resultsthroughintegrity

WRONG DOING, INTEGRITY AND NON-VIOLENCE

The world is a strange place with unwritten rules.

Some are rewarded for wrong doing. Others are not punished when they turn a blind eye. 

I broke that covenant at work.  I called the wrong doing. The consequence was termination.   

The details don’t matter.  It is the same everywhere. The people with power see themselves as right and those that oppose them are wrong.  

WHY WE NEED TO HAVE A DIALOG ABOUT INTEGRITY

The integrity dialog, as any conversation, is a form of life, lived through words, that enables anyone who participates to move to a new understanding of themselves and their community.

Integrity is the essence of everything successful. The dialog has many possibilities.

The first possibility: We stop talking to ourselves.

As long as we assume others are like us, have the same background and share the same values, we talk to them as though we were talking to someone like us.

In effect we end up talking to ourselves.

KNOW YOURSELF

In 432 BC Socrates said, “Know yourself.”

Easier said than done.

The word “Know” means to regard as true beyond any doubt. The word “Yourself” means your unique, usual, and normal self.  So to “know yourself” means regarding that which is unique, usual, and normal about you as true beyond doubt.

Integrity is wholeness and completeness, unfolding and becoming, purity and objectivity. Integrity is rooted in your self. If you don’t know yourself, you don’t know integrity.

Do you know yourself as true beyond doubt?   

Let’s see...

What is Right?

“What is right with the world is the world. In fact, nearly everything else is wrong with it.”
G. K. Chesterton.

People want to do the right thing. It is something we all regard as worthy and desirable. It is a belief, and a standard that is the heart of everything we do.

Organizations want to do the right thing. It is a fundamental principle that shows up in people, processes and products. 

Integrity is doing the right thing, doing the next right thing and doing things right.

But, what is right?

INTEGRITY AND TRUST ARE THE ESSENCE OF EVERYTHING SUCCESSFUL

Integrity and trust are real and observable. They are the essence of everything successful.

Yet we know so little about them.

Even though we have no commonly accepted definition, integrity and trust are critical variables in every choice we make -whether it is consumer products, or the selection of a mate or friends.

We easily judge levels of integrity and trust in others but have trouble assessing it within ourselves. 

We say integrity and trust are critical to professional success, yet we have no way to develop them.

Integrity is your unique potential and possibility.  It is your value added proposition

IS SUCCESS AN ACCIDENT?

How many people do you know who accidently became a success?  

When this happens, a friend of mine quipped, “It is like Miracle-Gro spread on the seeds of faults.” 

When accidental money, power and fame come our way, we have to be careful not to be the old saying:  

“You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.”

Accidents happen to you. Success happens because of you.   

Buckminster Fuller said “Integrity is the essence of everything successful.”

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF INTEGRITY

“Our integrity - both individual and collective- is the foundation of our business success and should be reflected in everything we do.”  

                Stana Askren, Chairman, President/Chief Executive Officer, HNI Corporation

 

Organizations, like HNI are now conscious of the role and the impact that their existing culture has on performance and compliance.  

 

They know the cultural behaviors required for success and they understand their role in creating the environment that governs the way people act.

 

In my opinion, Stana and HNI have acknowledged some very important things.

SYNERGY IS AN OUTCOME OF INTEGRITY

It can’t be but it is!

Think about it, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

This is like saying 2+2 is not four but more.

Synergy means that things work together.

Words can’t explain the essence of this. We know it and want it but what and how do we get it?  

For a long time, the known world had no thought of synergy. The second law of thermodynamics dominated. It stated that everything will increase in entropy.

In other words, disintegration is the way of the world and chaos is destiny.  

And since we are of the world, well then ….the way and end are clear.

INTEGRITY DRIVEN PERFORMANCE

Does integrity drive performance? Apparently it does.

Novartis, a leading healthcare company, has adopted a philosophy that places integrity at the center of their strategy for success.

“Leading Companies, see integrity not as obstacle to competitiveness but as a driver of differentiation.”
Dan Ostergaard, Head of Corporate integrity, Novartis 

PricewaterhouseCoopers developed an integrity driven performance model that centers on governance, transparency and accountability reform. 

“This strategy suggests that business integrity, ethics and values do not detract from performance but, in fact, add to business performance when appropriately integrated throughout an organization.” PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Both approaches demonstrate practical ways to realize results through integrity.   

WORKPLACE MISCONDUCT

Albert Camus said that integrity has no need of rules.

KPMG in their 2008-09 integrity survey conclude that there is a real need for integrity in the workplace.

The survey reports that 3700 out of 5000 employees say they have seen or know of wrong doing or misconduct in the workplace.