Issue 9
Integrity is a process, not an achievable state. Discover why fostering honesty and strong moral principles in your team requires taking responsibility, ditching the rule book, and celebrating the effort of "trying.
By Martin Drohmann
integrity (n) -
- the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles
- the state of being whole and undivided.
Many companies cite integrity as one of their core values.
It is obvious why they want to be whole, or at least undivided. When a company fractures—with employees pursuing different directions, agendas, or principles—the result is chaos.
But how do we get there?
The first definition offers a hint: honesty and strong moral principles. Both are essential. Without honesty, you might project the illusion of integrity while people secretly lie to maintain it.
Strong moral principles guide employees to what they have to pay attention to, to keep the company whole. What is moral or not, depends on the community. Inside your company, you might have strong moral principles on how to treat each other, but some companies stop at the customer level, deeming it okay to deceive, or provide unsubstantiated promises. This is a fine line to walk. Such disconnects automatically blur the lines of acceptable behavior.
So, what is the solution for integrity then?
Making a big rule book with processes detailing how and where to buy more coffee for the office’s espresso machine, and hiring saints only?
Probably not! Creating processes for everything keeps at least one person extremely busy - likely the one in charge. And it is not very compatible with something that happens all the time - “change”.
Hiring saints is a good idea, but apparently even people like Mother Theresa had some faults. Humans behave in human ways, and they are not always honest. We have a limited capacity for everything - including honesty. Sometimes, we are simply too exhausted to see things through or speak up. Other times, deep-seated fears we barely understand cause us to lie, hide, or manipulate others.
Integrity is a process, not an achievable state.
The beauty of the software industry is that change is so constant, most companies have already learned this lesson.
This is why noawadays you find companies valuing to have “a low ego”, or “pursuance of personal growth”, and extending commitments to outer circle for example through “customer obsession”. It is impossible to be a saint, but you can try, and we can all celebrate when we try. And it conflicts with a culture of “we are doing it because that’s what we did in the past”, or “we are doing it because Bob told us to do it this way”.
Celebrating “trying” instead of “success”, requires vulnerability and responsibility. As a leader, you will have to take responsibility for things that didn’t work out, and celebrate if others admit failure, accept and pay attention to unpopular facts, and especially if they propose changes.
As a leader, you must carefully define your team’s moral principles. You need to provide clarity beyond the obvious “we need to make money,” but without creating rigid rules that require your personal sign-off on every decision.
A big rule book of set-in-stone processes might eventually have the instructions for an AI bot to replace your team, but it also wastes most of the potential that the company hired and is paying lots of money for.
As a leader, you have to balance all of this, and let your team help you.
It is a big job.
But the payoff is huge: When you commit to the practice of integrity, you can grow yourself into a better person, more capable, more adaptable, more secure. And all these unexpected, undesired numbers, failed attempts to find product market fit, a new customer base, or to deliver on time, just become the next learning experience. In business and in your personal life. It’s all the same.
With care,
Martin