Key Takeaways

• Mindshare vs. Money: Acting responsibly or acting with integrity takes up MINDSHARE NOT MONEY. You don't need a sign off from your board of Advisors or investors to create a better culture, you need patience and commitment.
• Generic vs. Customized: Workplaces can no longer run on the fine print of a generic code of conduct or posters on the wall. The old way of looking at ethics has changed and alignment of value systems, actions, and effort is what matters when trying to make systemic changes in corporate culture.
• Culture vs. Compliance: When leaders or CEOs don't know how to approach the idea of acting with integrity, things get sent to the HR department, and rather than taking a step towards creating a culture, it becomes compliance.
• Negative vs. Positive: What most companies get wrong is that by removing a negative behavior, you are not automatically replacing it with a positive one. For instance, suspending an employee which is a traditional response to inappropriate behavior will not solve to create a safer or more inclusive workplace. The problem will keep recurring.
• Static vs. Dynamic: The pandemic has changed the nature of the typical workday. Rather than living static lives where we explore a new place for 3 weeks of the year during vacation days, people can now explore 52 weeks in a year. With a laptop and internet, people can choose where and how they want to live, bringing into question the role of the traditional lease, especially in high-density areas.

About this episode:

Given the current times that we're living in, flooded with uncertainty, isolation, and a way of life that we were completely unprepared for, the topic of integrity could not be more relevant and important. With everything from the rise of racial tension across the globe, to fake news and conspiracy theories, to a basic lack of a work-life balance, there's a global call for action to do the right thing and to act with integrity. But what exactly is integrity - is it something we're born with, is it something we learn, how does it factor into the workplace? In this episode of Something Ventured, Ken Lindstrom talks to Rob Chesnut, current Advisor and former Chief Ethics Officer & General Counsel at Airbnb about the subject matter of his new book - Intentional Integrity.

Notes:

1. Early Impressions After graduating from Harvard Law, Rob started off his career as a prosecutor dealing with a "low integrity group of people" - robbers, kidnappers, drug dealers - often young people who he would actually send to jail. However, one of his earliest memories of doing the right thing was when his mother ended up returning to a grocery store because the cashier handed them extra change, and she wanted to return the extra amount. Values, ethics, and integrity develop at a young age with your parents, immediate surroundings.

   Rob was a prosecutor for years when he realized putting people behind bars was not positively impacting society. He wanted to make a positive and proactive contribution which ultimately changed his career. In 1999, he discovered what eBay was and applied to be a general counsel through a cold call/email where he ended up spending 9 years and creating their department of Trust and Safety.

2. Covid & The Future of:

• Education: The time between leaving the comforts and familiarity of your home and before entering the harsh reality of life is what the college experience used to be - a steep learning curve with a big cost attached to it. College used to be seen as a ticket to success - graduate from college, get a good job, stay there for 30 years, retire with a golden watch, and a few more perks. But today, as the world changes with no promised outcome, the nature of education is changing too. More and more people are asking what are the values and what are the limits of current-day education?
• Travel: Travel used to primarily be broken down into two categories - Work or Pleasure - but with the pandemic propelling the world into remote working, a third category or trend of travel is being created - Work From Anywhere. If you can do your job from anywhere, instead of exploring a place for 3 weeks in a year, people are now freed up and can now do things 52 weeks a year which brings into question the role of the traditional leases especially in high-density areas.
• Human Interaction: The world is not going to move to 100% remote - we need community, we need connection and interaction. Post-pandemic, offices will still have HQ and in-person meetings but the nature of relationships may focus more on hobbies, activity/interests, and be less tied to workplace connections.
• Education-Work-Life Balance: Taking the above three aspects into consideration - the ability to be more mobile, to choose the environment you would like to be in, people are going to make more calculated decisions. The "corporate slave culture" is going to slowly take a backseat and people will begin to look for opportunities that align with their interests, value systems, and lifestyle.

3. Internet and Integrity

• A few years ago, Rob noticed that the world is starting to hold leaders, celebrities, and CEOs accountable for their actions and to higher standards. Bad behavior was being called out and highlighted which was supported by the ability to share information at a much faster pace, to a larger audience - empowered by global platforms - aka the internet - slack, glassdoor, blogs (Susan Fowler's blog), and hence, the old way of looking at ethics isn't going to cut it anymore; a mass announcement/email is going to change behavior. The old way of trying to solve a workplace problem had no human connection or human interaction.
• When Airbnb started to receive complaints that travelers were being discriminated against during bookings, the team had to ask whether what they were building had integrity and what was their legal responsibility here? Airbnb's Co-founder, Brian Chesky, concluded that if people were being discriminated against, Airbnb was failing at its mission to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere. The company was meant to connect people and they needed to do the right thing not only the legal thing. Airbnb lost 1% of its users - being inclusive isn't a law, it's a culture and people didn't agree to that.