By Douglas Ross
I have defined integrity as wholeness, consistency and purity. This simply means that the whole thing is working well. That means that the whole organization and all its departments and systems are undivided, integrated, intact and uncorrupted. Consistency is the effectiveness and efficiency of the performance of the whole and its parts over time. Purity is the process of objective decision making that drives out the waste that neutralizes performance. Integrity can be viewed either as an organizational principle, which I call “Integrity as it “or as a flow principle, which I call “Integrity in motion.”
Organizations as Systems
A system is or an arrangement of things so closely related or connected as to form a unit or organic whole. A system has inputs, processes; feedback loops results and outcomes. Systems exhibit patterns of growth, decline, oscillation, equilibrium seeking and goal setting. An organization is a system.
Organizations as systems have typical behavior patterns. The following are negative patterns that need to be corrected:
- Individuals and departments in organizations, under certain conditions, will seek to optimize themselves or their department even if it sub-optimizes others or the whole.
- Organizations have a tendency to drift to flat lined or declining levels of performance. Organizations are resistant to change.
- Organizations and their departments tend to insulate themselves from outside feedback.
- Organizations are sensitive to particular influence points, such as leadership and metrics.
- Organizations suffer from conflict between long term and short term response.
Organizations are complex and changing systems and there is a vast amount that we do not know about how they work and how we work in them. “Result through Integrity”, in its best formulation, seeks to define how organizations work in terms that transcend current thought and in terms are universal and knowable by all.
Integrity as It is
The four component parts of “Integrity as it” in organizations
1. Personal integrity is the optimization of the individual mindsets and behaviors that integrate and align the internal person with the changing external world in which they live and work. Optimization of the individual in organizations occurs through engagement and involvement.
2. Requisite integrity is the soundness of organizational design that optimizes the organizational value stream flow. The unimpaired flow of the organizational value stream is where wealth is created. The organizational design manifests the unification of structures and systems required to support the value stream flow.
3. Relation integrity is reliability and validity of the organizational relationships and organizational learning. Organizational relationships are the interpersonal connections between people in teams as well as between structures and systems that interact. Organizational learning occurs through the following processes: individual capability building and team development, problem solving and continuous improvement processes, decision making and employee involvement, as well as the personal and organizational communications processes.
4. Organizational integrity is the state of being whole and undivided in leadership and performance. Leadership consists of the mindsets and behaviors that govern all organizational system pattern and behaviors. Performance is all the metrics that are guide leadership in achieving, and sustaining current system results.
Integrity in Motion
Integrity in motion examines the dynamic nature of integrity as it develops over time. It consists of three characteristics.
1. It is an objective ideal standard of integration, wholeness, soundness, consistency, alignment and flow that is recognizable and understood by all.
2. It is an integrating evolving force that unifies and aligns people and organizations to accomplish mutually beneficial purpose.
3. It is a purposeful, principle based correction and validation process of system learning that directly impacts organizational survival
Do you want to learn more about Results through Integrity ?
Go to my web site at www.principledynamics.com and read about the Integrity Advantage and how it can help your organization improve performance.
or write me, Douglas Ross, at principledynamics@comcast.net
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