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Using the ‘Conscience Code’: Leading with Your Values at Work [Podcast]

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As human rights activist and businesswoman Anita Roddick once said, “Being good is good business.” Today, many working people seem to foster that belief. Seventy-five percent of employees say they’d take a pay cut to work for a socially responsible company. And 64 percent say they won’t even take a job if an organization doesn’t have corporate responsibility practices.

Businesses that want to stay competitive and attract candidates have to realize that people have high expectations for organizations. Many people now champion the act of leading with your values and standing up for what you believe in. And if businesses aren’t willing to adjust their practices to be more ethical, many workers may have to stand up for what they believe in–put in their two weeks notice–then walk toward the door.

Our Guest: Business Ethics Thought Leader Richard Shell

On the #WorkTrends podcast, I spoke with Richard Shell, Chair of the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His forthcoming book, The Conscience Code: Lead with Your Values, Advance Your Career, explains how people can lead with their core values at work. Richard has worked with public school teachers, labor unions, nurses, and hospital administrators to help them become more effective professionals. He has also taught students ranging from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 CEOs, Navy SEALs, FBI hostage negotiators, and United Nations peacekeepers.

Many believe that leading with your values requires a kind of heroic courage. Often, people draw up images of whistleblowers like Tyler Schultz, who helped bring to light that the health technology company Theranos ignored quality-control checks and doctored medical device research. From Richard’s perspective, however, the experience of leading with values at work can vary depending on circumstance.

“You really don’t have to be ‘courageous.’ You just have to be settled on what your values are,” Richard says. “Then you need to decide what’s negotiable and what’s not negotiable, and go from there.”

Once you’ve decided what’s important to you and are ready to start leading with your values, you can make a plan. Before blowing the whistle or simply running away from tough situations, you can look for ways to work with others without having your ethics challenged.

“Managing value conflicts to a successful outcome is possible. And that doesn’t always mean you blow whistles, and it doesn’t mean you go and confront people,” Richard says. “It means you think about the situation you’re in, the company you’re in, the network you have, and you strategically advance to a solution. I’m really trying to help people stand and fight instead of cut and run.”

Recognize Your Values, Then Find ‘The Power of Two’

If you can’t reach reconciliation, want to stand, fight, and begin leading with your values–what should you do to take action? According to Richard, you can harness “The Power of Two,” or rather, find a buddy who can support you.

“Social psychology research shows that alone, a person is very likely to yield to authority or cave into peers. But as soon as there is another person, a trusted partner who would speak the truth, that one person becomes empowered to speak the truth and push back,” Richard says.

From there, two people can become three, then four, then 40, and more. By using the strength of social networks, causes can get more support. Examples of this, Richard says, include Google employees walking out worldwide to protest sexual harassment.

“We need to give employees tools to effectively recognize the situations they’re in. And then help them save their souls so that they don’t live a life of remorse about these moments. They should have some pride in how they handle it,” Richard says. “Fortunately, now we’ve got the #MeToo Movement and other movements for social justice … Normally, in the past, people have just absorbed and internalized hurtful things. Now we’re like: ‘Wait a minute. We don’t have to put up with this.’” 

I hope you enjoy this episode of #WorkTrends. You can learn more about leading with your values at work by connecting with Richard Shell on LinkedIn.

 

Johanna Buguet

[#WorkTrends] Leading a Corporate Revolution Through Intentional Integrity

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What is intentional integrity? And how can it lead to a revolution within your organization?

Even before the pandemic of 2020, ethics and integrity were a significant issue in our business world. Of course, everyone — and every company — thinks they have integrity. Yet week after week, organizations like Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Hobby Lobby fail to live up to their values. Google, Facebook, and the Houston Astros are no different.

For many of us, the confusion sparked by the pandemic — combined with the politicization of the virus itself — made it seem as though integrity was in even shorter supply. Add the lack of face-to-face contact, loosened controls, and the ongoing negative input from 24-hour news cycles, and many have begun to feel the time is ripe for integrity to take a nosedive. In fact, according to a 2020 survey conducted by EY, 90% of employees believe the pandemic puts their employer at risk for unethical business dealings. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. I firmly believe the brands and leaders who conduct themselves using intentional integrity do so for the organization’s greater good, including its employees. I also maintain those companies will revolutionize how businesses function in our post-pandemic world. 

Integrity will always matter. Intentional integrity makes all the difference.

Our Guest: Rob Chesnut, Author

In this week’s episode, Rob Chesnut, author of Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution, joined us on #workTrends. We talked about the concept of intentional integrity — and what that means within an organization. As you’ll hear, we talked to the right guy: Rob previously served as Airbnb’s General Counsel and Chief Ethics Officer and led eBay’s North America legal team. 

Right off the bat, Rob helped us understand why integrity seems to be in short supply: “Look, everybody’s got a video camera, right in their hand, every day. When I was growing up, there were three news stations. Now, we all have a global digital platform; we can all be a news reporter. So we are in an age of unprecedented transparency. Plus, people increasingly feel empowered to speak out.”

As Rob said, all that is true in the workplace as well: “20 years ago, employees might have kept their mouth shut because they wanted to preserve their career. But now, if they don’t like something at their company, they’re going to blog and tweet about it. To take action, they might even organize a walk-out of other employees.” Rob added: “All these forces: Transparency, employee pressure, consumer pressure, and government pressure are pushing companies to straighten up. They are now more focused on doing the right thing. Of course, this is a huge improvement over cutting ethical corners to try to hit a quarterly profit number.”

And that, my friends — even when perhaps initially forced — is intentional integrity.

