The Power of Word

There is an article in today's NY Times Magazine, "Great Expectations" (Kirn) that is a good illustration of the power we can give to our word. Lien says at one point, "I 've decided to celebrate into existence 12 months of optimism and abundance, for America and the whole world." Yes, our word is that powerful if only we let it be.

Holding People Accountable

Over time I have found I often let people "off the hook" for something they have promised and yet I hold myself hard to task for my own commitments. I find it very easy to create a story in my own mind if someone fails to deliver and I give them the benefit of the doubt. This isn't necessarily right or wrong, but it doesn't work well to get things accomplished.

I have learned to hold others accountable when I have a formal coaching relationship with them. And when I was a teacher full-time, I held my students accountable. So why did I start to go easy on others? I do believe in consequences for behavior and my wife and I tried to raise our kids with this in mind. Perhaps it all started for me after I left the corporate world and found I no longer had control of consequences management in a clear way for others. In a hierarchy, the rules of consequences are usually fairly clear, but in a world of horizontal relationships they are much less clear to me.

The World of Should

Real integrity is walking your talk even when you don't feel like it. People lack integrity because we don't honor our principles and values and honor thoughts and feelings instead.

The world of “should” comes out of an area in our world of standards and ideals. A standard is something established for us as a rule or as a basis of comparison. While an ideal is a perfect model of something exactly as we would wish it to be; of a perfect kind.

I tend to react very negatively to the the world of “should” , which is from the world of standards and ideals. I can still feel the emotions I felt when little and my Mother said, “you should go over and kiss Aunt Verna”. Unfortunately, I resist shoulds even if I am the one who establishes them. Shoulds like, “I should exercise three times a week”, or “I should eat more healthy foods rather than junk”.

Yet even though I know better, I still feel badly when the ideal of perfection I have set for myself doesn't work. I know perfection in anything is impossible, but this is the standard I hold myself to even today. Accepting my own limitations, imperfections and failings – my humanity – is something I'm working on.

Restoring Integrity

Since we are human, it is a given we will not always maintain our integrity. So taking steps to restore our integrity is critical if we are to live a life of integrity. There are 4 steps to restore integrity:
1.Give up your story about it.
2.Acknowledge your broken promise/word.
3.Clean up the consequences of the break.
4.Remake your promise or make a new promise.

Give Up Your Story About It

Regardless of whether it was a white lie or a whopper, whether it was a broken word or a failure to keep a commitment we make up a story to go with our failure. These may be stories of reasons why we couldn't keep our commitment or excuses for why it wasn't our fault, but there is always at least one story. This is the world of morality we live in where we excuse fault or find fault. This is the world of blame. It is critical to remember the break in integrity is separate from morality. By accepting the break in our integrity as that and that alone we can see that any layer of morality is an interpretation, a story. This is a prime example of the need for us to separate the “what happened” from our story about what happened.

Acknowledge Your Broken Promise/Word

The first time a friend or colleague hears this from you they will probable be surprised. In life we all have come to expect a story not a simple acknowledgement. This is your opportunity to establish for them and for you the possibility for a life of integrity.

Clean Up The Consequences Of The Break

Our seminar leader has said “it is an illusion to think you can avoid the impact of a break in your integrity”. I'm still pondering this idea, but I can see when I provide a story rather than just acknowledge my failure, I am creating a level of uncertainty about me, my ability to meet commitments or even my truthfulness. In may cases, clean up entails really listening to the other person's reactions to our failure. They may be quick to forgive or they may launch a diatribe. Regardless, fully concentrated listening is called for. This is not the time to “tune out”.

Remake Your Promise Or Make A New Promise

This step is important for both the other person and for you. For the other person, it is your chance to reestablish integrity and a level of trust. But is is important for you because it puts you publicly on record to keep your word. We may feel it is not so important to keep our promises to ourself, but when we make a promise publicly to someone else the pressure on us increases significantly.

One of my final thoughts is how even this process can be misused if we are not serious. If I frequently miss a commitment then go through the four steps, my integrity will be even more damaged as I will be seen as manipulating and insincere – totally without integrity.

White Lies

Thinking about integrity, this week I've been pondering the topic of white lies. The term itself seems to denote the moral ambiguity we feel when in this area. I think we've all faced the dilemma of someone we love asking us a difficult question such as, “does this dress make me look fat?”.

This is not a major moral issue, but to say what we mean and mean what we say, which integrity requires, we perceive will cause us trouble and may hurt the one we love. So often we tell the white lie and say no when we think yes.

Integrity is not about moral choices, but about a life that works. So will my life work better if I cut out the white lies? Certainly not initially, but perhaps over time my love will stop asking me questions like the one above unless she really wants my opinion. That assumes my new truthfulness doesn't destroy our relationship in the first place. Is it true a relationship that doesn't survive the truth is not one worth having? And is it worth a relationship over such a seemingly small lie?

Now what about those times when we lie not to save the feelings of the other person but to save our own face. If we tried “the dog ate my homework” to our teacher, it didn't work because she knew us and had heard it all before. But to someone who doesn't know us so well it may actually work, at least the first time. “My car broke down” or “there was an accident on the interstate” is possible and even plausible, so it may pass as true. On the face of it, this seems to work, so where is the breakdown?

One possibility is the problem is internal to us. As we successfully lie, it becomes easier to lie more often even in much more serious circumstances. Or lies become such a part of the fabric of our life, we live our whole life that way. This topic merits more thought and consideration over time.

Integrity vs. Morality

One of the first surprises I found in the seminar is to recognize a distinction between integrity and morality. We all tend to collapse the two together rather than distinguishing between them. I am trying to recognize when I do this even unconsciously. Today I was entering the Eisenhower (Interstate Highway) and normally the merge is easy because people take turns and let you in. But today the car I expected to let me in raced forward and didn't. My first reaction was to be annoyed and think of the driver in terms of being selfish, unfair even a bad person. This is an example of collapsing integrity and morality into one and judging another's action rather than seeing a distinction between the two. First, I don't know why the other driver didn't let me in, but I made up a "story" about him being selfish, unfair, etc. That was my story about the event not the event. Second, where is it written we must take turns in life. Perhaps we learned it in Kindergarten, but it certainly isn't a law or even a moral law per se. Finally, it is of no practical use for me to make judgments about events like this because the only one impacted by the judgment is me. Integrity is most valuable when we recognize it as the source for what works in the world and with others. Failure to yield the right of way is to make the merge process less efficient it is not an occasion for a moral judgment.

What is my Integrity Journal?

I am currently taking the Integrity Seminar from Landmark Education here in Chicago and I plan to use this Blog as a way to document my musings and observations on the topic of Integrity.