€¦ · Web view“You Can’t Outsource Integrity: Rob Chesnut” Andy: From the walk-in closet in my guest bedroom, on behalf of the Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University,

“You Can’t Outsource Integrity: Rob Chesnut”

Andy: From the walk-in closet in my guest bedroom, on behalf of the Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University, this is Getting Ethics to Work, the podcast that tackles the trickier moral dilemmas that you might face in the workplace. I'm your host and Prindle Institute director, Andy Cullison. And before we get started I want to remind everyone that I am not a lawyer and not offering legal expertise, but as an ethicist, I could bring lawyers to the show and they will probably also tell you not to treat anything they say as formal legal advice. And with me today we have a very special guest, Rob Chesnut, who is the Chief Ethics Officer of Airbnb. Welcome to the show, Rob.

Rob: Andy, thanks for having me.

Andy: It's a pleasure to have you here. So, Rob, tell us a little bit about yourself, your background. How did you get into being the Chief Ethics Officer at Airbnb?

Rob: I'm from the East Coast originally. I'm from Virginia, and, you know, when I got out of law school, I went to work as a federal prosecutor.

Andy: Wow. Okay, great. And then you've served as general counsel for a few other tech companies along the way?

Rob: Actually, a number of your students may know my last company. I was general counsel for Chegg and then general counsel at Airbnb. And you know what? It's interesting. While I was the general counsel at Airbnb, I really noticed the world changing, and it took a number of different forms. One form, I suppose, is tech-lash. Tech companies used to be the darling, but about five years ago, they started coming under much harsher scrutiny and criticism. Leaders started coming under a much heavier criticism. #MeToo emerged. And it struck me that the world's expectations of companies and leaders was evolving. And more and more, we want and need companies, and leaders of companies, to take responsibility for solving some of the world's greatest problems and we were no longer going to accept bad behavior. And that struck me when I was general counsel as a big legal risk for any company. So, I started thinking about, well, if you're a leader in a company, what do you do to protect yourself? Or, the more fundamental question, how do you drive integrity into the culture of a company? And that sort of led me on a journey where I decided, you know what? I actually find this more interesting than being a lawyer after 30 years. So, that's where I've decided to focus my time now.

Andy: And now you're Chief Ethics Officer at Airbnb?

Rob: That's right. Yes.

Getting Ethics to Work is hosted by the Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University. © 2020

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Andy: So, let's talk about that integrity question. The way our show is usually structured, we have some kind of case that we bring up that poses an interesting moral challenge. And you've written this book, it's called Intentional Integrity, correct?

Rob: Right.

Andy: And what's the subtitle there?

Rob: The subtitle, and for those of you who are, are listening in, I'm now holding up a copy of Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies can Lead an Ethical Revolution.

Andy: And we're in interesting times here as well. So, on the day of this recording, about half the world is under some kind of lockdown or shelter-in-place order. I just saw that on the New York Times. And I think all but 10 states here in the United States have some kind of shelter-in-place or lockdown orders. And so, Rob and I are actually doing this remotely over a Zoom recording. Rob is in his home. Where's your home now?

Rob: My home is in Santa Cruz, California.

Andy: And here I am in Greencastle, Indiana. So, but Rob, we have this case study approach, and at the beginning of your book, instead of doing a case, there's really just a family of cases that I think raise interesting challenges, and it's really just the sheer number of scandals that large companies have been having. So, do you just want to give us a couple of those that sort of drove you to think that we need to be thinking about this concept, Intentional Integrity?

Rob: Yeah, I mean the great thing about ethics is that you don't have to be terribly creative. The world brings you so many great examples every day of ethical challenges by companies, that, you know, you just simply have to pay attention, I think. And there are so many. I think the one that really hit me, that got me thinking really, was what Uber was going through. Because Uber's right down the street from Airbnb, and there are a number of folks… You know, I have friends that work at Uber. And I noticed that they started they started having a number of challenges around… well, first, the famous Susan Fowler blog. You know, where she spoke up about sexual harassment within the company. And, you know, sexual harassment for me is one of the, the more insidious, ethical dilemmas in that, I think all of us can agree that it's wrong. So it's not gray like a number of ethical issues, but it's a real challenge to deal with because it's based in power and an inequity of power between two people. And that makes it hard to detect. So often it's a sort of thing that goes on quietly and, you know, undetected in conference rooms or even outside of the office. And the power dynamic makes it so that people who are victims are really reluctant to come forward. And so, that's one of the things that, you know, the world is still working on, to be honest with you. And how can we make victims more comfortable and how can we get this sort of thing out of the workplace, because it can destroy careers, destroy lives, wreck brands.

