Courageous CEOs dealing with freedom of speech issues fall back on defending our values.
Execs step up amid chaos
In his now infamous memo, former Google employee James Damore criticized what he called the company’s “ideological echo chamber.”
“Some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed,” he wrote.
Damore had that right: Some ideas are just not up for debate. But we usually call them “values,” the core essence of a company’s identity or mission. And what we’re witnessing in recent days is the CEOs of America’s top companies defending those values.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai fired Damore because the software engineer’s argument that
women are biologically less suited to working in tech than men violated the company’s values. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich resigned from President Trump’s council of business advisers because he said Trump’s sluggish condemnation of white supremacist groups offended Intel’s core beliefs.
“I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville, and earlier today I called on all leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence,” Krzanich wrote in a blog post. “I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.”
The heads of Merck and Under Armour also stepped down from the council, making similar statements.
Every company needs a foundation to build upon, a set of beliefs that guides the business through good and bad times. And as stewards of those values, CEOs have an obligation to defend — and enforce — those values.
“This is the moment for CEOs to put that stuff to the test,” said Alicia Hare, who leads the San Francisco office of SYPartners, a consulting firm. “This is the moment for CEOs to walk the talk.”
Bosses are likely to face more flak from the White House and the water cooler alike. President Trump’s tendency to say whatever he wants without regard to consequence has emboldened workers to do the same, said David Arnold, president of Arnold Partners, an executive search firm that focuses on Silicon Valley and tech companies.
“It’s getting a little out of control,” Arnold said. “There’s this tone that they are getting from the top, and it’s exacerbating the problem.”
Specifically, there seems to be confusion about what constitutes an honest discussion of divergent ideas versus the suppression of speech. In a democratic society, the free expression of ideas is a goal in and of itself. In a business, the open expression of ideas is the means to which a company accomplishes its goals.
Put another way, companies don’t allow employees to say whatever they want for the sake of free speech. They encourage discussion so employees can offer ideas on how to best execute the business while living up to the company’s values. And Google has been incredibly open about prizing diversity, said Karen Walker, president of Oneteam Inc., a consulting firm that provides coaching and leadership development to top executives.
“Google has been very transparent about what they value as a culture,” she said.
In his memo, Damore claims to support diversity. But he also suggests that women are on average less suited for technology and leadership positions because of “biological differences” with men, such as a lower tolerance for stress and higher degrees of neuroticism.
Hard to see how that helps Google’s diversity efforts. People need to agree on a basic set of facts or conditions for a discussion. Disqualifying an entire gender for perceived genetic traits seems like a non-starter when 31 percent of Google’s workforce is female, including 25 percent of the company’s leadership.
Why would a woman want to engage Damore if he believes females are biologically inferior to him? (Damore said Tuesday he regretted using the word “neuroticism.”)
There’s another major problem with Damore’s argument. He claims that Google’s diversity programs are “bad for business.” But he offers no evidence.
In fact, Google is performing exceptionally well. Over a 52-week period, shares of Alphabet, Google’s publicly traded parent company, have jumped 18 percent.
Last year, Alphabet said revenues increased 20.4 percent to $90.3 billion while profits have soared 19.1 percent to $19.5 billion. Revenues from advertising, Google’s core business, grew 18 percent.
At minimum, Google’s diversity programs don’t seem to be hurting its financial performance. So it’s not clear what problem Damore is trying to solve.
In fact, Google can attribute at least some of its excellence to diversity, Walker said. YouTube, one of its success stories, is run by Susan Wojcicki, a longtime Googler, who also criticized Damore’s memo.
In any case, the fracas over the memo and its author’s firing exposes a fundamental debate raging in America today: the proper balance of power between employers and employees in an era of populist anger and polarized politics.
So CEOs are trying to defend company values (and reputations) by reasserting their authority. Whether firing employees with wayward views or distancing themselves from a president whose actions reflect poorly upon them, CEOs are doing what leaders should do.
They’re establishing boundaries by reminding people who’s in charge.