Corporate Culture - Ethical Systems

Why “Business Ethics” Has Little to Do with Business Ethics

Blog, Corporate Culture, Ethics Pays, Podcast

In this episode of the Decision Corner podcast, host Brooke Struck speaks with Jon Haidt and Alison Taylor about the role of ethics and values in business, including the challenges associated with Gen-Z, and the workplace culture changes…

Good Risk Culture Starts with an Open Conversation

Blog, Corporate Culture, Decision Making, Speak-Up and Call-Out Culture

"The pandemic certainly has awakened many people to the importance of explicitly reckoning with risk," says Michele Wucker, author of the new book You Are What You Risk. One of the riskiest decisions in my life, I still tend to think, was…

The Entrepreneur Who Wants Us to Rethink What’s Worth Wanting

Blog, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Speak-Up and Call-Out Culture

Few people realize that they’re caught up in the kind of mimetic crisis that Rene Girard (above) described while they are actually in it, says Luke Burgis, author of Wanting. A powerful idea, that of mimetic desire, seems to be getting…

Any True ESG Focus on Executive Pay Needs a Link to Employee Engagement

Blog, Corporate Culture, Corporate Governance, Fairness

Too often “of material value to shareholders” is used as the great duck out on fundamental questions of human values. More than half of the 100 Financial Times Stock Exchange CEOs have had their salaries frozen this year. The news comes…

The Science of Collaborating Effectively: A Conversation with Debra Mashek

Blog, Corporate Culture, Decision Making, Podcast, Trust

Listen to "#28 - The Science of Collaborating Effectively: A Conversation with Dr Debra Mashek" on Spreaker. In this episode of the Breaking the Fever podcast, we speak with Debra Mashek about how true collaboration emerges within and between…

Dan Ariely and the Science of Human Capital

Blog, Corporate Culture, Podcast

In this episode of the Capital Allocators podcast, host Ted Seides speaks with Ethical Systems collaborator Dan Ariely about his ongoing work quantifying human capital—how employees' motivation and feelings about their companies,…

3 Takeaways from One CEO’s Remarkable Culture-Change Experience

Blog, Corporate Culture, Leadership

Slowly, the business side and the farming and production sides of Cabot began to meet in the middle—or at least earn each other’s respect. In 2015, Ed Townley became the CEO of Cabot Creamery, the acclaimed but plateauing Vermont dairy…

What Pirates Have to Teach Us About Leadership

Blog, Corporate Culture, Fairness, Leadership, Speak-Up and Call-Out Culture, Trust

Pirates, it turns out, were forward-thinking in a number of surprising—and instructive—ways. In the deep heat of an 18th-century summer, a crew of pirates was sailing off the Virginia coast when a lookout spotted a merchant ship to the…

Why a Basecamp Founder’s Blog Post Blew the Company Up

Blog, Corporate Culture, Corporate Culture Assessment, Leadership

Basecamp sought to transcend the messy, fraught political discussions—particularly about racism—that surround all of us with the quick fix of stifling speech on those topics in their chat forums. In 2018, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier…

The Tricky Role of Loyalty at Work

Blog, Cheating & Honesty, Corporate Culture, Decision Making, Leadership

The downsides of fostering loyalty don't mean that promoting loyalty is too dangerous. But leaders should proceed with caution. It’s fair to say that, overall, organizations can benefit from loyal employees. Loyal employees stay with their…