Have you ever stopped to consider the core essence of a “service”? If not, allow me one.A service is a promise. Few carry warranties—for distinct reasons. For example, how can the lawyer warrant his advice? That a waiter’s service will be satisfactory? That a minister’s sermons will bring in converts? That the accountant will find every available deduction?

 Enter the brand. Although often displayed in public, it is more than a physical object. In the market place, the brand is an unspoken warranty. It represents an implied promise the service will perform up to standards.

 Think about it. The buyer of a typical service owns nothing—other than a promise that somebody, somewhere, at sometime will carry out a task. Services with the greatest value are based on promises made and kept

 It follows as certain as the sunrise that the foundation element supporting a brand is the integrity of the organization and its personnel. All brands either rise or fall to the extent integrity is displayed in each and every transaction. Let fabrication, exaggeration, or unkempt assurances creep in and the brand is impaired. Its repair is difficult, without exception.

 A fundamental tenet of integrity holds that legitimate promises shall be kept. In marketing services, the tenet converts to the delivery of services–as promised, when promised, in the manner promised. 

 In his acclaimed book, Selling the Invisible, marketing disciple Harry Beckwith writes:” The heart of a service brand is not artful packaging, slick advertising,or the company name emblazoned on everything from sweatshirts to key chains. The heart of a service brand, and a key to a service’slong-term success is the integrity of the people behind it. Invest inand religiously preach integrity. It is the heart of your brand.”

 Note. To assist with encouraging integrity and magnifying your brand, Alliance for Integrity, LLC offers free of charge and costs two working tools: An Integrity Checklist and An Integrity Credo. Both are easily adjusted to your particular circumstances. Go to allianceforintegity.com for contact information.

Many years ago at a church conference in England, the speaker declared, “The issue before us is black and white.” From the back of the room a lone voice cried out, “No. It’s gray…all gray.”

 In the world of work, everyone encounters circumstances where the right choice is unclear. These are the gray areas, where each fork in the road has its appeal. David Radcliffe, past president of the Southern Company, says this is when we need a sense of sin.

  A sense of sin is the capacity to perceive and foresee that things are not quite right. He analogizes it to seeing smoke in the crowded warehouse, an unmistakable red flag that somewhere in the building there may be a blaze. One’s integrity demands further investigation.

 If the sense of sin goes lacking, we hear such statements as “I really didn’t think it was a problem;” No one will ever know;” “I’m just doing what the division manager would want me to do;” or “I’ll do it differently next time.” These and similar statements frequently signify the wrong choice. They are uttered to make ourselves comfortable with decisions that cannot withstand greater scrutiny. We are considering here conduct that does not break the rules but bends them. Albert Camus said “If you have integrity you do not even need the rules.”

 Says Wayne Sales of Canadian Tire “Making a decision usually means taking the one of two roads. On the path of one lies the basis for doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. To take the other road, you have to sit back and spin a story around the decision or action you are taking. If you find yourself thinking up an elaborate justification for what you are doing, you are not doing the right thing.” (As quoted in The Integrity Advantage, by Gostick and Telford, Gibbs Smith Publishers, Layton, Utah, 2003).

 In the gray areas that are sure to arise, a sense of sin calls for questions, reflection, even counseling with colleagues and co-workers. It entails taking the longer view to ensure that one does not choose the fork in the road that breaches a credo of integrity.

 [For a free copy The Integrity Checklist and An Integrity Credo, email professional speaker Jim Thomas at jim@allianceforintegrity.com.]   

  fundamental tenet of the cardinal virtue of integrity is the willingness to pronounce one’s beliefs. Not on trivialities, but on material issues affecting the conduct of human affairs.

  In the great scheme of things, opinions have no effect unless they are made known.  Otherwise, they rise no higher than self- indulgence.

  The announcement of convictions can have a profound effect on others—even if they disagree. Words are powerful things. Once released they take on lives of their own. Otherwise, silence installs a statement of consent. Silence can harbor an agreement of that with which one inwardly disagrees. 

  Richard covey, who studies and writes on the habits of successful people, says “You need to know what you stand for and you need to stand for it, so others will know, too.” 

 In an oft-quoted statement, Martin Luther King said, “the ultimate measure of the person is not found in moments of comfort and convenience, but where one stands in hours of challenge and controversy.” 