Andy: Certainly.


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Rob: So, that’s something that we do a lot of thinking about.

Andy: And, your approach or your strategy, that you think companies would benefit from is this notion called Intention Integrity. Can you talk me through the basics of what this concept is?

Rob: The whole process, when the problems started coming up at Uber and I started wrestling with the question of, how do you drive integrity into the culture of a company? The first thing I thought about, well, what do companies do now? Right? And what have I done at other companies? And I thought, well, you start with a code of ethics, right? You start with a code of conduct, and most companies get their code of conduct from their law firm. [Their] law firm emails them a code of ethics, you stick your logo on top of it. You know, maybe if you want to save money you download another company's code of ethics on the Internet. The irony of that is pretty interesting. And then you email it out to everybody and you say, "Hey, check this box and say that you've read it and you agree to follow it." And then, you know, thank goodness that's the end of that. But in reality, everybody knows that most people aren't going to read it, and all you're doing is protecting yourself legally, right? So what else do you do? Well, there are these great compliance posters that people put in the break rooms of offices: four point font, usually it's a dark area near pipes. You never see anybody actually reading the poster. You know, if a group of people crowded around the poster and started reading it, I think the legal department would have a heart attack. Nobody reads those posters. Those don't do any good. Then, you have the sexual harassment videos; the hour or two-hour long videos that you send out a note about, and everybody in the company's got to watch them. They check and make sure that you finish the video. Some third party produces it, and these are the things that companies do to drive quote unquote drive ethics into the company. And it struck me. You know what? You can't outsource integrity. You know? You can't get somebody else's code of ethics, somebody else's break room poster, somebody else's video, and have an impact because everybody knows what's going on. Everybody knows that you're doing it because you've got to do it, not because your heart's in it.

Andy: And so what's the alternative?

Rob: Well, if you want to capture people's hearts, you need to embark on a course where you send a strong message, a human, authentic message, from the leadership of a company, that integrity really matters. So, we, at Airbnb, we actually started thinking about this. What would you do if you really meant it? So, the first thing, you know, that, that we do is, we start with a code of ethics, but not somebody else's code of ethics and not something that one person goes off, you know, like Moses going to the mountain and coming back with stone tablets of commandments. But with a group of people, a cross-functional, diverse group that tries to capture the culture of a company and the values of a company in a document that really reflects what that company is about and is personal to that company.


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Andy: And, can I interject? I mean, sometimes companies could have values that are a little twisted. So you mean like, sit down and figure out what the values really ought to be if we want to be a company that values good conduct and behavior.

Rob: Yes, company's values can be twisted, but that really, that's the second problem. And the second problem is when you put together a code of ethics that reflects what you think a company's values should be, it doesn't do you any good at all unless the CEO and the top leaders of a company embrace it.

Andy: Of course.

Rob: So, you could spend all the time you want building a great code of ethics and talking about how you want a company to have integrity, but everybody knows that it doesn't mean anything unless the CEO embraces it personally, both in words and in deeds. So, if a leader of a company is not going to be committed to a path of integrity, then you're wasting your time and you will not have a culture of integrity. So, you put together a code of ethics, then you sit down with the leadership of a company and you say, "Look here's what we think, this is what we want to be about as a company. This is what we think we should be about or are about, but look, if you all aren't embracing it then there's no need to go any further." I'll give you an example of what we did at Airbnb. In dealing with sexual harassment, it really struck me that companies get themselves in trouble when senior leaders of a company are engaging in romantic relationships with people in the company. The imbalance of power is a huge problem. It also creates an atmosphere where people don't trust the leaders anymore because everybody thinks the leader is looking out for their relationship, not the company. So I went to the leaders of Airbnb. I was on the leadership team as general counsel, and I walked into the room and said, "I'm going to propose as part of our code ethics that any member of the executive team of the company, we should all agree that we will not have a romantic relationship of any kind with any employee or any vendor. We should just agree that that's someplace that we don't want to go. That's not the right thing for the culture of the company." And I remember there was silence in the room. One person said, "Oh, Rob, we're already all married or in relationships anyway that doesn't really matter." I said, "Look, from what I'm reading in the news that doesn't stop anybody. So, what we need to do as a group is, let's make a decision about this. And if we're going to do it, let's all look at each other in the eye around the room and commit that that's the way that we're going to operate." And that's what we did. And we put it in writing. We put it in our code. We then told the whole company that that was part of our code; that that was the way we were going to behave. And we also knew, as a group, that if any of us violate that rule, that the junior person in the company wasn't going to be transferred somewhere in order to deal with it. That, as senior leaders, we would be held responsible for violating the code in these circumstances. And I think as a result of being intentional about it and by looking at each other in the eye and talking about it and then putting it out to the entire company in a conversation…far less likely that we were going to have any issues. And that, in fact, has been the case.


