You may not have heard of Victoria Ransom, but lately she’s been getting a lot of attention. As CEO of Wildfire, a social media marketing software company that was recently acquired by Google, she has the technical savvy and the management abilities that many of us can only envy. She has propelled her company 
to where it now has more than 400 employees. By all parameters she seems very well respected.
In articles about Ms. Ransom by Adam Bryant for The New York Times (January 26, 2013) and by Thomas Fox for Corporate Compliance Insights (February 4, 2013), what impressed me the most about this dynamic CEO was neither her technical expertise nor her ability to navigate the business climate, but her commitment to corporate business ethics.
As her company was taking off, she realized that if she couldn’t identify what was expected of her employees, her management and herself in terms of ethics and values that the company could possibly lose itself. She didn’t want to see that happen.
I personally find such soul-searching to be very refreshing and in these times, necessary.
Let’s face facts; the loss of ethics has probably brought down as many companies as poor sales – and if you think about it, the two have long been interconnected. Whether hi-tech, or low-tech; a social media organization acquired by Google or a pizza parlor expanding to three locations that has no ethical core can lead to a company’s ruin.
What She Discovered
Starting with her senior and middle managers, Ms. Ransom had her people identify what they felt to be the ethics and values of Wildfire.
She astutely realized that a company’s values must come from the top down; an upper management person cannot use the adage: “Do as I say, not as I do.” Management must commit and internalize ethical values.
When upper management crystallized what they felt to be important values, they took these ideas to those employees at the lower rungs of the organization for their feedback. In all, Ms. Ransom identified six important values:
Passion: A passion to work.
Humility & Integrity: Being open, honest, respectful and supportive.
Courage: To be willing to disagree, to comment, and to buck the trends.
Curiosity: To always seek new ways.
Impact: To make a contribution; to stand for something.
Be Outward Looking: What is ahead; to never be content.
While all of the values are exceptionally important, the one I really embrace is “Courage.” In her corporate soul-searching, Ms. Ransom wanted those within the organization to have the ability to dissent; to comment on something when it was wrong; to have the power, in a sense, to help steer the organization back on its ethical course. This power is not the sole domain of Ms. Ransom or her managers, but of everyone in the organization.
In her interviews it was pointed out that even when the company’s high performers broke the expected ethical practices of the company they were censured – or dismissed. Employees see this. Employees greatly respect this. They see that upper management has a commitment to enforcing its own policies even when “one of their own” is violating the policies. This is very reassuring and says a lot about the way in which the company views itself.
Moving Downward & Upward
An organization is a living and being “thing.” It is composed of people who have the ability to do the right thing – or the wrong. Stated ethics and values become a touchstone.
Remember when mission statements were in vogue? As every manager learns, missions may change. A pizza business may become a chain of coffee shops; a computer hardware company may start to develop software. It doesn’t mean a change of mission is a bad thing, only that a mission may change. However, while a mission can change, ethics and core values should not.
Numerous organizations that got off their ethical courses had mission statements, and impressive ones at that! Enron had a mission statement, Tyco had a mission statement and even Madoff Investment Securities had a mission statement.
What organizations also need are Ethics & Values Statements. For example, if we, at the top, have as an ethical statement that we will respect each other and have the personal integrity to defend those who have been wronged within an organization due to their age, gender, religion, physical challenges – most anything, then we must admonish those above us as well as those below. We must be ethically unafraid.
Ethics are not relative. They are part of what and who we are. Ethics come from the very top down; they also must travel from the bottom up, and without impediment.
If we claim to walk the ethical walk of ethics, then we must display those actions in all of our interactions. It is often a difficult walk to take and sometimes we slip and fall. When we get up, it should make us stronger and it will certainly make our organizations stronger as well.
Ms. Ransom may be a person of vision and she is certainly a person of technology; but more importantly, she is someone who has ethical values.
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