  In 1956, in Moscow, at the twentieth congress of the soviet communist party, the main speaker was Nikita Khrushchev.  For the first time, he began disclosing the magnitude of Josef Stalin’s crimes.  As he spoke, a note was passed up from the vast audience.  He received it, glanced at it, and then read it aloud: “if Stalin was such a monster, why didn’t you and the leadership stand up to him?”

  “An excellent question,” said Nikita.  “I would be grateful if the comrade who asked it would stand so I can answer him face to face.” Not one soul stirred.  “Well,” said Nikita, “there is the answer to your question.”

  An admiring colleague, who did not always agree with him, said of Earl Warren, Governor of the State of California, and later Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: “Warren stood up and was counted on every great issue of his age.”    

  You can depend on it.  Issues of consequence will arise.  Material questions will call for answers.   Problems will require solutions.  And somewhere, sometime, somebody will draw a moral line in the sand. In those moments, who values—silence—the hedge—the side step—the straddle—the waffle?  Or, splitting the difference? 

  Two questions: have you ever paused and asked yourself on what principles do I stand? Where am I, too, non-negotiable?

  People often interchange the great virtues of honesty and integrity as if they are one and the same. But, they are decidedly distinct and separate, each being important in its own way.

 As Professor Stephen L. Carter of Yale Law School points out in his book Integrity, one cannot have integrity without being honest, but one can be honest and yet lack integrity. Consider that for a moment.

 The word “integrity” is invoked to describe everything from the condition of old master paintings to the state of human organs. We see it in TV advertising and politics. It appears in the names of businesses, apartment complexes, and on outdoor signage. That poses a problem. Everybody who uses the term   seems to mean something different from everyone else.

 Integrity in its bare-bones essence means adherence to principles. It is a three-step process: choosing the right course of conduct; acting consistently with the choice—even when it is inconvenient or unprofitable to do so; openly declaring where one stands. Accordingly, integrity is equated with moral reflection, steadfastness to commitments, trustworthiness.

The major difference between honesty and integrity is that one may be entirely honest without engaging in the thought and reflection integrity demands. The honest person may truthfully tell what he or she believes without the advance determination of whether it is right or wrong. This can range from matters mundane to the complex.

 For example.  One friend may tell another, “Only poor people work on garbage trucks.” She may be honest in her belief without taking the time to determine if she is right.

 Consider this example. Being himself a graduate of an elite business school, a manager gives the more challenging assignments to staff with the same background. He does this, he believes, because they will do the job best and for the benefit of others who did not attend similar institutions. He doesn’t want them to fail. He claims integrity because he is acting according to his beliefs.

 The manager fails the integrity test. The question is not whether his actions are consistent with what he most deeply believes but whether he has done the hard work of ascertaining whether what he believes is right and true.

Many refer to integrity as the “thinking person’s virtue.” Is it any wonder?

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Background

The speech is the product of my research, investigation, writing, and speaking on the subject beginning 27 years ago. This work focused on the principles of this timely and timeless virtue. In addition, I collected from all walks of life individuals who have exemplified integrity, often at great cost, inconvenience, and sometimes at irreparable loss to themselves.

Integrity in Action

The examples and profiles demonstrate every point contained in “The Integrity Imperative.” They show integrity in dramatic form, as it is and ought to be. As Coach K of Duke University basketball aptly stated, “Crucial words are best understood by seeing them in action.” If ever there was a crucial word it is “Integrity.”

The Tenets and Principles

 This keynote-conference speech is unique in several particulars.  For once, the message lays out the authentic meaning of integrity. Few, if any, speakers ever offer the correct definition, as drawn from authorities of the ages. And no speaker today, to my knowledge, lays out the tenets of its practice—much less its motivations, adversaries, the accepted rules of compromise, or its supreme benefits and advantages.

Why an Imperative

The presentation makes an irrefutable case. When value is affixed to:Trustworthiness and reputation;

• The necessity of accountability;
• Performing as promised, when promised in the manner promised;
• Refusal to cut corners and play loosely with the rules;
• Recognition and avoidance of conflicts of interest;
• Willingness to stand up and be counted when it counts;
• Defeat of alluring temptations and ill-advised compromise.

Then, Integrity does become and overriding Imperative!

The speech is ideal for your Convention, Conference, Meeting, and Training Session.