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Andy: Okay, so, it's not just tacking the rules to the water-cooler room or the coffee room. It's developing a set of rules that flow from shared, agreed upon internal company values, and then making sure that the leadership is intentional about communicating the importance of these values to the rest of the organization, living out those values, and then holding themselves accountable to those values.

Rob: One part of what we do is, instead of just emailing out the code of ethics, we have an orientation program at Airbnb. All new employees spend their first week in orientation. So, I went to the orientation committee and said, "I want to talk about the code of ethics with the new employees and I want an hour." And they looked at me like, "An hour?”

Andy: (laughs)

Rob: “You're going to talk our new employees... Rob we're trying to keep them here we're not trying to drive them away." And I said, "Look I'll put it on me. I'll make it something." And they said, "What do you mean? You're going to come in and do it?" And I said, "Yeah. I'm the general counsel of the company. I'm going to personally do all of the training for new employees on ethics." Every week, I go in and I talk to the employees about it. But I don't read the rule to them. The way we do it is, we have, just like what you all talk about, we have scenarios, real case studies of things that have happened at the company. And I throw out the examples and then ask people in the room, "Do you think this violates our code of ethics?" And we have a conversation about whether it does or not and why. And what we found, you know, we do surveys, blind surveys at the end of orientation. After the first month, number one ranked class out of 25 classes in orientation; number one ranked class by the new employees was the ethics class. I think the bar was really low. They walk into the room thinking, "Oh this is going to be painful. I'm going to have to hear about Aristotle and John Stuart Mill."

Andy: Not the worst thing in the world. (laughs)

Rob: Well, yeah, but if you're a tech employee, it's not something you look forward to. But they said, "You know what?" I've had employees come up to me literally in tears. I had a woman a couple of months ago say to me, "Rob I left my last company because my boss kept propositioning me, and I was too scared to report it." She said, "If I had heard, at my last company, what I heard today." In other words, a strong message from a leader in the company that this sort of thing is important, she said, "I'd have reported it at my last company." And she said, "You have no idea what it means to me to work in a place that really cares about this stuff." So, you know, it... All you need to do is demonstrate in a personal, human, authentic way, as a leader, that this stuff matters. And a little bit can go a long way.

Andy: Now, I have a question about this. It's kind of, it's a rules-based approach. It's a bit more robust than just tacking rules to the wall, but it's still in the rules-based approach family of things. I mean, cases like relationships with coworkers, those are obviously going to be kinds of rules where you think they shouldn't ever admit of exceptions, so to


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speak. But, when the list of rules gets really, really long, and they start dealing with more mundane things… at one point in your book you note that, you know, even letting someone use a copier for personal use or something, even those kind of rules or deviations from the rules should be something that is enforced seriously. And so, I'm sure you've probably had a, you know, questions like this, like, come on, aren't there going to be some cases where it would be okay for a mid-level manager to make an executive decision like, "Hey this, we, we can suspend the rule about this in this particular case because there's some extenuating circumstance"? Do you have thoughts about that?

Rob: I'm more a fan of carefully crafting rules that enable. You don't need to suspend the rule, the rule is smart enough that it can anticipate a potential need for an exception.

Andy: Do you have an example?

