The world is a strange place with unwritten rules.
Some are rewarded for wrong doing. Others are not punished when they turn a blind eye.
I broke that covenant at work. I called the wrong doing. The consequence was termination.
The details don’t matter. It is the same everywhere. The people with power see themselves as right and those that oppose them are wrong.
Termination is painful. It is a cancerous fire that sears your heart and blackens your thoughts. Eventually the malignancy spreads to your family.The reality of your work life ends. There is no upside to this downside. The paychecks stop. The financial stability of your home, your family, and your basic needs are threatened.
It impacts you physically, socially, emotionally and spiritually. Inside and outside you are broken. Sickness is common. Friends look at you differently. Pain engulfs your being. Beliefs are challenged.
Termination impacts everyone differently. Some give up. Some become embittered and frozen in time.
I moved on. Integrity helped me. It was my path through chaos.
Integrity is wholeness, unfolding and objectivity. In simple terms, it is doing the right thing, doing the next right thing, and doing things the right way.
Each time I saw what needed to be done, I did it the right way. When I finished, I did the next right thing and I did it the right way. It was therapeutic.
I had never tolerated wrong doing well but I never spoke out about the little things. My silence robbed the organization of the truth that needed to be heard before it was too late.
When the little things became a big thing, I spoke out against the wrong doing. I did not stand against the person or the organization.
It is exhilarating to stand up for right. It is mortifying to be terminated because of it.
The truth does indeed set you free; however, freedom is not won without a cost.
There is no roadmap to freedom when you are in bondage to a situation. You have to lead yourself.
As the battle unfolded, I concluded that:
I did not want to perpetuate these things in the pursuit of righting a wrong.
In defeat, I learned to stand for what is right without surrendering. Through failure, I learned to fight without attacking.
These lessons taught me the power of truth and why its scares people so. Gandhi called this “the way of non-violence.”
It made me stronger. When I looked myself in the eye, I saw the enemy within disappearing.
Ultimately it was a personal triumph. I stood for right in a world of wrong.
I have no regrets. I am eternally grateful. I gained my freedom.
Post Note: Eighteen months later, a federal integrity agency began an investigation into the wrong doing and the subsequent cover up. Justice is being served; not mine but theirs.
Douglas Ross is an advocate for the promotion of integrity as a strategy for performance.
© 2011 All Rights Reserved, Douglas Ross, Principle Dynamics Consulting Inc.
Contact me at principledynamics@gmail.com or my cell at 706-267-0609.
The integrity dialog, as any conversation, is a form of life, lived through words, that enables anyone who participates to move to a new understanding of themselves and their community.
Integrity is the essence of everything successful. The dialog has many possibilities.
The first possibility: We stop talking to ourselves.
As long as we assume others are like us, have the same background and share the same values, we talk to them as though we were talking to someone like us.
In effect we end up talking to ourselves.
In effect, we judge whether another knows what we know, not what they know.
The third possibility: We add value.
When people listen to one another, they hear of experiences, talents and skills and aspirations they do not have. These are valuable resources to you and all of us.
The myth of scarcity dominates dialog in some people. In this myth, people believe that whenever they speak, the gain is zero sum -either they gain something (image, rightness) or the other gains (knowledge, correction etc) but both can't gain at the same time.
When dialog partners begin to acknowledge each other’s resources, the myth of scarcity that shapes our responses begins to dissolve not because everyone knows everything but because no one knows it all.
The fourth possibility: We explore the unknown together.
Questions of inquiry are asked by someone who does not know the answer. Questions of inquiry promote dialog because they move one another closer to the unknown
Dialog is not only learning from each other but also learning more about some topic or things.
These are the unknowns which we can't learn if we don't engage in dialog and if we continue to talk to ourselves, judge others and operate from the myth of scarcity.
The fifth possibility: We put the mystery back into our lives.
The type of thinking that generates dialog does not remain bounded by what one has already thought but rather moves into what remains un- thought.
When people move to this stage, Pearce says, they move into a greater awareness and understanding of the unknown.
This embraces the mystery of our experience which Pearce defines as more than the present moment and the awareness of an open ended world.
The sixth possibility: We know ourselves;thereby, we know each other.
