinking outright. Airbnb serves between 4-8pm. Keep office parties to a few hours Max,
    • Sexual assualt
      • need good reporting. Not illegal to make sexual comment but illegal for employer to tolerate.
    • data privacy
      • everyone wants to be in the know and have powers and help or spy. Policy should be no on even ceo should access data unless authorized by law or specific policy.
    • expense account violations
      • most of the questions will be around this. Not very high stakes. More a positive sign when people ask and small time cheating rising can be from employyees who don’t respect Brand feel like they deserve more from company. Cool kids breaking rules spreads. Vague best judgement no good. Like executive who had car transport covered, and for lambo costing 900k for insurance, shipping, and tariffs. Company didn’t pay, but better to approve cost in advance or with limit.
    • conflicts of Interest
      • choice that prioritizes personal benefits of localities above organization best interests. Some employees say you really expect me to put friendship under company. Loyalty in workplace complex. Pepsi executive once trashed dominos being delivered to their building as they own Pizza Hut. When loyalty for manager takes priority over company policies that’s a conflict of interest. People will do many illegal things while telling themselves it’s the right thing cuz loyalty. Not ratting someone out cuz loyalty. Making business travel decisions with personal travel in mind. Tech company common conflict is starting business while working full time.
    • fraud
      • misrepresentation of info. Lying. Lying on resume. Deliberate and intentional fraud. Fake invoices, increasing numbers. Usually crime. Wire fraud is transmitting lies over public communication networks to gain financial or other advantage. Statue of limitation starts when fraud is discovered. SAT cheating was wire fraud cuz arrangements made over email and telephone. Felony shill bidding, lol.
    • sharing confidential info and trade secrets
      • confidential info should never be put in group emails or distributed on paper with weak water,ark. Any confidential info requires NDA. Stanford sent 20k medical info to bill collection. Bill collection worked with consultant, consultant interviewed someone and gave her info to test her ability and she posted it on forum with all the data. Oops. Policy to send all media inquired to communications team. As employees exit, make sure to make clear and make them sign another confidentiality agreement. And managers shouldn’t hire based on potential insider knowledge.
    • bribery and gifts
      • evey company needs gift policy. Uscrime to bribe public official. Amazon in India decided it would not pay bribes. She said they were setting they up to fail as you need to pay bribes to border officials. Told the gov wants them there and any truck driver stopped would take photo of building and collected to send to gov to ask for help. Border officials stopped asking Amazon for bribes.  Just be emphasized in these countries. Bribes are forbidden in foreign countries for us companies through one of the most prosecuted federal laws on the books resulting in hundreds of millions of fines.
    • employee use of social media
      • Blind Fb employee:”fuck ethics. Money is everything.” Policy for public social media, not really private. Public place no reasonable expectation of privacy. Action like screaming slur at a ball game would be taken seriously by Airbnb.
  • Offsite loved by team, but not legal. You learn more about your team which can make you appreciate them more or develop personal connections,  kuldip also make you lose respect for them. Minefield of harassment.
  • Margita bar for team. Only for that team? Ongoing resource of just drinking, Some team members could love others not care, could create division. Yellow light.
  • indivudals not used to speaking with reporters can say more than they should even inaccurate info. Best to have one communication voice.
  • In some countries university professors are gov officials, so be careful about anything Bribelike.
  • chapter 6 mi. It up, blast it out, repeat: communicating integrity message
    • Rationalizing dishonesty can be done by anyone deeply human. Math test paid by how many problems completed when shredding test. 70% lie most by a small amount, fudge factor. Talk about integrity before test made cheating basically disappear. Creative people tend to lie more because better story tellers so better rationalizes. The bigger the brain the larger the capacity to rationalize and lie. Fudge less likely if reminded of I,portable of integrity and believe peers honest. Integrity is fragile in this way. Deliberately workplace should talk about it. Repetition is key especially from the top. Not preach, need culture where you can discuss ethics. Use real life examples with gray areas to be engaging and make people think. Brief entertaining videos are great, multi communication channels. Consent it’s as simple as tea, if you ask a girl If she wants a cup of tea and she says yes give it to her. But that doesn’t mean she wants a cup of tea later or you’d force it down her throat after you made it. Ethics advisors: Airbnb started with 3 now has 30. Involved 4 hours of training an annual trip to SF to inform of new policies. Only comp is ethics logo. Two main tasks, cc in general ethics email and team can suggest and in person conversations where they are stand in for code of ethics. Not a confidential conversation though.
