Integrity Works - Building Inspired Teams

Why Does Integrity Matter in Organizational Culture

Here’s a formula that I just came up with for those of you accustomed to reading “step” programs and slick formulas: Integrity (“Walking the talk”) encourages trust, trust builds respect, respect activates commitment, commitment feeds dedication, dedication strengthens work ethic, work ethic fuels productivity… I’ll stop now or the circle would get too big before I tie it all back to integrity. I might map it out in flashy colours and copyright it someday, but you get the picture.

The thing is, I could have continued to attach all kinds of values to that formula, because once you come down to it, values do tend to be related. Just ask anyone to pick 5 core values from a list of 50, and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll hear people talk about how respect is part of trust and trust is part of commitment, and so on. And it all makes intuitive sense, so if I had said passion nourishes creativity, and creativity fuels productivity you would very possibly have sagely nodded your head. That’s one reason why there are so many marketed management formulas out there. You can say the same thing in many different ways.

What it comes down to is this: People are drawn to values and they like to feel valued. They like to feel good about themselves, and they’d prefer to work in a place where they feel good than a place where they don’t. And by now, we have a pretty good idea of what makes people feel good. As Maslow noted a fairly long time ago, people have a series of needs (Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem, and Self-actualization). If you want to mange people effectively, it would do you good to value the meeting of those needs.

If you on the other hand don’t pay people enough, provide inconsistent feedback, disregard physical safety and harassment issues, alienate your staff by treating them as nameless objects, display favoritism, make arbitrary decisions without consulting the people who will be most impacted by these decisions, fail to acknowledge success and focus more on criticism, and do not provide opportunity for people to grow, you should not be too surprised at seeing the departing backsides of your best and brightest. What’s more, you will likely be saddled with sycophants (“suck-ups”) and the less inspired staff who stay out of fear or lack of ambition, and who content themselves with the spiritless mantra, “It’s just a job”. Plus, of course, you’ll have the additional expenses of sick leaves, absenteeism, theft (of time and material), harassments and legal issues that research has consistently shown as associated with organizations lacking in clearly stated, collaboratively formed, and followed values that take into account the needs of employees.

Values are what your organization stands for, and by inference, if created collaboratively, what your employees stand for-and by further inference it means that employees will stand for the organization. Values are what define your organization and all of its associated behaviours and interactions with every stakeholder, be it management, staff, suppliers, clients, or the community. Think of a stated value as being a vow, and you will begin to understand how significant it is for an organization to not only identify its values, but to live them.

Here is where integrity comes in; few things will create more disharmony, disenchantment, demoralization, and cynicism than an organization or person that professes to hold certain values and doesn’t follow through with them. I’ve been part of an organization that professed to be strength based but management took every opportunity to highlight staff weaknesses. The impact of that on morale and trust and all those other values was dramatic. It would have been better if that organization had clearly stated a lack of values rather than having dragged staff through the appearance of care and collaboration on a values search, only to pay lip service to the outcome.

The truth is, you can’t escape having values, and the values expressed through behavours are always experienced as more real than those via words. An organization that states collaboration as a value but does not consult with staff about significant decisions is actually living out a value of expediency over process. An organization that purports to value respect but allows for gossiping is actually living out a negative competitive value. The loss of trust, commitment, passion, dedication, buy in, respect, etc cost of this double talk is hugely significant. Employees begin to look out for “number one” as they realize that they can’t count on leadership to care for their needs, or they do the instinctive tribal thing, and gather together in cliques for protection. In any case, there is the loss of a spiritual, (yes, “spiritual”) connection with the organization. In fact, I will even go so far to say that the organization itself will have lost its soul. For sure it will have lost its direction and connection to the people who make up and drive it.

Integrity does indeed work. It pays off in tangible staff buy in and production and it shines in the organization’s everyday interaction with all its stakeholders. It’s the value that holds everyone accountable to shared values and reasons for being. It’s what underlies never devalued wishes of “practice what you preach”, and “walk the talk” that we all hold true to from childhood years. Lose integrity at the risk of losing everything else that holds your organization together and makes it a vital living thing.

Theo Selles, M.Sc.
647-686-0116

YouTube Justice

It seems that the whole world knows by now about Hillary Adams, the 23 year old woman who posted a seven minute video on Youtube of her father violently and repeatedly beating her on her legs and bottom with a belt when she was 16. What made the matter especially salacious is that her father is a Family Court judge. Within days the video had been watched by millions.