When we gain understanding and put the mystery back in our lives, we gain self knowledge.
We see ourselves reflected in the dialog process and others.
In effect, the dialog is our own mirror.
Want to learn more? Contact me at principledynamics@gmail.com. I want to speak to you about integrity and how it can help you and all of us.
Douglas Ross is an advocate for the promotion of integrity as a strategy for performance.
© 2011 All Rights Reserved, Douglas Ross, Principle Dynamics Consulting Inc.
Much of this is taken from the work of Barnett Pearce, Communications and the Human Condition as I learned in Marvin Brown's book Corporate Integrity
In 432 BC Socrates said, “Know yourself.”
Easier said than done.
The word “Know” means to regard as true beyond any doubt. The word “Yourself” means your unique, usual, and normal self. So to “know yourself” means regarding that which is unique, usual, and normal about you as true beyond doubt.
Integrity is wholeness and completeness, unfolding and becoming, purity and objectivity. Integrity is rooted in your self. If you don’t know yourself, you don’t know integrity.
Do you know yourself as true beyond doubt?
Let’s see...
Johari’s Window suggests four ways to understand the self.The public self is the self most of us identify with. This self is defined by citizenship, birthplace, family and occupation. It is also defined by homes, lifestyles and material possessions. The public self includes your ideas, your values, your beliefs and interests. This is a narrow but accepted way to “know yourself.”
Webster’s dictionary defines blind spot as “an area about which one is uninformed, prejudiced or unaware.” Blind spots often cover a self-serving bias that others can see but we cannot. Therefore, people with blind spots cannot “know yourself.”
The private self is the self that no one else knows but you. This self often contains fear and insecurities as well as the emotions associated with wrong doing, frustration, anger, guilt and/or remorse. These feelings when denied, suppressed or ignored become our dark side. Many people see this as their real self; however, this perception ignores other parts of the self.
People can know their public self. They can develop techniques that overcome their blind spots and heal their dark side. But how do people deal with an unknown self that is not known to them or others?
The constants of integrity can help shed some light on this problem. The three constants of integrity are:
1. that which is within;
2. that which is without; and
3. the dynamic flow between what is within and what is without.
To “know yourself” is to know all “that which is within.” The public, private and the blind parts of the self are all part of “that which is within.” When all these parts are integrated into a well functioning consistent and healthy whole, an individual begins to understand the principle “know yourself.”
The self does not exist within a vacuum. It exists within the world. The constant “that which is without” can also be defined as “know the world” or as “know reality.”
To “know yourself” then, you must also “know reality.”
Knowing “that which is without” requires that we deal with the physical, mental, social/economic, political, ecological and spiritual realities of the world. The lessons we learn about these realities are, as we all know, very difficult.
The challenges to “know reality” are:
1. to create order out of chaos;
2. to derive meaning from a complex changing world; and
3. to make a value added contribution with your life.
The dynamic interplay between “that which is within” and “that which is without” provides the process where the unknown area of the self is revealed. Life is intertwined. “That which is within” impacts and is impacted by “that which is without” and vice versa.
The best way to see this dynamic interplay is to think of the idea of disturbances. A disturbance is malfunction, intrusion, or interruption in our ordinary life. Disturbances are either within you or outside of you. Common forms of disturbances include problems, misunderstandings, conflict, loses, accidents and sickness.
Disturbances can occur anywhere at any time. They are anything that links what is inside you with what is outside of you. Disturbances are where the unknown self is revealed. Disturbances are opportunities where “that which is within” becomes one with “that which is without.”
Not all disturbances are important. There is a story in ancient China where a man walking with his horse accidently knocks down a stranger. The stranger picks himself up, dusts himself off and says “passing disturbance, no meaning”.
Some disturbances are important. They manifest aspects of the self that need to be dealt with to "know yourself" as an integrated whole. For example, problems become opportunities for self growth. Insecurities become strengths through trials. Sickness becomes a path to know your own mortality. Accidents are sent to appreciate what you have or had. Losses become the gateway to success. Fear becomes trust.
We come to know unknown part of ourselves through the disturbances in our life. Until we know the unknown side of ourselves, we cannot “know yourself”.