Rob: Yeah. Let's take, oh, let's take use of office resources for your personal benefit. Right? So, I think at a lot of companies the immediate reaction would be, "You may not make use of office resources for your personal benefit." Right? The problem with that is that it's not realistic. If every time I send a personal email from my office computer, I'm wearing down the keyboard of the computer and using the office Wi-Fi, right? So, that is… a dumb rule would require a lot of exception. Instead, I wanted to have a smart rule. So, our rule at Airbnb is you may make personal use of office resources, so long as the impact to the company is minimal, ok? So, that way if you need to run some copies off of the office photocopy machine because you're going to your child's school board meeting that night, it's okay. You want to grab an iced tea from the refrigerator to drink on your commute home? That's not a problem either. So, the rules themselves are smart and flexible to be able to handle the ordinary course of things. However, what they aren't going to do is they're not going to allow you to take office furniture home to furnish your house with it, nor are they going to allow you to take ten laptops home to sell them on eBay. And those are the sorts of situations that will happen, but you obviously need to be able to enforce, that's theft. Minor stuff like that can be handled with a smart rule.

Andy: Okay and so, that's interesting, and I'm interested in this too because in light of the coronavirus, Airbnb just went through this thing where there was a deviation from a policy and the hosts got upset, and then Airbnb responded in a particularly interesting way. So there was a change to the cancellation policy and...

Rob: Well, let's be care... Again let's be careful of the wording on this…

Andy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rob: Because the original policy was, if a host would like, a host could set a cancellation policy that basically said, "This reservation is not cancelable." Okay? However, that same policy also gave the authority to Airbnb to even cancel those reservations in quote unquote extenuating circumstances. So, what Airbnb did is Airbnb didn't change the rule. What Airbnb said was, a global pandemic that is threatening the entire world's population and creating travel lockdowns, making it illegal for some people to travel or unhealthy or


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unsafe to travel, that's an extenuating circumstance. So it wasn't really, it wasn't a change of a rule, it was the recognition that an extenuating circumstance clause in the rule did apply.

Andy: So this is interesting too. And then Airbnb... But they did respond. The hosts took issue with it; they weren't being reimbursed for their expenses. And, what did Airbnb recently enacted some policies, correct?

Rob: Let me set up a slightly broader, a broader context for it and then describe it. You know, a lot of companies have historically had what's called a single-stakeholder approach. And that is, companies, under this theory, companies have one obligation to one group, and that is they have an obligation to their shareholders. Do what's right for the shareholders and you're going to be fine. The problem with this approach is that you will do things in the short… that are short-run good for the stock price, but they may not be good for the world at large. For example, it might be fine for you to have a factory that pollutes the air, right? And even endangers your employees with unsafe working conditions. But worrying about the air or worrying about your employees' health would cost money and hurt shareholders, so don't worry about it. Airbnb's approach, and this is an approach that is now, I think in the last several years, starting to take hold, is that companies have broader obligations than just a short-term approach to shareholders. They have an obligation to a variety of stakeholders, including their customers, their employees, and the world at large. So now let's go back to this example.

Andy: Ok.

Rob: Airbnb decided that guests, if they could not be refunded for these trips, what would that do? Well, that would encourage the guest to travel even though it might not be safe. That would encourage the spread of the virus and be bad for communities and be bad for the world. So, looking at this from the stakeholder of communities where we operate, it's not good to encourage guests to travel under these circumstances. And by the way, nor is it a good thing for guests to be forced to lose money for a trip that they cannot, in some cases, legally even fulfill. So, looking at this from the perspective of guests and communities, the right thing to do was to take the extenuating circumstances policy and apply it. Now, does that hurt hosts? Absolutely, it hurts hosts, because hosts are, in many cases, counting on this money. And does this hurt Airbnb? Sure, it hurts Airbnb's shareholders because if the trip is canceled, Airbnb doesn't make money. They don't make fees. But, Airbnb still decided it was the right thing to do, balancing the interests. But what Airbnb went further and did was said, "Well, you know what? We want to do something for hosts because hosts are important stakeholders." So, what Airbnb has pledged to do is spend $250 million helping to reimburse hosts for some of the expenses that they incurred due to all of the canceled reservations. So, I think that's…that's not good for shareholders, but it's good for an important group of stakeholders, which are the hosts.

