WHEN YOU NEED TO ASSERT THE CHARACTER OF YOUR COMPANY

Dear Founder,

There will be thousands and thousands of decisions and judgments made in the coming months and years at your company. Some decisions matter more than others. The types of decisions I am talking about here are ones that shape the bedrock of your company.

Some examples:

• When we see bad or illegal behavior, do we turn the other way, or do we address it head-on?

• What do we do when our service goes down (or does not meet expectations) in order to maintain our customers’ trust?

• When our Glassdoor numbers are abysmal from current and former employees, do we just say they weren’t a fit, or do we examine our behaviors?

• When our numbers for the quarter are not looking good, how do we talk about this to our board and to our team?

When I was at eBay, we had a board meeting scheduled and one of our directors, Howard Schultz (founder of Starbucks), arrived fresh off a trip to Germany and Poland. He was genuinely traumatized by what he had experienced when he visited the concentration camps, and specifically, the gas chambers. At the time, eBay sold Nazi memorabilia. Howard was opposed and adamant: He demanded that we stop selling these items immediately. There was a lot of back-and-forth on whether we should cease to sell these items as they weren’t illegal. Howard didn’t care about that; he said, “It’s about the character of the company.” He was right. When he eventually left the eBay board, we gave him a plaque with that motto.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Howard and I learned a lot from him.

I have encountered several “character of the company” moments since, and I have always been comforted with how easy the decisions become when your value systems are clear.

So, while you are making all the decisions that you have to field, please keep an eye out for the ones that are about the “character of the company.” In those cases I hope you will make your decision based on your core values. While we know we have to live to the letter of the law, our character and values require us to live to the spirit of the law, which is a higher standard.

All the best,

Maynard