The Gnostics have an interesting take on the unknown self. The Gospel of Thomas states “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you destroy you."
As you encounter the disturbances in your life, that which is unknown within you is evoked. The unknown self becomes part of you through the disturbance. This is the key to the process of knowing yourself.
If the disturbances in your life evoke nothing within you, then you have nothing to work with or from and the disturbances destroy you.
Douglas Ross is father, husband, businessman and an advocate for integrity. He is the creator of Led by Integrity™ (On face book), the blog “Results through Integrity”. He also founded the Success through Integrity forum on Linked in and the Integrity forum on Ushi
Want to learn more? Contact me at principledynamics@comcast.net or call me at 706-267-0609. I want to speak to you about integrity and how it can help you and all of us.
@2010 All Rights Reserved, Douglas Ross
“What is right with the world is the world. In fact, nearly everything else is wrong with it.”
G. K. Chesterton.
People want to do the right thing. It is something we all regard as worthy and desirable. It is a belief, and a standard that is the heart of everything we do.
Organizations want to do the right thing. It is a fundamental principle that shows up in people, processes and products.
Integrity is doing the right thing, doing the next right thing and doing things right.
But, what is right?
The use of the word “right and rights” is staggering.The American Management Association (AMA) produced a study of business ethics report entitled “The Ethical Enterprise: Doing the Right Thing in the Right Ways, Today and Tomorrow.”
The United States of America has the Bill of Rights while the United Nations has the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Buddhism has the Noble eightfold path which consists of: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.
Again, what is right?
Perhaps a few simple definitions that juxtapose right with wrong will help:
• Right is real. All that is unreal is wrong.
• Right is a responsible act. Irresponsible acts are wrong.
• Right is true. Wrong is false.
• Right is correct, factual and error free. Wrong is everything else.
• Right conforms to objective standards. Wrong dissents.
• Right is just and equitable. That which is inequitable and unjust is wrong.
• Right is precise, and proper. Wrong is all that is unsatisfactory, and improper.
The word “right” refers to that which is universal, consistent and objective. All people, regardless of race or nationality understand the concept. Even a child knows right.
Right is a timeless proven concept that has been true in the past while providing direction today and tomorrow. It is an objective standard of human action for all in a subjective world.
Some people argue that right is wrong and wrong is right. Truth for these people is a popularity contest. If one other agrees with the rationalization or justification for wrong, then it may be right. If many others agree, then it must be truth.
Doing the right thing is easy to talk about but hard to discern. It is so difficult to do what is right and it is so easy to be wrong.
The ability to discern right is manifested within the reality of your life at home, at work and at play. Every day provides opportunities to choose. Each right choice is narrow and challenging. Each wrong choice is broad and easy.
Choosing wrong makes it more difficult to choose right.
People and corporations have developed a way to handle the difficult challenge of right. This way simply offers the provision for exceptions that can be used to resolve contradictions in practical circumstances.
For example, the AMA reports that seven out of ten employees would most likely compromise organizational ethical standards to meet unrealistic business objectives/deadlines. In other words, if need be, people would do the wrong thing in order to meet targets and thus protect their jobs.
How can this be wrong?
I can tell you why it is wrong.
Unrealistic business objectives/deadlines are by definition wrong. Sacrificing ethics to meet unrealistic targets is then wrong by reason and logic. Yet many people justify unethical actions as the right choice in an environment where everything is wrong.
Some people argue that doing the right thing is naïve in a world gone mad. That which is expedient is the new right. They are wrong.
Expediency is an overpowering emotion that creates a circumstantial world that serves personal ends. That is madness. More of it will not right the world.
The enduring principle of right in human progress has not succumbed to individual convenience.
The reality of the world is that by doing the right thing and doing things right, the world is right. All the rest is wrong.
Want to learn more? Contact me at 706-267-0609. I want to speak to you about integrity and how it can help you and all of us.
Douglas Ross is an advocate for the promotion of integrity as a strategy for performance.
© 2011 All Rights Reserved, Douglas Ross, Principle Dynamics Consulting Inc.
Integrity and trust are free and the ultimate in “what is in this for me”.
