Injecting Integrity into Business

Farley Center instructor Rob Chesnut champions the importance of incorporating ethics and integrity into business operations.

While serving as general counsel at Airbnb, Rob Chesnut saw the swirling winds of the #MeToo movement and individuals posting videos, social media missives, and blogs about their employers’ corporate shortcomings. The public commotion pushed Chesnut, a former federal prosecutor, to examine integrity’s place in business, where quarterly results can trump ethical considerations.

His analysis fueled earnest action.

Chesnut crafted and steered Airbnb’s integrity program, which became a model for other enterprises looking to embrace conscious capitalism.

He penned Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution (St. Martin’s Press, 2020) in 2020 and began speaking to corporate leaders, aspiring entrepreneurs, college administrators, and others about the value of injecting integrity into business.

And for the last three years, Chesnut has challenged Northwestern students to envision ethics’ place in business operations during the Tech Ethics and Business Integrity class he leads in the Farley Center’s Bay Area Quarter Program.

What’s the motivation behind your Farley course?

While business and entrepreneurship students traditionally receive valuable instruction around core business principles like finance, marketing, and strategy, discussion about ethics and integrity, such as operating for the good of society or fair treatment of employees, often falls to the side. The premise of the course is that business and integrity are not exclusive and that operating with integrity can actually make your business more successful.

Now, the goal isn’t to tell students what integrity is because that can be personal. Rather, I encourage students to wrestle with the ethical implications of operating a business, so they enter the professional world prepared.

What are some examples of integrity weaving into business operations?

Airbnb is one example. Its refugee program helps people in need of temporary housing after a natural disaster match with Airbnb hosts. The company handles logistics, such as the vetting of the tenant and insurance for the hosts, who might offer their property at a discounted rate.

Another example is Costco, which has a demonstrated history of paying its employees better than its peers so they can have an improved quality of life.

Why is it important that businesses incorporate integrity into their operations?

The easy answer is it can be a net positive. Airbnb, for example, generates widespread goodwill with its refugee program, earning goodwill with those impacted by natural disasters, of course, but also with governments and community leaders as well. Costco, meanwhile, recognizes higher wages translate into lower employee turnover and more engaged employees, both of which support the bottom line.

Operating with integrity – choosing to do the right things because it aligns with your values – often inspires employees because it’s more emotionally powerful than operating solely for shareholder value.

Operating with integrity is good for society at large, too. If you don’t offer competitive pay or health insurance for employees or ignore sustainability, society bears the burden of those choices.

What stands in the way of all businesses behaving with integrity?

Many see integrity as something for one’s personal life, not business. Even more, there’s a misconception that focusing on integrity or ethics is inconsistent with operating for shareholders. Over the last decade or so, however, we’ve seen growing dissatisfaction with a lack of integrity among corporations and fallout from what this has done to environment and society.

Pulling from your book’s subtitle, how can smart companies lead an ethical revolution?

It all starts with your purpose – why you exist beyond the bottom line – and recognizing integrity belongs in your business. Then, you operate and make decisions consistent with your purpose and your mission. You can set an example for others to follow by how you treat your employees, suppliers, and the community.