Credibility and Integrity

We conduct ourselves with uncompromising integrity and honesty as individuals, as teams, and as a company. We strive to earn enduring credibility with others, which we believe is essential to long-term personal and business relationships:

  • Cultivate credibility—be worthy of belief
    • Do what you say you will do—always follow through
    • Be responsive—return your phone calls, e-mail, and other requests for action in a timely way
    • Communicate status and decisions—openly, and in a timely manner
    • Remember the fragile nature of credibility—it takes time to build and moments to lose
    • Be authentic, genuine, and true to yourself—so that people can take you at face value
    • Listen—seek first to understand
  • Act with integrity and honesty
    • Stand up for what you believe in and be willing to put yourself on the line
    • Speak up or take responsibility for something that’s wrong, even if not in your area
    • Put values ahead of short term results
    • Tell the whole truth—deliver the complete message
    • Be forthright with bad news and difficult issues

Processes and Programs That Support Credibility and Integrity

The Boundaryless Organization

We use a variety of digital forums and face-to-face meetings to communicate with each other, such as our company intranet site, internal social networking platform, and regular worldwide company meetings. These communications channels give us access to important information about the company and our business that is not available elsewhere. We believe in transparency; that is, sharing both good news and bad, and expect staff members to actively participate in these forums.

Escalating Concerns

At MathWorks, we encourage people to take the initiative to make things better by speaking up and being a constructive agent of change. We foster an open work environment, and have created systems and processes that make it easy for people to offer any constructive comment, suggestion, or criticism of our products, company, and policies. These include a bug reporting system, an IT/Facilities help system, an internal social network, post-event surveys, and a section on the annual review forms. We also support an open door policy and encourage everyone to discuss individual, group, or company concerns with their manager or with any other member of the management team or with Human Resources—without fear of reprisal.

Glossary

Put yourself on the line

Put yourself on the line refers to showing courage: being willing to be the bearer of bad news, advocate for an unpopular decision, or volunteer for something that isn’t well-liked/accepted.