For the most part, viewers were outraged, and they called for the head of the judge. The judge was a monster. The judge should lose his job as he clearly couldn’t be trusted to preside over abuse issues. Hillary was an abuse victim. She became a celebrity, a spokesperson for abused children and women. She and her mother, (also seen striking her in the video and telling her to “take it like a woman”), were hosted on numerous talk shows. Parenting and relationship experts tripped over themselves in their rush to condemn the abuser and support the victim. These experts sagely spoke out against violent behaviour and talked about all forms of physical parental discipline as being wrong. One Family Court judge went so far as to say that if a parent had to hit a child, it should just be a “tap”. And who could argue with any of them, violence is wrong, right? Victims should be protected and abusers should be punished, right? And no doubt, the images and sounds of the video were shocking and hard to witness. Clearly the father had crossed the line with his daughter. Clearly he had been violent.

So it might be a surprise that when interviewed on the Billy Kelly Show that some of my outrage was directed, not towards the father, but towards the rush to judgment. While acknowledging that what the judge did was wrong, I pointed out that there is not a single one of us, including me, that doesn’t have 7 minute moments in our lives, that if posted on Youtube, would lead the world to immediately believe that we were not suited to be parents, partners, or, in my case, a Family Therapist. In assessing the daughter’s behaviour, I felt that her stated reason (to help her father) for posting the video seemed false and that the chosen avenue for bringing the matter forward was offensive and unfair. I even went so far as to suggest that perhaps if she had put as much time, thought, and effort into not lying, stealing, and defying her dad as she did in planning the video set-up, the beating might not have happened. Predictably listeners were outraged at me, and accused me of blaming the victim for the behaviour of the abuser, even though I had said that I believed they were both responsible for their own actions. I was very clear in my interview that I did not excuse the behaviour of the judge. I thought that what he did was wrong, but that I was not going to judge him based on a 7 minute Youtube video.

I was, and remain, mostly outraged at the hypocrisy and cowardliness of our society, and the gutless pandering of the media who failed to ask significant questions because they knew that doing so would make them unpopular. You see when this kind of news occurs, there’s a rush to establish who The Victim is, and who The Abuser is. Once that’s been established, no-one better dare to ask any questions or call into question any of the behaviour of The Victim. Everything The Victim did prior to the event is explained by the actions of The Abuser-after all, she had to cope with his abusive actions. Every action of The Victim after the event is acceptable because she is, after all, just dealing with having been abused and she deserves any attention, support, and reward (book deal?) she can get. Any behaviour that is suspect is explained away as having been caused by The Abuser. Conversely, any good that The Abuser has done prior to the event, or after it, is irrelevant. In this case, it doesn’t matter what kind of parent he was before or after, or what he has done for his community. What matters is that he is The Abuser. He is a monster. And if anyone has the temerity to ask about extenuating circumstances and the context of the event, they are quickly shouted down. Exploring extenuating circumstances is equated to justification and minimization of abuse and siding against The Victim. As one caller said after my interview, “This is why victims struggle with coming forward, they get blamed for the abuse!”

Well, I don’t get shouted down very easily, and unlike so many of my colleagues, I am not afraid of going where we are forbidden to go. I happen to believe that extenuating circumstances and contexts of events do matter if we seek anything beyond immediate violent retribution. There is a world of difference between a parent who, out of character, hits a chronically defiant disobedient child with a belt as an extreme measure to deal with extreme behaviour after repeated warnings and attempts to discipline otherwise, and a parent who frequently and randomly hits a child for no reason other than being in a bad mood or drunk. Bear in mind that this does not mean I am in favour of hitting people with belts, nor can I know from Youtube which category the judge falls under, but I can tell you that I have seen many abused people who have talked about the impact of the randomness of abuse. How as a child it didn’t matter how they behaved; there was absolutely no connection between their behaviour and the pain that was administered to them. The difference between possibly well-intended corrective punishment, no matter whether you agree with it or not, and random brutality is extreme.

I wonder how many of the people calling for the judge’s head are also people whose mom or dad, on very rare occasions, when they had crossed an extreme line, had taken a belt or spoon to their behinds? Many have smilingly told me these stories, proudly describing loving parents with no hint of an accusation of abuse. But if a video of those occasions had been posted online, would they have been comfortable with their mother or father being demonized? Would they be okay with their parents losing custody and losing their jobs? The hypocrisy astounds me. And how about those people who you’ve heard mutter about “kids now-a-days” who have no respect and how “if I had tried that my mom would have busted a spoon over my..!” Where are their voices now? These stories are told by adult children with a respect for their parents who took those measures, and as part of an argument that kids are out of line these days because they don’t fear and respect parents. Right or wrong, we can’t have a discussion about this as long as there are areas of discussion to which we simply must not go.

