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Partners in life and business, Jim Burba and Bob Hayes dealt with homophobia as openly gay cofounders of a hotel company. They tell us how they handle working with clients who want them to "play it straight."
A few years ago, we were offered a chance to create an investment conference in a socially conservative Middle Eastern country. Our contact there was a businessman plugged in to the top levels of government. He was a good guy, honest, and well-intentioned; he simply wanted to bring more tourism investment into his country. We were flattered and excited about what we saw as a lucrative business opportunity. We did wonder whether our sexual orientation would pose a problem in a society where women couldn't even show their faces, so we divulged our concerns to our contact. "That's OK," he said, "Just don't do anything that would embarrass us." We took this to mean, "It's OK that you're gay -- you just can't be open about it."
We weren't offended by this stance, much; we understood it's important to respect cultural traditions. Yet the more we thought about it, the less comfortable we felt with the arrangement. Every time we traveled to the country, we'd have to go back into the closet, possibly bringing a "girlfriend" or "wife" along to social events for the sake of appearances. We normally keep a healthy boundary between our personal relationship and our professional engagements, but this kind of subterfuge seemed dishonest, to ourselves especially.
Our lives are our lives. We live them openly. It didn't feel right to pretend to be something we were not, betraying principles we had worked hard to support and wholeheartedly believed in, such as respect, tolerance, openness, and equal rights. Although it was tough to turn down such an exciting opportunity and the money that would follow, we did precisely that. We stuck to our guns and played it straight -- by refusing to play it straight.
A similar conundrum presented itself to us in 2014 when the sultan of Brunei announced the harshest implementation of Sharia law in his country, including a provision that allowed for death by stoning of gay people. Boycotts erupted outside hotels the sultan owned, including the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Dorchester London. We asked ourselves, What if the Dorchester brand wanted to sponsor our events as part of its growth strategy? Would it be the height of hypocrisy on our part to accept its money? We decided that we simply could not benefit financially from a company whose owner condemned our very existence. We had partnered for decades with a number of LGBT organizations to fight for equality, and we weren't going to nullify our work and that of so many others for the sake of profit. We removed Dorchester from our invitation lists and let our partners know about it.
Situations will arise that challenge your sense of right and wrong or threaten to compromise your integrity. We believe that in these situations, it is important to hew to the highest standards of ethical conduct, even if it means turning money away. In this era of entitlement, instant gratification, and naughty behavior, integrity sometimes seems hopelessly obsolete. Doing the wrong thing often seems to be doing the right thing. We don't buy this--at least, not when it comes to our business and our personal life. Doing the right thing is the only way to operate, and for us at least, maintaining high levels of integrity has been crucial to the creation of enduring and successful personal relationships and business partnerships.
In preaching integrity's merits, we realize that we run the risk of coming off as, well, preachy. Let's be clear: We're no choirboys (actually, Jim was one as a kid, but that's a different story). As gay men, we spent years of our lives in the closet, not disclosing important parts of ourselves to the world. We know what dishonesty feels like, and it's not fun. That's precisely why we're so careful now to do the right thing in our business dealings. We don't want to go back to that bad old place, in any areas of our life. We sleep better playing by the rules, openly, and we also enjoy stronger commitments from the partners we do have.
Playing it straight is simple in theory, but it can be tricky in its execution. During hard economic times, it's tempting to succumb to pressure and compromise your principles. There's no way around the discipline that a commitment to ethics requires, but over the years we've taken some actions that have helped make sticking to principles easier and less messy.
Have a "values" conversation early on with your life or business partner, preferably before you lock in the partnership. Make values part of the courtship process. Most of the time you can get a feel for how a prospective partner might do business or look at life, but you ideally will enter a partnership explicitly agreeing on your joint principles. If you talk values and beliefs early on, you'll be able to refer back to that initial conversation when challenging situations arise.
In business, make your partnership's ethical principles and practices clear to the outside world at all times. If people in your world know your policies, they'll have proper expectations. Many will be inclined not to challenge them, but when some people do, you'll be in a better position to say "no."
Have an answer ready if people ask you to compromise your values. In our business, when people request inappropriate favors from us, we take the direct approach in brushing them off. A simple "we're sorry, but we can't do that" is most likely the answer. If the pressure is on or we get significant pushback, we will respond, "Are you asking us to compromise our integrity?" Nobody wants to ask someone else to compromise his or her integrity, because that implicitly suggests that they themselves don't have any.
Listen to that part of you located at belt-level. We're talking about your gut. We all intuitively know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. We might not always want to know, but we do. Perform a gut check for your more challenging ethical quandaries. If you think something doesn't sound quite right, it probably isn't.
For more than 26 years, Jim Burba and Bob Hayes have been partners in life and business. Their book, Smart Partners (2016, SelectBooks, New York City), available in bookstores and on Amazon, explores their principles for partnership success. Founders of Burba Hotel Network and Burba Hayes LLC, they have formed a power partnership that produces conferences for the hotel investment community, feature films, and Broadway musicals. Since 2000 their conferences have attracted more than 90,000 international delegates in 22 countries. Follow them on Twitter @BurbaHayes or at BurbaHayes.com.
