The Washington Post Test

Working in the defense sector I had the very unique opportunity to work side-by-side with some incredible and notable people. One in particular was the past Chief Technologist of NASA, Sam Venneri. Among the myriad of amazing things Sam talked about (i.e. carbon nano tube creation, millimeter wave radar biological cloud composition detection and high-powered lasers), Sam taught me one piece of business ethics wisdom that I think is invaluable to any company with a little modification. Sam would always say that before they made an ethical decision at NASA, it had to pass "The Washing Post test."

Essentially, what he meant was that before an ethical decision was made, they had to be sure that if that decision ended up as a headline in the Washington Post, they could defend it. This can be translated to the Kansas City Star, the St. Louis Post Dispatch or the Kalamazoo Times.

Regardless of where you reside, before you make a questionable decision, make sure you'd be alright with it showing up on the front page of your newspaper. Chances are... you'll already know the answer.

All the best,
Tanner