Andy: Something that comes out of this, and I think this is a tension in ethics generally where you have a tension between having... and probably in law as well. Where you have


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a tension between very, very precise, specific rules or laws or ethical principles, and the more precise and specific they get, the more it's going to look like, well you might be able to find cases where there might be an exception. And so you need to build in terminology that's flexible and to some extent ambiguous, right?

Rob: A little bit, although... Look, I’ve spent some time with Dan Ariely. I don't know if you're familiar with Dan. Dan Ariely is a behavioral psychologist at Duke University and Dan's famous, he's written a number of books and even has a movie called Dishonesty, which I highly recommend. He studies dishonesty. He studies the science and psychology behind why people lie and why people do bad things. And what Dan taught me was that everybody wants to feel good about themselves. Everybody wants to act in a way that makes them feel good as a human being. Like, if I go to a room of people and said, "How many people in this room have integrity?" Everybody will raise their hand, right? Because we're easy on ourselves in that sense, right? Because we all see the world through our own eyes. We all see and can justify our actions, because we are biased toward ourselves. So, a world where the rules are vague or where there are no rules; where all of us are free to act in a way that we think is right, leads to a lot of problems because we all are going to do things that are in our self-interest. Ambiguity and silence are breeding grounds for ethical problems.

Andy: That's right.

Rob: So, the more that you can give guidance to people, that's specific enough so that they understand what the norms are, the better. So, let me give you an example. I walked into a Trader Joe's to do a little shopping. And one of the things I was shopping for, I was looking for was hand sanitizer. You can't find hand sanitizer anywhere. You can't find it online, you can't find it in stores. It's completely gone. So, there's a guy standing, who works at Trader Joe's, who was unloading a pallet of some other item, and I said to him, "Hey, you don't have any hand sanitizer do you?" Knowing what the answer would be, only he shocked me. He looked at me and said, "You know? I think we just got some in. I'll be right back." He leaves me. Comes back, puts down a case of 48 bottles of hand sanitizer. Now, they're small bottles. They're little two ounce bottles of hand sanitizer. Two bucks each. Looks at me, store's about to close in five minutes, looks at me, he know what's going through my mind and I know what's going through his mind. How many bottles is Rob going to buy? And he walks off. What's the ethical, you know, what's the right ethical answer? Should I buy one because there's just one of me? They're small bottles though. One bottle won't last that terribly long. I've got several kids, wife, should I be getting them for a family member? What about my next-door neighbor who gets the mail for me when I travel sometimes? Should I pick up a couple bottles for her too? You know what? I'm running a little low on toilet paper. What a great barter item that would be for somebody that's got literally a walk-in closet full of toilet paper right now. I could trade.

Andy: That’s right.


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Rob: Fairness, right? Or maybe I should buy all 48 bottles and drop them off at the local retirement home because they probably need it more than I do and they're in greater danger. So, what do you do in a circumstance like this? In that circumstance, any one of those options I just laid out for you is arguably ethical depending on your perspective. We could all, we could each make an argument for them. What's a better approach? I'll tell you the best approach. The best approach is for Trader Joe's to put up a little sign and say "Limit two bottles per customer." Because that way we can ensure that these things get spread around. So, when the person in charge like that sets up a rule, that way we all follow it, it actually works a lot better.

Andy: Back to the like, the little, like, the ambiguous words like “extenuating circumstances.” Even in a two-bottles per customer rule, I mean, I could imagine someone being like, "Hey, I have an at-risk person we think they are sick we've got other people who are at-risk in the home, could we get three or four?" And you might have extenuating circumstances clauses even in there. And it, I didn't mean, I don't think this is a criticism of the Intentional Integrity model, what I wanted to ask you is, do you think beyond having clear rules, beyond having leadership who exemplify those rules, that you might need some other kind, you might need to look for some other kind of soft skill in your leaders, who are good at sort of reasoning through those gray areas. When, you know… what counts as an extenuating circumstance? What counts as an unusual exception? You know, when you build in that kind of gray language, do you think your leadership is going to need something more, or companies need to be looking for something more in the leaders they hire?

