Originally published on LinkedIn.
Survey 100 top CEOs on whether they and their companies are operating with “Integrity” and publicly you will get a resounding “Yes” or “Absolutely.” Privately, “I hope so.” But my experience is what they are really saying is something like:
- “I believe we are”
- “We better be”
- “I’m not aware of any violation of integrity”
- “I sadly know we are not”
- “We have an integrity problem”
Follow-Up Question
“Why do you believe that?” “But how do you know for sure?” “How do you track it, monitor it, detect it, test it, measure it?” The sad but very common follow-up answer is “because we have a culture of integrity” or “because we have a Code of Conduct / policy.” I can’t tell you how many times I have heard companies — as young as one year old or as established as fifteen — say, “we have never had an investigation of employee misconduct.”
Last time I checked, most companies hire these interesting people called humans — and their suppliers and vendors also, for some funny reason, hire humans.
Who doesn’t put “integrity” in our policies, employee handbooks, on posters, on walls displaying company values? I suspect the reason we do this is:
- Hopefully encourage a person to act with absolute integrity today and not go down a slippery slope — a good thing, and it does work.
- Make readers believe that integrity is not a problem here — a very, very naive belief.
- So we can believe that publishing will cause all integrity issues to go away, so we don’t have to deal with them. A blinders / head-in-the-sand mentality.
We all know the value of every human who impacts our company’s success when they operate with integrity — but we struggle with our response when they don’t. “Why?” is our most common reaction.
A mentor of mine once said that many times an integrity issue with an employee is more a reflection of the supervisor than the violator… partly true, partly deflective.
Pencils, Copies, and the Slippery Slope
Stealing a single pencil from the office supply cabinet for personal use, or making three copies for the Boy Scouts on the company copier — does that violate your company’s definition of integrity? Or does it take 25 pencils or 100 copies? Anyone have “limited personal use” in their policies? We didn’t have that language a few years ago. Why now? Is it too hard to enforce? “Work-Life Balance”? Really.
Absolute Integrity — The real goal we seek is hard, some may call impossible, by the mere fact that we hire sinful humans (I are one). But should we water down this goal and still be allowed to shout “We are an organization of integrity!”?
There is even a book on the topic: The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity. Discuss the difference at your next board meeting, ethics/compliance council, or staff meeting.
Obvious note: I am far from any personal success at absolute integrity — but every morning, before my feet hit the floor, I fight with everything I have to reach it each day. I fail often. I strive daily. Will you and your organization do the same?
Please, return to (absolute) integrity before the competition does, or before you are called to the table of accountability or the court of public opinion. People are watching. Especially your kids.