Intentional Personal Integrity Book Chapter 1

Over two thousand years ago we find a rich and powerful guy, King Solomon, valuing wisdom over riches and power. Here is what he said, “Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed.”

Wise people consistently know right from wrong, act wisely on what they know, and demonstrate good judgment. In the long run, they will be happier than people who are merely rich with material things. The value of wisdom comes home to me when I read about the lives of rich people like Ivan Boesky, Howard Hughes, Charles Keating, and Donald Trump. Have you found anything that compares to wisdom? For me nothing has compared with it; and where I have acted wisely it has rewarded me with the long, good life; riches, honor, pleasure, and peace Solomon talks about.

Think about this statement adapted from a quotation attributed to Peter Drucker: “People might know too little, perform poorly, lack judgment and ability, and yet not do too much damage. But if they lack in character and integrity . . . no matter how knowledgeable, how brilliant, how successful, . . . they destroy. They destroy people, the most valuable resource of the enterprise. They destroy spirit. And they destroy performance.”

We are becoming increasingly tolerant of lack of integrity in the organizations for which we work and in the organizations that serve us. We are no longer shocked at the flagrant, open, and often hostile disrespect for the traditional values that made America great. With ever-growing cynicism, we have come to expect dishonesty!

Daily we can read about the breakdown of integrity in educational, religious, governmental, and business organizations. Most of us can tell our own stories. Does it hit closer to home when a colleague is caught embezzling? When a competitor gets the contract because he or she bribed or lied? When an associate commits adultery and demolishes his or her marriage and family?

Several years ago I began to study the impact that ethical standards for conduct, or the lack thereof, have had on careers and companies. I interviewed people involved in different unethical situations in large and small organizations. For the most part, these people didn’t possess the wisdom to identify a standard for right and wrong action. They did not comprehend the notion of moral absolutes and thought that whatever they chose to do was right.

Who sets the standard? We all encounter different kinds of “truth” in our lives. First, there are self-made truths, the truths I experience in my mind and heart from values, education, and events I’ve encountered. Second, there are culture-made truths, laws of the land, theories of science, norms of our institutions, and our society as a whole. Third, there are natural laws, or what I believe are God-made truths, of which all humanity is aware and too often disobeys. For instance, the natural law of gravity is obvious to us and more likely to be obeyed by all. Cause and effect laws or principles exist for relationships too. Also other things like financial debt, electricity, health, and buildings, however they are too often disobeyed – knowingly or unknowingly.

What happens when you and I intentionally distance ourselves from the reality inherent in natural or God-made truths, laws or principles? What happens when we base our thoughts, words, and actions on the illusionary self-made or culture-made truths? We end up in a pit of dysfunction and destruction!

Take for instance the current debate over violence in video games. People who oppose censorship say we cannot determine a standard of violence or pornography in the videos, therefore we must not regulate them. By that logic, it would be okay for you and me to discriminate against minorities or engage in criminal acts because we cannot set a reality-based standard of right and wrong. What’s the result of this “can’t set a standard” mentality? We see that media organizations, television companies, and recording companies take license and glorify, promote, and reinforce mankind’s lowest, degrading forms of lust, greed, violence, and deviant behavior. They promote them as normal and the “in” thing to do!

Far too many of the individuals who occupy positions of leadership in America’s families, schools, churches, businesses, and local, state, and national governments appear to be mesmerized by, and practice, the modern-day operational paradigm of conditional integrity, perhaps because this paradigm makes it easier for them to justify lowering their ethical standards for conduct and helps soothe their weak consciences.

This conditional way of thinking about integrity comes from a school of thought that emerged in the sixties. It promotes the idea that anything is okay as long as it doesn’t hurt someone else. This tragic way of thinking, however, is illogical and inconsistent. It has contributed to the dishonest, destructive behaviors that bring about cultural and financial decay. In a nutshell, people who think about integrity from a conditional perspective more often than not behave dishonestly.

The “official” leaders in the homes, institutions, and businesses of America who have bought in to this conditional way of thinking about integrity receive low grades on trust from those whom they serve and employ. Their actions have contributed to the disintegration of others’ lives as well as the organizations that employ them. They have failed to lead effectively because they have failed to be honest, to model high integrity, and to live balanced lives.

Conditional integrity is a destructive operating paradigm and is driven and spread by the virus of dishonesty. Conditional integrity creates delusions that ultimately lead people into “moral and financial quicksand.” Sadly, this slipshod, wimpy stance on integrity and ethical standards for conduct is being consciously and unconsciously reinforced, and even promoted, in many of America’s schools, media, business, educational, and even religious institutions and families. We, and generations to come, will continue to reap the negative consequences of conditional integrity. However, by raising up a critical mass of integrity champions, we can change this direction.

Conditional integrity has contributed greatly to bringing about the following consequences in many of our governmental organizations, churches, schools, and businesses.