And the media, who fanned the flames of hysteria with headlines such as “Judge beats disabled daughter!” Never mind that the daughter had a form of cerebral palsy unrelated to her justification of why she did not obey her father when he told her to stop pirating videos: “My disability led me to have a fascination with technology.” Never mind that this disabled victim had a website called “retardedcustomers.com” which she used to insult the customers of the video store she worked in and which mysteriously went off line while she was launching her victim tour. Never mind that she held on to the video for seven years and only released it when her father took her Mercedes from her and told her it was time for her to support herself. Never mind that she seems to have a twisted partnership with a mother who may have chronically undermined her husband’s parenting and attempts to set and enforce limits, and who just happens to now be in a custody battle with him over their 10 year old daughter. Never mind that in the video of her dad hitting her, she continued to defy her father while obeying her mother, possibly to ensure that the film evidence against him be as dramatic and as bad as possible, and that as soon as her parents left the room, her crying stopped and her first thought was to jump dry eyed from her bed to turn off the video recorder. Never mind that she did not release the video to a child protection agency or another social services organization as someone would have done if they truly wanted their father to get help, as she claimed, and she wanted to protect her little sister. None of these questions were pursued because of the backlash that would follow. I imagined every interviewer acutely aware of a flaming sword of destruction held over their head in the face of raging public opinion, and of course they caved. Who gives a damn about the truth, and investigative journalism? Sacrifice everything but the ratings, and lose the chance for any real dialogue about complex issues.

I have tons of outrage to spare for the sanctimonious experts who jumped on the victim bandwagon with both feet. Here was an opportunity for them to address the realities of what parents and children struggle with in real life situations. For example, here was their chance to talk about parents who are at their wits ends dealing with children who are openly defiant. Children who dare their parents to “do something about it” when their behaviour is called into question. Children who taunt their parents with the threat of calling Children’s Aid. Children who bully their parents by spitting on them, swearing at them, and hitting them. Children who lie and steal, who trash their parent’s homes, who refuse to go to school, refuse to go to work, refuse to clean up after themselves, refuse to stop taking drugs. These are the parents and children I see, and to not acknowledge that reality, to pretend that it’s not there, and to lump every parent who attempts to regain and assert authority through an extreme action, who may love their kids and are perhaps trying to do the right thing for them, in with every abuser is a slap in the face to those parents. And to lump those children in with every victim is an insult to survivors of abuse

Now I’m not saying that Hillary is not a victim, though I clearly have concerns about her behaviour and character. And I’m not saying that the father is not an abuser. His behaviour was abusive. But I object with all my morally outraged heart at the notion of Youtube justice. Trial by social networking! What next, are we to tweet in our verdicts? When these events occur, how about we sit back a little and withhold passing judgment, just as we would want for ourselves and our loved ones should we find ourselves and a fragment of our private lives exposed on-line.

And let’s not accept that there are places too sacred for questioning and discussion, and that we must fall in line with popular ideology or be deemed to be pro abuse and violence. Questioning and discussing this whole matter has led me to seriously call into question my own beliefs about what constitutes abuse, and whether extreme measures can ever be justified. I know that though I abhor violence and deeply value love, I have great capacity for both violence and love. Do I use my moral outrage at injustice as a way of justifying an outlet for violence? If I said I belted or spanked my child to correct him could I just be rationalizing my dark side? Can I ever be violent and abusive out of love? It horrifies me to think that any abuse (I think of the sickening sex abuse just now being revealed at Penn State) might then be justified by the abuser as an act of love. Where is the line? How can we know for sure if we are really doing something for a child as opposed to doing it for ourselves if we open the door to any violent behaviour? These are the issues I will continue to explore openly and honestly with my clients as they search for the right path for them. And I will do that because I know I am not better than they are and I am willing to be honest with myself, my flaws, and with my lack of ability to know what must be right. I will not oversimplify complex matters just so I can appear righteous. I will not pretend that I have cornered the market on what constitutes loving parenting. I accept my limitations, just as I believe that victims don’t just wear white hats and abusers don’t just wear black. Sometimes an abuser is a victim, and a victim is an abuser. Sometimes we wear gray. Let’s talk about that.

The Art of Emailing

Like most things people can love or hate, the topic of emails can generate some very strong emotions. While some of us seem to relish sending off volumes of emails complete with stupid pet trick u-tube attachments and motivational poems, others dread their overflowing inboxes and mutter about information overload. The latter (let’s call them “Informationers”) wish that the former would understand how busy they are. In their opinion, emails should be used only “professionally” for passing on critical organizational information such as meeting times, training opportunities, and programming updates. The former (we’ll call them “Connectors”) often wish that the latter would just “lighten up”. They would argue that what they do is all part of relationship and morale building

There certainly can exist a huge divide amongst colleagues concerning email use, and like most divides, it can create misunderstanding and resentment if not fairly addressed. Perhaps it will be helpful from a perspective taking purpose to understand that this issue did not begin with email. Those of us who predate email may remember our parents sternly admonishing us, “The phone is not for talking; it’s for taking messages!”