Rob: Yeah. What you're looking for, I think, is leadership that recognizes integrity as important. Where I think you end up with problems are people who don't think about it at all and don't recognize it as a value and something you bring to the table. So, what, I would look for are leaders who recognize that integrity is important to the business, important in their lives, and make an honest effort with self-awareness to try to follow that path of integrity. But, you know, of course you're right. There are always going to be challenges. There are always going to be gray. Having a process where you can resolve the gray, in a way that makes sense, that isn't too biased. I'll give you an example of how we do it at Airbnb. We have a program called Ethics Advisors, okay? So, you know, instead of just Rob, the Chief Ethics Officer, being the judge in the robe that makes all of the ethics decisions. Look, I'm biased too, right? I have a particular background; I have a particular culture that I grew up in. Who's to say that my ethical approach is any better than anybody else's? So what we've done is we've created a diverse group of ethics advisors, there are about 30 of them all around Airbnb. They've got day jobs. They're engineers, they're in marketing, they're in sales, they're in customer service. But we give them a couple days of training. They volunteer their time to be like ambassadors to the ethics program. Coworkers know that this is their ethics point person. They can go ask ethics questions to the ethics advisors. And when we get gray issues that come up, instead of just one person making the decision, we send out an email to the ethicS advisors and say, "Hey, here's the question that's come up. What do you all think?" And we get input from a number of folks. Often there's a consensus, and when there's maybe not a consensus, that might be my final decision to make, but I can make it considering the


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input from a number of different people inside the company. And I think it's a better-informed decision because of that.

Andy: That's a very interesting approach. So you, you basically have a meta-rule. When the rules (laughs) is gray or when it seems like you're in exception territory...

Rob: Or when you haven't been smart enough to think of a rule in the first place and something happens.

Andy: Yeah. Yeah. That then you have a kind of process or procedure, almost like a mini constitutional convention. Okay, let's everyone get together and figure out does the, does our concept of extenuating circumstance apply here? And just make sure you bring in as many stakeholders as possible to have that conversation.

Rob: And you make the decision with transparency, and the person making the decision shouldn't be the one who has a personal stake in the outcome.

Andy: So far we've talked about two components to the intentional integrity model. This more robust approach to drilling down the rules throughout the organizational culture. You've mentioned a stakeholder-based approach as opposed to a shareholder-based approach. Is it fair to say that there's a kind of overarching piece to this as well, which is the end game is to establish trust? You mention that kind of early in the book that part of… what role does trust, or cultivating trust play in your Intentional Integrity model?

Rob: Well, it's fascinating, there's a study called the Edelman Trust Barometer. It's widely recognized, I think, as the best way for the world to understand trust. The barometer goes out and interviews tens of thousands of people all around the world to get their perspective on various institutions. How much do people trust government? Religion? Nonprofits? And corporations? The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer and it shows an all-time low in trust across the board. You know, to exaggerate a little bit, nobody trusts anybody. And that is, I think... It makes it harder for the world to operate, If we don't have confidence in our government, in our social organizations and in companies. We got big problems as a world. We need to be working together. We need a high level of trust, I think, in order to work together effectively and I think companies have to play a big role in solving these problems. By following an approach of integrity, um, you will build trust. In fact, the Edelman Trust survey specifically talks about, to build trust where do people look to? Three to one, more important… three times as important as competence, is ethics or integrity. So the message is, if you want to build trust, don't simply focus on showing that you're competent at something. That's a factor, but far more important is to demonstrate that you have integrity in the way that you act. If we can build integrity as a muscle in companies, I think we are building a superpower, really, that can enable us to more easily solve some of the world's biggest challenges.

Andy: So, I'm interested in this comparison between large companies or large organizations and cities or counties or states and as you mentioned, people are, their trust is declining in some of these traditional institutions. And you might think that part of the


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reason that trust is declining is they think their voices aren't really mattering in the process anymore. They lost faith in our electoral process. They think that the people in charge are really just sort of out to use the political leverage that they have for personal gain.

Rob: I wonder why they would think that. (laughs)

Andy: Yeah, right. I know. (laughs) So one of the things that I think influences trust or lack of trust, has to do with, do people think they have a voice in some way, shape or form, and, and are their interests really being taken into account? Now flip it to a company that's trying to implement the Intentional Integrity model, you mention in your book that companies can be a bit more nimble than, you know, bureaucratic institutions, but do you think some of that nimbleness comes from, historically, they've been able to just sort of, like, blindly follow a shareholder model? Do you think the more stakeholders you bring, is that going to make companies be less nimble? Less agile? Do you see any kind of tension there? I'm just curious what your thoughts are.