It is realizing all that you can be.
Integrity and trust are the cornerstones of journey from possibility to actualization. They take you from separateness, stagnation and perception to completeness, growth and reality.
The potential for integrity and trust exist in the here and now of ordinary existence. Every day choices about small things like eating and or big things like work offer us the opportunity to pursue integrity and build trust.
Every choice has a consequence that either adds or subtracts from your integrity and trust.
Integrity is the optimal experience. The process of its realization is the path way to an authentic individuated life. It is the ultimate journey into the mysteries of one’s life.
Integrity and trust are your work. You develop integrity by correcting what is wrong in daily life and validating what is right.
Habitual excellence is the process of fixing what is wrong and improving on what is right is the manner in which virtues are made manifest in your life.
Right refers to that which is universal, consistent and objective. Right is a timeless proven concept that has been true in the past while providing direction today and tomorrow. It is an objective standard of human action for all in a subjective world.
In a world where wrong has become right and right has become wrong, it is important to understand that when wrong is right, a way will appear; when right is wrong, the way will disappear.
Everyone has and will have problems, adversity, and suffering. These are the trials of integrity. Confronting these trials develops equanimity which allows us to "stand in the midst," of conflict or crisis in a way where we are balanced, grounded and centered.
Doing right thing, doing the next right thing and do things the right way takes the fear out of uncertainty and adds wisdom to our experience.
It is challenging to act with integrity and trust in a world of self interest and distrust. Trusting yourself, trusting your world, and trusting the process is the difficult unfolding or becoming part of integrity.
Finding true north in this world requires that, you are your own guide, that your life is the map and that your actions are the key. You really only have one person to lead in this journey.
It is difficult for us to understand that in our present condition that we are all perfectly aligned to get what we currently get. Each of us has a unique potential or possibility that we can choose to fulfill in life. If we don’t do anything different, then we continue to get the same old same old.
Since integrity and trust are all about you, the only thing optional is the time you take to learn it. The time is always right to do the right thing. You can start anytime, anyplace. If you don’t have the time to things right the first time, when will you have time?
Want to learn more? Contact me at 706-267-0609. I want to speak to you about integrity and how it can help you and all of us.
Douglas Ross is an advocate for the promotion of integrity as a strategy for performance.
© 2010 All Rights Reserved, Douglas Ross, Principle Dynamics Consulting Inc.
We are in the process of beta testing a new personal development service that will increase integrity and trust.
Integrity and trust are real and observable. They are the essence of everything successful.
Yet we know so little about them.
Even though we have no commonly accepted definition, integrity and trust are critical variables in every choice we make -whether it is consumer products, or the selection of a mate or friends.
We easily judge levels of integrity and trust in others but have trouble assessing it within ourselves.
We say integrity and trust are critical to professional success, yet we have no way to develop them.
Integrity is your unique potential and possibility. It is your value added proposition
Integrity is wholeness and completeness, unfolding or becoming, objectivity or purity. In simple terms, it is doing the right thing, doing the next right thing and doing things the right way.Actualizing integrity requires trust. Without trust you have nothing.
We trust ourselves to do the right thing. If we didn’t we couldn’t live or work together.
We trust people to do next right thing to do. Otherwise there would be no order and chaos would rule.
We trust that there is a right way to do things. Otherwise there would be no progress and no prosperity.
Buckminster Fuller said that integrity is the essence of everything successful. I believe we need to add trust to that definition
Integrity and trust are the essence of everything successful.
We design and built products , services and structures with integrity so that people will trust us, our products and each other with their commitments of time , energy and resources.
Success is a personal –whether it is personal happiness, financial security, successful relationships or a respected value added role in the workplace.
Success is collective – it is the sustainability of our species, our way of life and our place.
Integrity is actualized by trust
Success is realized when you trust yourself, trust others and trust the process so that individually and collectively we do the right thing , do the next right thing and do things the right way.
Want to learn more? Contact me at 706-267-0609. I want to speak to you about integrity and how it can help you and all of us.
Douglas Ross is an advocate for the promotion of integrity as a strategy for performance.
© 2010 All Rights Reserved, Douglas Ross, Principle Dynamics Consulting Inc.