Intentional Integrity: A Powerful Wind at Your Back

Of course, I asked Rob about the bigger picture implications for companies that don’t directly address integrity daily or make integrity a core value. Rob’s response was enlightening:

“On one hand, if you don’t pay attention to it and you operate with a 20th-century company approach — worrying about your quarter profit number, for example — you can wreck your brand. Soon, you may find employees, customers, and even government agencies coming at you. On the other hand, intentional integrity can become a powerful wind at your back. Get this right, and employees will stay at your company longer. Perhaps even better, they’ll encourage their friends to come work there. At the same time, customers will become loyal spokespeople for your brand.”

Rob added: “The pressure is on. Today’s businesses must have positive implications for the world. Those that do out-perform the stock market and their competitors.”

In my time with Rob, we also talked about the pandemic’s impact on ethics and integrity. We also discussed how the workplace is continuously changing, but our definition of integrity does not, and how intentional integrity helps us overcome the mistakes inevitably made. 

Listen in. Then take a moment to think about how your company currently leverages intentional integrity. And how you — thanks to Rob’s timely advice — can do even better, and very soon!

 

Find Rob on LinkedIn and Twitter.

 

Editor’s note: Check out our new FAQ page and #WorkTrends Podcast pages. Then let us know how we’re doing!

 

Want To Build A Business? Lead With Trust

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If you could define business success, what would it look like to you? Would you focus on market share? Growth rate? Revenue? Profitability? Or something else?

At young companies, conversations tend to revolve around how to raise seed funding, where to invest capital, and how to compensate key contributors. Often, it seems that our perception of business success (or failure) largely revolves around money.

While it is true that a well-run company requires appropriate funding and sound financial management, I would argue that there is something even more vital to the sustained growth of any venture. It’s not something you can buy or sell — nor does it come prepackaged on a shelf.

I’m talking about trust.

Broken Trust: Good Examples Of Bad Behavior

From the Enron debacle to the Madoff scandal, stories of insider trading and fraud have captured headlines far too frequently. Our nation is losing faith in corporate leaders, and there’s a growing demand for corporate accountability and transparency.

The only way to turn this around is for those at the top to take responsibility and lead by example. We must create open, transparent cultures that promote accountability, integrity and honesty.

The truth of the matter is that employees need to know what’s going on in order to feel connected with their work and perform at their highest level. Staff concerns about the stability and the health of the company are a distraction that can erode trust, inhibit productivity and have a negative impact on the bottom line.

Creating an environment of trust goes far beyond releasing quarterly reports. It requires a daily commitment to transparency that’s infused into all aspects of business operations, and reaches all levels of the organizational chart. Most importantly, it requires team coaching and open communication across all functions, with management that listens and responds to constructive criticism.

Trust Is The Cornerstone Of Culture

Leadership legend, Stephen M. R. Covey said:

“High trust is a dividend; when it goes up you’ll find that everything happens faster and cost goes down. It’s that predictable.”

Although trust can take a long time to build, once we have achieved a state of trust, we often take it for granted. But the fact of the matter is that trust is at the core of the daily work activities that collectively make up company culture. As Deborah Mills-Scofield explains in the Harvard Business Review:

“Trust trumps everything. And everything flows from trust — learning, credibility, accountability, a sense of purpose and a mission that makes ‘work’ bigger than oneself.”

When it comes to trust, the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. For example, many startups have created cultures based around staff perks like a ‘no vacation policy’ vacation policy, providing employees with top-of-the line equipment, offering flexible hours, and letting staff work from home. While benefits like these may attract and retain top talent, there’s also a higher mission. Companies that offer these unique self-directed work options are sending employees a message that says, ‘I trust you, and I trust your judgment in using these privileges.”

Earlier this year, HubSpot released its long-awaited Culture Code – a presentation that summarizes the organization’s nine core beliefs. The document is remarkable because it emphasizes that trust is at the center of Hubspot’s organization. Rather than creating binders full of company policies, HubSpot has created a simple three-word policy for nearly everything: use. good. judgment. From social media activity, to travel expenses, to sick days, HubSpot understands that a healthy company starts with trust.

The Trust/Time Ratio

Of course, trust is a two-way street. Not only is it essential for employees to trust management, but leaders must trust their teams, and feel confident in their ability to move the company forward.

As Stephen M.R. Covey explains in his book, The Speed of Trust, trust is the great liberator of time and resources. It’s also an essential condition for growth. He notes that “when trust goes up, speed will also go up and cost will go down,” and that “when trust goes down, speed will go down and costs will go up.” Therefore, he concludes that the speed at which you can grow a business is directly proportionate to the time that you invest in creating trusting relationships.

Leading By Letting Go

One of the most important lessons I learned as a CEO was the importance of trusting your team. As the leader of any organization, large or small, your primary job is to communicate the vision; give your people the information, tools and resources to move toward it; and then get out of the way. This frees your staff to be as productive as possible, while allowing you to focus on your responsibility to drive the company forward, strategically.

The truth is plain and simple: if you’re a leader who wants to grow a company, you must have faith in your staff to get the job done – without you hovering around their desks. It is impossible to innovate while being bogged down in the daily minutia of your company. Trust allows you to remove yourself from the details and create necessary space to focus on long-term growth.

Trust is a natural human instinct, yet we tend to over-complicate it when we try to apply it to the business world. The best way to create a culture of trust is to begin by being open and honest with ourselves and those around us. By committing to being transparent in all our interactions, we will gradually create a culture of trust around us. And as trust grows, we should expect to see business results follow.

How do create and sustain trust within your organization? What results do you see?

(Editor’s Note: To discuss World of Work topics like this with others in the TalentCulture community, join our online #TChat events every Wednesday, from 6:30-8pm ET. Everyone is welcome. Learn more...)

Image Credit: Pixabay