Rob: You know, I think companies have a natural advantage over government in when it comes to being nimble. Look, you know, governments are, by definition, fractured, right? By politics. And even when there's a unitary leader, there is a substantial body that seems to be constantly speaking out against the leader and pushing the other way. So, by definition, companies are more unitary. They have a single vision and a single purpose, and, presumably, most people who work at the company buy into the mission and buy into the values of a company. But everyone's united behind a single purpose, right? Now, multi-stakeholder approach, means that it's a little more complicated. I think being a leader's harder now than it was before. So now you've got to take into account not just your short-term stakeholders…your short-term shareholders, but a variety of stakeholders. Still, there's a consistent theme and a unitary purpose going on here, and that is, what's the purpose of the company? So, I think companies are well-resourced compared to governments, it seems. They have a unitary purpose, can move faster, and therefore I think have such a potential to have a positive impact on the world. But, I will grant you that it's a little more, it's more complicated now for a leader, because now they're thinking about not just shareholders.

Andy: Well, and I was wondering, does a company get so large and does their impact on society become so widespread that there are so many stakeholders that you don't get... And if you, and if you take all the stakeholders seriously, right? If you're genuinely taking their interest into account and not just paying lip service to it, do you get something analogous to, it gets very political, right? Suddenly, you know, it's not just, like, take Airbnb. It's not just your employees and your shareholders and the hosts, you know, it's now neighborhoods who are worried about pricing, and how this is impacting their community, and so, suddenly I'm starting to wonder, could it get as fractured? That was sort of my question.

Rob: You know, I think that, even though you have multiple-stakeholders, still at it's heart, there's a single unitary purpose and a single unitary leader, without an opposition


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so much within the company. That, I think, gives it an advantage. But sure, the bigger you get, the more complicated it gets. But there's, you know, look that's a good problem to have.

Andy: Well, I thank you for your time, Rob. Is there anything you want to tell us about the book?

Rob: The book is called Intentional Integrity. You can go pre-order it right now on, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I love independent bookstores. There are a number of independent book outlets, where you can, where you'll be able to get the book. It'll be available widely. The publication date is right, is the end of July, right now. Although, again, with the virus, everything's flexible. But you can keep up with information on the book by going to www.intentionalintegrity.com. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Rob Chesnut. And, look, I appreciate the focus that schools are putting on ethics in business. I think it's an important part of having a positive impact on the world, so I thank you for your time today.

Andy: Well, I thank you for your time, Rob. And again, we've been speaking with Rob Chesnut, the Chief Ethics Officer at Airbnb. Thanks so much for joining us as we try to get ethics to work. I'm Andy Cullison. If you have a question about business ethics you'd like answered on the podcast, email our producer, [email protected] and maybe we'll talk through your issue on the air. We hope you can take some of what we've discussed here and get it to work. Rob, thanks for joining us.

Rob: Thanks. Take care, Andy.

Kate: Hi, everyone. We’ll be back next time talking about the ethics of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve already had some great questions, so if there’s something that strikes you as a tricky moral situation in this new work reality, send it to us, and we’ll see if we can help you figure out how to get it to work.

And if you want to learn more about what Rob and Andy talked about on the show today, check out our show notes page at prindleinstitute.org/getethicstowork. That’s all one word, get ethics to work.

Remember to subscribe to get new episodes of the show, wherever you get your podcasts. But regardless of where you subscribe, please be sure to rate us on apple podcasts, it is the best way for us to meet new listeners.

Getting Ethics to Work is hosted by the Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University. Our logo was created by SmallBox. Our music is by Blue Dot Sessions and can be found online at www.sessions.blue. Our show is made possible with the generous support of DePauw alumni, friends of the Prindle Institute, and you, the listeners. Thank you for your support. The views expressed here are the opinions of the individual speakers alone. They do not represent the position of DePauw University or the Prindle Institute for Ethics.


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Documents

€¦ · Web view“You Can’t Outsource Integrity: Rob Chesnut” Andy: From the walk-in closet in my guest bedroom, on behalf of the Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University,