Harvard Business Review
Why Integrity Is Never Easy2:33 PM Tuesday February 8, 2011
Ron Ashkenas
Excerpts:
... one senior executive said to me, "Integrity is a threshold characteristic for our people — if they don't have it, they aren't here."
Yet it's not that simple, for two reasons: [1] First is the innate human ability to rationalize behavior..... [2] And that leads to the second reason why integrity is so difficult: Everyone defines integrity differently
The power of rationalization and the difficulties of definition reveal integrity as a subject that is neither easy nor simple. That's why solely relying on compliance functions, policies, rules, and audits — the integrity police — is usually inadequate. These mechanisms guard against gross and clearly illegal violations of integrity standards, but they do not deal with the integrity choices that we face every day. These choices require personal judgment.
In some ways the value statements about integrity are meant to remind us that integrity is not just a corporate responsibility, but a personal one as well. If you are a manager, you can apply these values by setting aside time with your team to share integrity dilemmas and choices and discuss the thinking behind individuals' decisions. Make sure these meetings take place in a "safe" environment, where people can openly share their thoughts. If you hold these discussions regularly, you'll gradually get beyond the rationalizations and develop more common definitions of what is acceptable and what is not — which is the essence of an integrity culture.
What's your experience with making integrity more than just a word in your company's mission statement?
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Ron Ashkenas is a Senior Partner of Schaffer Consulting and an internationally recognized consultant and speaker on organizational transformation, post-merger integration, and simplification. Since joining Schaffer Consulting Ron has helped dozens of organizations achieve dramatic performance improvements while also working with CEO's and senior executives to strengthen their leadership capacity. Ron also collaborates with staff groups and internal consultants to improve the bottom-line impact of their professional contributions. Ron's clients value his pragmatic approach and insight into their challenges, as well as his ability to help them navigate and overcome the political obstacles that so often threaten success.
Ron writes extensively on organizational change. Ron's latest book Simply Effective: How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done was published by Harvard Business Press in 2010. He writes a weekly blog on organizational simplification for the Harvard Business Review http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkena
Ron lectures and conducts seminars on organizational transformation, post-merger integration, and simplification around the world. He has been on the faculty of executive education programs at major universities including Stanford Business School, the Kellogg School at Northwestern, and the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve.
Ron received his BA from Wesleyan University, his EdM from Harvard University, and his PhD in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University, where he has also held several teaching assignments.
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Access Content Source And Other Good Stuff: http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2011/02/why-integrity-is-never-easy.html
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
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