Entrepreneurs take note: If you want to build a successful business, create a company you would want to work for, one you would be proud of.
That’s what Charles M. “Chuck” Geschke kept in mind when he co-founded Adobe Systems with his research partner, John Warnock, in 1982. And that’s what he said as the featured speaker at the third annual President’s Forum on Ethics in Business to the audience at the Lied Education Center for the Arts on Monday.
“There is a set of principles that people put together when they build a business and they’re really thinking about how to make it successful,” Geschke said.
Though Geschke is the co-chairman of Adobe, the software company responsible for programs such as Photoshop, Acrobat, InDesign and Illustrator, he stressed that the issues important to building a business aren’t specific to any particular field.
He took the audience of business people and ethics students through his experience from a blue-collar family in Cleveland to a Silicon Valley startup. He cited his Jesuit education at St. Ignatius High School as the most formative educational experience of his life, and one that led him to create a set of ethical principles for Adobe because “it’s just good business.”
After more than 30 years in the high-technology industry, Geschke had an abundance of anecdotes and advice to share about starting and running a company.
“‘If you want to build a successful business, find a problem and a solution that goes into an area of the marketplace that does not already have an entrenched competitor,'” Geschke quoted from the only business book he ever read. “If you do that, you will be the de facto 100 percent market shareowner of that market,” he said.
Geschke told the story of how, in 1989, Microsoft and Apple Computers formed an alliance to put Adobe out of business.
“It was a major dose of reality to us because we thought that rocket ship would never stop rising,” he said. “What we discovered is that you have to go back to the basics. You have to go back to the core values instilled in your company.”
In that situation, Geschke stressed the importance of the company’s relationship to its employees.
“Hire the best people you can find, irrespective of their ethnic background, of their cultural background, the geography of their birth, men, women, straight, gay,” he said. “I’ve always preached to the managers in our company, ‘Hire people who are smarter than you. It’s a much bigger population to choose from.'”
After his talk, the audience had a chance to ask questions. Dr. Beverly Kracher, forum moderator and associate professor of Business Ethics and Society, asked Geschke a question he posed to students earlier that day: Can you teach ethics?
“You certainly can teach a framework for how to deal with ethical issues,” Geschke said, but he said parents, religious leaders and the businesses that support people who want to behave ethically are the primary teachers.
“I have no sympathy for companies that don’t honor and actively enforce the whistle-blower provisions. Those whistle-blowing provisions are there for a reason. People should feel comfortable using them,” Geschke said. “That’s one of the ways that you can demonstrate, as a business, that you’re not afraid of your ethical positions because you’re willing to accept that kind of input and respond to it.”
The President’s Forum on Ethics in Business was sponsored by the Office of the President and the College of Business Administration. During his introduction, the Rev. John, P. Schlegel, S.J., expressed his gratitude that Geschke could visit Creighton.
“As a university, Creighton is committed to fostering a dynamic dialogue between outstanding business educators and leading business practitioners.” Schlegel said. “As a Jesuit, Catholic institution, we frame that dialogue within the context of ethical considerations.
Chuck has a long list of awards presented to him by the industry and by business leadership who consider him one of the most influential voices in his field. He also is one of those most willing to give back to his community.”