  • Chapter 7: the welcome mat for complaints: a clear and safe reporting process
    • For every violation ask yourself, where would you turn or an employee turn if they wanted to report. Could have avenue, but must be findable. Path to report should be in each communication. Airbnb has anon hotline. Must have park around  manager. Airbnb experimenting with app that creates chain of evidence and can be kept private but will be notified if someone is also complaining about the same harasser to connect the dots. GC is company’s attorney to protect brand, author doesnt do off the record convo. Even if it’s just a personal issue, he will broadly protect company interests. Neutral third party ombudsperson great for employees to more freely discuss options, not actual an official notice to the company. Greylock hires third party for sexual harassment or ethics issue and then optionally anon report it to Greylock if third party doesn’t feel greylock investigated issue enough they can release report public ally. All this prevents whistblowers who often went through proper channels but were retailed against or nothingn was done. Whistleblowers could also get part of settlement. Investigating done by ceo early tam later. Bullying is complex because could just be high standards on underperforming employee, hard to tell especially if employees have friends and took sides or compete. Be careful to not have investigations try to return answer you wanted or inexperienced investigator. Can hire outside. Need faith in the process. Wendy’s once had someone say they found a finger in a chili costing thousands of sales and Wendy’s went through the entire supply chain with lie detector tests and declared it was impossible for this to be a work contamination. Found to be planted and tip belong to accuser friend. If someone invokes their right to remain silent during an investigation, for them they are idoits. So going to ask someone about affair or report could be a good strat or around for general idea. Conflicts of interest or romantic travels often involve using business expenses or advocating for more trips to certain locations.
  • Chapter 8 when the other shoe drops: creating appropriate consequences for integrity violations
    • Need to hit sweet spot between leniency/letting star off easy and draconian zero tolerance policies. Ladder of punishment: verbal warning, written warning, suspension, demotion, termination. Private investigation so often people questioned never know full story. Must make process seem fair or undermines system and radically different punishments could even result in a lawsuit against you for discrimination or something. Need to take long term perspective of culture even if star and project manager wants lienecy. Care about the optics, what will this look like if it got out and employees saw it. Give good honest reasons. People can get pissed on suspensions and terminations especially when they remember someone else did something similar. Make sure to clearly say after one mistake let off with warning, that anyone who does this again will have X punishment. Early policies for fun like a certain activity or thrift, might be outgrown don’t die on stupid hills but don’t let policy violations slide. Golden boys can flaunt their status by doing violation in plain view of everyone cuz fun. For smaller companies the 10x can be so important you need to figure out how to make it work. Often these are high IQ, low EQ males who don’t know how to act around women. The law says company can’t tolerate hostile work environment or sexual harassment, but that doesn’t mean someone accused must be fired. Maybe move harasser say we aren’t harming victims career or anything and if it ever happens again he will be fired. Try being proactive with 10x to avoid ethics violations. While zero tolerance is a good sound bite, often investigations and processes and accountable are the more impactful and difficult path. Forced arbitration required for most employment and has inherent secrecy bad for sexual harassment as they are just released into job market. 2019 Airbnb removed requirement for sexual harassment and discrimination to deter harassment. Ca banned forced arbitration clauses in 2019, but kinda against federal law which allows it. One often contested contract term is no severance pay if fired for cause(violence, drugs, sexual harassment). These so called moral clauses are rejected because some say it opens up men to blackmail by woman. But perhaps main effect is to allow inappropriate behavior, VC firms in particular for board seats are often in powerful company essential positions.
  • Chapter 9 check the canaries: monitoring company culture for signs of trouble
    • Tools:
    • Anon phone line, internal email to receive qs and reports, ethic advisors are information resource and feedback mechanism, software watching data and website access, hrcomplaints
    • You won’t hear about everything, so investigate what you get and notice hot spots. Small acts increasing easily spreads, policy violations can be approved by manager not implies internal calculus of what is owed. Susan Fowler at Uber was propositioned for sex on the first day and told it was the first time and nothing was to be fine. It was not the first time. Susan was rare as most come from anon Glassdoor or blind. Blind let’s you show you were once at company then disconnected activity patented style. Blind is pretty toxic and cynical though. Transparency is how complaints are handled could be a risk, but commitments and more difficult hiding of problems is a good system level improvement. If you somehow know who is posting on blind, don’t shoot the messenger but try to solve their complaints.