Daily we read and see stories of people who conduct themselves in these behaviors. The deeds we read about are too serious and too frequent for us to assume they are isolated reports about a small number of dishonest people.

Over recent decades our colleges and universities have been heavily influenced by business. They have become increasingly market-driven, accepting grants and endowments for curricula mainly centered on the sciences and business and eliminating curricula exploring the ethical and moral foundations of our society. This has motivated educators to move away from the development of character and broad-based competencies toward producing a narrow range of competencies in business and science.

As we face major problems with the unemployable masses and the undependable in the work force, we should look back a decade at the report, A Nation at Risk. It reported that 23 million adults and about 13 percent of all seventeen-year-olds were functionally illiterate. That was a decade ago!

Teaching standards for ethical and moral conduct and the work ethic our country was founded on continue to fade from America’s classrooms. Isn’t it time to ask, “Who are the champions of character and competence development?” when we read about

Almost a decade ago George Gallup reported that church attendance makes little difference in people’s ethical views and behavior. He determined that religious people lie, cheat, and pilfer as much as the nonreligious.1 Are we better or worse today when we read that

Almost a decade ago, the U.S. Justice Department reported a comparison of indictments and convictions of federal officials between 1975 and 1985. This report showed that the “sleaze factor” was more prevalent in our capital than ever before. In 1975 the Department recorded 53 indictments and 43 convictions. In 1985, only one decade later, the Department reported 563 indictments and 470 convictions of federal officials. As you review recent reports in your newspaper, you may ask, “Is it better or worse today?” when you read that

A decade ago, crime on Wall Street was at an all-time high. National best-seller Den of Thieves by Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart reported the actions of Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, Michael Milken, and Dennis Levine. These characters head a cast of other insider trading scandal participants who epitomize the abuse of the term freedom. Boesky knew he was committing a crime and even anticipated the $100-million dollar penalty in order to make money from the deal. And the examples multiply:

Historically, sports and sportsmanship were supposed to go hand-in-hand. Participating in sports was a way to develop character and discipline in students. Professionals played their sport in “Olympic style” with a spirit of doing their best on the playing field with fairness and good conduct.

Now our television screens and sports arenas publicly honor teams, managers, and players who climb financial peaks while falling into moral valleys. The examples multiply day by day:

There was a day when clean entertainment was the norm. Most movies, plays, and stage shows were places you could take your kids. Now some stage plays are often explicit, plain filthy, and disgusting. Sexist jokes and innuendo are found on many daytime radio talk and music shows. Our record industry produces more dirty stuff than ever before. We can even get 900 “dial-a-sex” on our phones.

Pornography abounds in the name of legitimate entertainment. Attempts to stop the flood bring out the legal hawks to defend the production of videos, films, and magazines involving adults and young children. Where are we going?

The home has historically and rightfully been the center for modeling, teaching, and instilling worthwhile values and morals in children. Increasingly, parents have ignored, delegated, or abdicated this important function to schools. It is here that too many educators are either ignorant of what is right and wrong from a timeless perspective or are afraid to teach the proven, traditional ethical standards for conduct.

When you look over the tragic family stories in your newspaper you may ask, “Is it better or worse today?” as you see that

The virus of dishonesty is spreading like an out-of-control cancer into the minds and hearts of children and adults. Why has the integrity crisis worsened? I believe it is because masses of America’s adults and youth are out of touch with what is right and wrong from a reality-based perspective of “truth”. They are either ignorant of or rejecting following the time-proven standards for conduct on which America’s Constitution, laws, and free enterprise system were founded.

Great numbers of us, in all walks of life, do not live our lives in line with these traditional standards for ethical conduct. Too many of us have embraced the modern-day, conditional approach to integrity. As a result, we too often capitulate to the virus of dishonesty and lower our standards for conduct. We, too often, take wrong action when the pressure is on in order to gain a false sense of personal advantage.

If you or I choose to operate within the modern-day operational paradigm of conditional integrity, we’ll be nurturing ethical compromise. We will be causing the virus of dishonesty to flourish because we have not made the decision to do the right thing ahead of time. Moral immaturity is motivated by personal profit, prestige, or pleasure instead of intentionally deciding to do what’s right. Compromising our character occurs when we underestimate evil and flirt with, and capitulate to, temptations of all kinds. Compromising our character is always just a choice away; it is enticed through flattery and fantasy. It ensnares us and brings about dishonest rationalizations and deceptions when we refuse to think about the rightness of our actions.

It is time for us to intentionally focus on time-proven values and principles for living and working and commit to the Total Integrity Management of all segments of our lives. Then we will gain the maximum benefits of a stellar, balanced, bountiful and beneficial life and make this world a better place to live.

Time Out!

Reflect on: What? So What? and Now What?

Key Reflections:

1. What do you see and experience as the factors in the integrity crisis?

2. What is it doing to you and how are you part of it?

3. What will you do to be part of the solution by obeying proven principles for living?