Of course it is important to remember context. When we were answering the phone while being harassed by our parents, we weren’t at work. Clearly time at work and use of office equipment should be related to the benefit of our employer. But even that perspective does not fully answer the question as to what is appropriate use of email. Both information sharing and connection building are vital aspects of organizational culture and effectiveness. The trick, it would seem, is to establish an email etiquette that manages to incorporate the best of both of these functions.

Thankfully, much of the solution is rooted in common sense. If we think of email as simply another form of communication, we can realize that we know a great deal about communication and what does and does not work. It’s actually when email is treated as somehow another animal for which separate communication rules apply, or for whom the usual rules don’t apply, do we get into trouble. Courtesy, intentionality, thoughtfulness, decency, politeness, clarity, inclusiveness, respectfulness, all are among the components of everyday effective communication and should be applied to all our interactions with each other, and email should be no exception. Seen that way, there need not be a choice between connection building and information sharing as the two can share a similar process.

Intentionality in emails as in every aspect of communication is significant. Are you simply sending information that you believe the recipient should be privy to? If so, you may not require an extended response, though you can still send it politely. And if you receive such an information email from a sender, you can certainly still acknowledge reception and say “thank you”. Functionality and practicality should never be used as excuses for the absence of civility. It takes less than five seconds to acknowledge an email that takes minutes to read. Those five seconds can be a key component to maintaining a relationship between yourself and the sender, unless you know for sure that they would prefer you didn’t reply.

Intentionality is also something to be considered upon receiving a “connection” email from a colleague. How many of us who complain about how work overload gets in the way of everyday decencies such as supporting each other become irritated when a colleague emails us a “frivolous” poem or thought in the middle of our busy day? “Don’t they know how busy we are and how cluttered our inbox is!” So much is about perspective. If we instead thought about how a colleague took the time to think of us and thought enough of us that they wanted to make us smile, perhaps we would feel differently (and even be more energized to do our work). How might it affect the culture of an organization if now and then coworkers sent out a “thank you” or “good job” email to each other out of the blue?

The flip side of that is true as well. As with verbal communication, simply “email talking” or rambling on indiscriminately at length without considering the timing or needs of ones intended recipient is not appropriate either. Bearing that in mind will help curtail the length, frequency, and content of emails sent so that colleagues don’t begin to tune you out and do have time to perform their work functions.

What follows are some general communication rules and how they apply to email.

Don’t yell. (Don’t USE UPPER CASE LETTERS IN YOUR EMAIL or overuse exclamation marks!!!!!)
Don’t dominate the conversation. (Don’t send tons of lengthy emails and attachments which may carry viruses. Try to keep your email communication as succinct as possible and avoid run-on sentences and marathon paragraphs.
Be clear and upfront about what you wish to convey. (Identify your topic clearly in your email heading).
Don’t stalk or be controlling. (Don’t demand a “Read Receipt”).
Maintain confidences and don’t gossip. (Don’t “Reply all” unless it’s necessary or if you’re asked, and don’t forward an email unless you know it’s okay with the original sender).
Don’t talk just for the sake of talking. (Don’t send emails to any or all staff unless you know exactly what you want to convey and how it will benefit each of the people who receive your email).
Think before you talk and don’t quickly react or respond out of anger (Emails are permanent and can be held against you. Consider the implications and consequences of your words. In line with that, re-read emails before sending them as improper spelling and grammar impacts your professional image).
Write professionally. Do not use MSN chat style writing at work. Avoid cutesy abbreviations, (“u” instead of “you”), emoticons, and above all else, please don’t LOL or LMAO!!
Be aware and sensitive about your choices of language and humour. (Harassment policies extend to emails).
Only claim that something is a crisis when it really is. (Avoid using the “high priority” function unless absolutely necessary).
Be open-minded and curious. (Think of the intent behind the received email and try to see the value in it).
Use your manners. (“Please” and “Thank you” have a place in most non-spam emails).
Be patient. (Don’t expect an immediate response as people may not check their email as often as you do, or they may be so swamped they can’t keep up).
Don’t ignore someone. (Do acknowledge receiving an email when you can even if only briefly. See rule “11”).
Be direct with people. (Don’t use email as a way of avoiding dealing with colleagues or as a substitute for in-person conversation if possible. This is particularly true for issues of conflict resolution).
Let it go! (Don’t indefinitely store emails. Clear out your emails periodically and delete unneeded messages.)

The nature of communication through any system has an enormous impact on the experience and functioning of its parts, and ultimately the health and functioning of the system as a whole. Email, as with any form of communication, can serve various important functions. It can serve as a vehicle to efficiently and quickly convey vital information. And, it is also a tool that can enhance equally vital connection and team spirit. Whether emails are burdensome, or are experienced positively and contribute to team functioning and growth, is dependent on people simply following common sense rules about communication that they likely already know.

Theo Selles, M.Sc.
647-686-0116