  • Chapter 10 Dude your not just bad at dating
    • Sexual harassment very common especially with ceos, managers, and vcs. Women can feel responsible for putting themselves in that situation, but those men engineer them. Threatened Blackmail by women has gotten a little more common with me too, and some men using fear to avoid women. One survey of 5k woman in tech, finance, legal, energy, healthcare found 38% have experienced or witnessed sexual harassment in the workplace. 28% unwanted physical contact in the last year. 20% personally experienced. High of 34% in tech and low of 25% in finance. 55% less likely to apply for job with me too allegations. 43% did not report it citing fear of negative career impact, seen as difficult, or retribution. Sexual assault is a felony and refers to intentional sexual contact characterized by the use of force, threats, intimidation, abuse of authority, or when victim doesn’t or can’t consent. Sexual harassment is more complex and not actually committed by harasser but an employer. Equal employment Opportunity Commison(Eeoc) says sexual harassment has two specific types. Quid pro quo, request for sexual favors. Hostile environment, hostile workplace that interfere with performance. Not illegal to proposition, but illegal for employer to tolerate it. Company liable if supervisors use sex as condition for promotion or something. This stance makes sense as adults can do what they want, but employer tell you what to do day to day and shouldn’t be annoyed by a coworker out of your control. NY says a reasonable person thinks it’s a hostile environment, federal says behavior is severe or pervasive. Specific guidelines better than legal like ask out once even if they are just busy. Taking hard stance on light brushing or single comment could result in lawsuit for lawsuit alleging it was fake cause for discrimination against protected class.
    • How to deal with complexity?
    • 1 - leadership should ban romantic or sexual relationships for executives, diversity helps, watch out for parties, and focus on smaller gateway harassment as easily to change course early.
    • 2 - changing times allowing more civil lawsuits against boss instead of just company, banning of confidentiality provision banned in ca, ny, Oregon, and more moral clauses removing severance on integrity violations.
    • 3 - while most harassment private, bystander often look away. After Weinstein , screenwriter posted everyone knew and he knows cuz he talked to them about it and after weinsteins actions, 2nd worst thing was wave of self righteous condemnation. Inclusive going beyond common signaling is good for society, but also the company. Harassment impacts performance, retention, inevitable lawsuit and media attention, reputation. Culture can change see massive littering before 1960s or smoking. False accusations could really happen, should try to get truth and not hard believe unsubstantiated accusations.
  • Who you do business with defines you: Extending the integrity message to a community
    • For platform companies, the community and middle man your service connected is the literal core of your product so repeating integrity to community members so important. Especially for high trust physical stuff. After several mass shoots from 8chan, Cloudflare tried to be neutral in 2017 but later reversed and banned it. AWS pressured Epik to stop helping 8chan even though it wasn’t on AWS services, but Epik used it a little. Like it or not, who you do business with can stain you. 2015 Uber in Brazil allows sign up with just email or phone number and mayhem ensues as fake email call ride and steal car. 15 deaths, no change cuz growth. Facebook had very long and extensive community standards mostly automated that mostly works but in one case White men threats were banned but not Latino theologians. Howard from Starbucks on board pushed for all nazi propaganda to be banned on eBay. Two classes of more historical authentic history of helmets, uniforms, and photographs and replicas with like nazi T-shirts’ . Immediately banned replicas. Author against next step cause banning and burying history, but Howard didn’t buy it and say what do you want the character of your company to be? Banned everything nazis except items with very historical significance like photographs. Banned murderabilia from serial killers. Policies are hard. Lol Airbnb apparently tell owners to warn of cameras and guests not to take or share photos without their express permission.
  • Conclusion: integrity is a superpower of our time
    • On private recording from ex, clippers Donald Sterling said, “ it bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people”.  Adam Silver would fined Sterling 2.5M and ban him from the NBA for life forcing him to sell. Harsher penalty ever in NBA. Alienated fans and players with potential for quitting and walk offs. After reports of teams talking before official free agent period, Adam acted on this corrosive rule not being enforced and asked owners if they should have rule, what was good. “Artists don’t want power they want influence. Power is compelling people to do things, influence is inspiring people to do things” - Brian Airbnb. Companies more short term focused now, Warren buffet notes this is new and because of these quarterly earnings per share guidance. Shortermism, long term in’s is 21st century company. Play infinite game of trying to win industry forever. Don’t forget intentional inclusion, diversity is deliberate and targeted hiring and assignments. Inclusion is intentional and assertive energy committed to making diverse teams work. Important to maximize value of human capital and eventually will made it hard to retain.
  • 2020 integrity in a crisis
    • Tough times reveal integrity, crisis should make companies care about it more. In major crisis, makes sense to take bold costly steps to show integrity and trust. Powerful signal when trust is so important. Like eBay refunding all fees for all auctions after major day long disruption of service.
  • Step one: do a rigorous stakeholder analysis
  • Step two: Use empathetic, honest communication
  • Step three: Be alert for new opportunities
  • Step four: make hard decisions with integrity
  • Key points:
    • A manager shouldn’t have favorites which means he shouldn’t develop personal relationships or see them outside of work. Conflicts of interest