Integrity Lost ?

Dr. Malone published a recent article called "Integrity Lost". It’s a good read but the premise is flawed.

How can you loose something that never really did exist?

Here is our definition for individuals:

Integrity is acting in harmony with your own set of well defined values, goals and aspirations

For public organizations and governments we would add:

Integrity is acting in harmony with their set of well defined and publicized values, goals and aspirations

Do you see the problem?

We really have no clue what most organizations and governments stand for, and therefore have no way of assessing their actions.

The bigger problem is that very few individuals, let alone organizations and governments are deliberate about explicitly defining, let alone publicizing, their values and goals. (They have never really taken the time to think about what they really stand for).

Nothing really changes for the better until this becomes the norm.

Without this, “accountability” can’t even begin to exist.

How can we assess an organizations actions if we don’t know what we are measuring it against?

Integrity and accountability go hand in hand.

Governments and organizations will eventually deteriorate if no feedback loop mechanisms are actively put in place and maintained over time.

The very first step in designing a feedback loop is being clear on the “set-point”.

In other words, the very first step is to clearly define and publicize a set of values and goals, which will guide behaviours, provide purpose and provide a target against which progress is measured.

This is just the first step…. and yet is non-existent in most organization.

Organizations will keep (eventually) failing, unless this first step is embraced and actively worked upon. The sooner this is done the better. Surprisingly, the other steps nearly fall into place once this is achieved.

(This first step is by far the hardest, perhaps because it is so deceptively simple it feels unnecessary.)

We often feel disappointed even betrayed by individuals and organizations when we eventually discover what their real (hidden) agendas are, and realize they are not really aligned with ours.

A lot of pain and suffering would be avoided if people agreed to share their agendas with one another, upfront, before starting on an endeavour together.

We still would need to deal with dishonesty, but that would be very easy to spot because their actions would consistently betray their stated goals.

Not all values, goals and agendas are created equal. Some are more important than others. Some will affect our decision making process and resulting actions more than others.

Understanding these priorities is important to fully grasp what an individual or organization really stands for, and whether we really want to be part of their endeavour.

Integrity, accountability, transparency and honesty are big topics to cover. (We didn’t even start to scratch the surface!)

It all starts with more transparency of purpose.

Do you know what you stand for?

Do you know what the people you work with stand for?

Do you know what the organizations you are part of stand for?

Scary isn’t it ;-)