Published Thursday, April 27, 2006
in Strategic eNews
The importance of having your own internal compass.
In the course of speaking to radio interviewers about The Laws of Lifetime Growth, a particular question has repeatedly been asked: “What is the role of integrity in lifetime growth?” We thought it worth sharing some of this discussion with eNews readers because it gets right to the heart of the role of values in growth. It’s very difficult to keep growing without integrity, and many of us face this issue more often than we realize, even as honest, morally upstanding individuals.
People talk about “a lack of integrity” or “being out of integrity,” but what does this mean?
Literally, “integrity” means “wholeness” or “coherence.” Things that have integrity have the strength of being consistent and unified in their make-up. This can occur at a variety of levels, from large-scale public integrity down to the individual level of personal integrity, and even internally as we privately face the challenge of aligning our thoughts, habits, and unconscious beliefs with our core values.
In recent years, corporate scandals like the Enron affair have made most people critically aware of what a lack of public integrity looks like.
Although, at the end of the company's life, the firm was riddled with willful deception, few, if any, of the people involved probably intended it to go that way. The loss of integrity often happens like this, one bit at a time, until the players find themselves trapped in a situation they can't easily get out of without a lot of disruption. Of course, as Enron proved, the disruption comes anyway, because the situation is untenable. Lack of public integrity can't be hidden indefinitely.
On the opposite side of the coin is Google, who have as part of their mission statement, “Do no evil.” This has created a sense of integrity about the company that the public celebrated — until now.
Google is at a point of global expansion that forces it against a “Ceiling of Complexity™.” There are charges that they have been complicit in turning over the names of protestors in China, leading to these individuals' arrests. They have also been accused of suppressing content on the Internet in order to comply with regimes that don't allow free speech or protests against the government.
These issues have brought the company negative attention, and the public integrity of the organization is being challenged, using its own criteria. If they can transform this situation and define the next level of their public integrity, they have a big future ahead of them. If they can't, their future will be in question.
Just as large organizations can lose their way, individuals face an endless number of choices that define the shape and substance of their future.
Many people follow the path that's laid out for them by others — or one that they imagine others expect of them. They may be rewarded well along the way, but when they reach their destination, they find that their life feels like a house of cards. They expend a lot of energy convincing themselves that they're doing the right thing, using assurances like, “This is just the price of success.”
It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to come to such a point of crisis, wondering if what they’re working for is ultimately worth the toll on their relationships and health. Interestingly, these thoughts often coincide with a plateau in business growth. Material wealth and success can feel relatively meaningless if the life the entrepreneur is living doesn’t reflect his or her core values and the reasons why he or she became an entrepreneur in the first place. The fragmented bits and pieces of these entrepreneurs’ lives — broken commitments, postponed or abandoned dreams, and uncomfortable trade-offs — reflect a lack of integrity with their own deeply-held values. Once recognized, these nagging signs of being out of integrity can be difficult to ignore.
If they are not prepared to do the work necessary to change, entrepreneurs in this situation may find themselves instead maintaining a large “defense budget” — using up considerable time, money, and mental energy to sustain the act. Such individuals often find it frustrating rather than inspiring when they discover that others have found a way to be successful without making all these sacrifices. Their entire identity becomes invested in defending the way they are doing things, even if this is leading them further and further from their original dreams and their true hearts’ desires. Often, the idea of retirement becomes the only way out. Unfortunately, this may be a long way off.
The other choice entrepreneurs have is to bring their lives and businesses more into alignment with their personal values. This can be done. We see it everyday with our clients and in the way we run our own company. It sometimes involves short-term sacrifices and disruptions, but the long-term gains far outweigh these perceived costs.
Integrity, both on a personal and public level, comes from having a context for making decisions and taking action. The Laws of Lifetime Growth™, like The Strategic Coach Program, bring up this question for many people because they're both frameworks for finding, maintaining, and protecting a sense of integrity.
Finding your own set of values, being true to yourself, and knowing what your growth path is, gives an ease and a transparency to the way you conduct yourself. You have the energy to be creative because you're not busy defending yourself or convincing yourself of anything. You have the confidence of knowing and liking the direction you're headed in. Every decision, communication, and action has a coherence and wholeness to it.
In short, you have integrity.
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