The ‘newspaper test’

Buffett has a smart strategy for making ethical decisions: “I ask the managers to judge every action they take — not just by legal standards, though obviously that’s the first test — but also by what I call the ‘newspaper test.’”

If a manager expresses uncertainty, Buffett says he asks them how they “would feel about any given action if they know it was to be written up the next day in their local newspaper.”

“It’s pretty simple,” he says. “If [the decision] passes that test, it’s okay. If anything is too close to the lines, it’s out.”