On Integrity

When I was 20 years old, I asked a professor about ending a course early, with good reason. But instead of granting my request, he taught me one of the most important lessons I have ever learned. He gave me a definition of integrity that I have never forgotten.

INTEGRITY IS DOING WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE GOING TO DO. It is part of your character, such that if you do it well, people will think well of you. And if you do not, they will not think well of you, as they learn that they cannot depend on you to do what you have said you are going to do.

So I have young friends who could use some improvement in this area. To put it into context, many of my friends live in other areas of the world, such that we often schedule Skype calls with each other, and often the calls are scheduled at the same time each week. I am told by these guys how important our relationship is to them, and they are just as important to me.

Recently, with one of them, we agreed to talk every Wednesday night at 7:00 for a while. One day when I texted him earlier in the day to confirm, he asked to move the call back to 9:00, and when he did not call at 9:00, I went to bed. He then called at 10:20 leaving a message that he and his girlfriend had gotten into a long conversation. He has done things like that before, and I don’t like it. I feel angry and disappointed when that happens, as it makes me feel like I am unimportant and low priority. But then I have to accept that I must be a low priority, and the relationship suffers.

People notice such behaviors. There are understood, unstated expectations in any relationship, such that you are measured and judged by how you treat others. If you want close friends and successful business relationships, you will have to do what you say you are going to do. If you forget, if you allow yourself to be distracted, if you decide to do something else, if you ignore the person you say is important to you, if you decide your time or task is so important that you can ignore important people, then your friendships and your business relationships will suffer. You will have few friends, and you will wonder why your business relationships fail.

If you cannot keep a commitment, don’t make the commitment! It is better to say,”I don’t know if I can commit to that”, than to commit with the hope that it will work out when it may not.

I have had the experience many times of meeting a person who would provide a service to me, but then he does not call or does not show up when he says he is going to. I look for that character, or lack of it, early in a business relationship, because I don’t want to do business with someone who cannot be counted on to do what he says he is going to do. Such people are disorganized, undependable and unreliable, and they are not likely to do good work. When I see that character deficiency, I move on.

Lastly, when you tell yourself you are doing to do a thing, and then you don’t do it, you have failed yourself. You have failed to do what you told yourself you were going to do.

In your own self-observations and self-analysis, it is important to monitor that aspect of your character. INTEGRITY IS DOING WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE GOING TO DO. Be a person of integrity! It is what successful people do. And more importantly, it is who successful people are.