During the hiring process we also use role-play to understand the integrity of a potential hire. The role-play is intended to paint people into a corner of either telling a white lie or being disloyal to the company. You can see people get really nervous as they do this role-play, thinking, “Uh-oh. Now what do I do? If I’m disloyal to the company I’m probably not going to get this job. But it’s just a little white lie.” At Bridgeway, our standard is you don’t lie. Being true to your word is very, very important. We’re continually trying to move towards the highest possible standards of integrity.

Additionally, we want to ensure integrity is integrated into our business operations, so we have an internal slogan: “What’s in the best long-term interest of current investors at Bridgeway?”

Every word in that sentence is very specific. We want to focus on the long-term, but sometimes you can lose out on revenue-generating opportunities when you are serious about the long-term. We also focus on current investors, not the new ones that we hope to get. So that question helps us focus our time and efforts. We want our investors to know that when they’re not in the room, we’re still thinking about their best interests.

When we make operational decisions, we’ll sometimes write the four business values on the board and ask ourselves, “How does this inform our decision?” Or we ask, “Is there any way in which our slogan is being compromised by entering into this operation?”

More at Knowledge@wharton