Inviting Integrity In

For a work-related article, this entry is a broad outline of why we may value Integrity in working relationships.?Hopefully stimulate new avenues for conversation, with our upcoming training in mind – Inviting Integrity In.

?Firstly, I am aware, that I have quite a ‘life-affirming’ outlook on life.?I believe life in its diversity is good and we all belong here together.?And that includes responding to the problem that not everything that we encounter is good.

Thus, a major part of our human experience, growing up ‘humaning’ amongst other humans in societies, requires us to respond to the corruption, dishonesty, greed, hatred, ignorance, and general ill will towards one another.? Important to realise is that this is part of (not an exception of) what it means to be human. ???There are those who respond well to corruption, greed, and ill will, and they are usually praised for having Integrity. ?It is important to remember that this response is often one of reconciling these negative aspects also in Oneself. ?

By reconcilition I don’t mean agreement, more like finding harmony, and balance in different points of view to bring about a sense of renewal as the word suggests from its Latin roots ‘reconciliō’ – renewal, restoration, reconciliation.

To appreciate why integrity is valued, let us ask what corruption, dishonesty, greed, hatred, resentment, gossip, ill will and so forth does to a person, company, working relationship, or society??

Psychologically, it erodes trust, seeds doubt, severs social bonds, fragments our thoughts, and breaks down communication, leaving us feeling isolated and lacking belonging in the world. We experience this disconnect from others, our families, and companies, all too frequently. We can even feel alien in our own bodies.?Split as if we can stand in opposition to our very selves as if we are not also our bodies.?

Why do we value those who stand up for what we consider to be good? What does ‘good’ even mean???

Etymologically ‘good’ is traced back to words such as ‘god’ and ‘belonging together’ as in a good fit.?

Spiritually God and good are aimed to be a good fit. ?For ‘to miss the mark’ is to be separated from God, the good or that which belongs together.?Here I don’t advocate a specific religion, clearly, religions as institutions are missing the mark as much as the rest of us, and we all may need reconciliation – in a spiritual sense atonement - ‘at-one-ment’ with all that is. ???

This makes sense to me also in secular terms, as a good aim in life is to reconcile oneself with how things really are.?Not just as simple as agreement, but as I say find harmony in difference as a way towards renewal.?Our perception and imagination should be in correspondence with reality not in opposition or separation from it. We need to be able to see through our glassy essence, which at times like a window may reflect our image like a mirror, yet I believe it is a mistake to get trapped like Narcissus by our own reflection in the world.?To be separated by our own reflection is to only encounter ourselves in each encounter in the world.?I think Sartre’s ‘Hell is other people’ is true to the extent that you make other people about you and thus get trapped by how others perceive you.?

Ethically, as a rule of thumb, we could say that we are social animals who value that which reconciles our differences and are wary of those actions that cause fragmentation, discord, strife, or aggressively eradicating all differences. ?Thus, virtues such as Justice, Courage and Generosity are universally valued, and dynamically balanced rather than actions pushed to extremity.?

A simplified conclusion from all we’ve said thus far is to say we value that which heal, makes whole, unites, and builds community – common unity.?

So, why is Integrity attractive to us??Well, it may be worth saying that Integrity means ‘being whole and undivided’ as much as it means ‘being true to your ethical commitments.’ For both definitions, to hold true, we need ethical commitments that don’t fragment us, that bring us together and make us whole.?This means as we explore our differences our ethics need to continually find ways to correspond and harmonise with one another.?

Ethics is not Compliance.?Ethics that lack our ability to question, rebel, converse, or disagree are not open to dialogue, reconciliation, and renewal. And we really do need constant avenues to renew our way of being in the world.

As I said the kind of reconciliation or harmony, I advocate here is dynamic, with range and differentiation and include co-responding(correspondence) with discord, decay and breakdown.?It allows for our values to have differences in range and distinction, so we can attune back to some sort of resonance, balance, homeostasis, or harmony.

To clarify, fragmentation is not the same as distinction.?Distinction still stands in relationship with the whole, where fragmentation is broken off from any relationship to the whole.?We enjoy distinctly different notes to tune into.?If it is all the same note, then there is no music nor need for harmony.

Similarly, integrity is revealed over time, need to allow for variance and accompaniment of all our values. ?Or we could say as temporal beings our integrity is shown in how coherent our thoughts, values and actions are, over time.

Coherence means to co-here, to see what hangs together and realise what is incoherent in our ideas, actions, and behaviours and adjust those. ?Our business should not impose wholeness, that is beyond our capability and leads to totalitarianism, this eradicates difference and imposes our values onto others. Rather our business is to share what our values mean to us, to see where they are incoherent, contradicting or opposing other values we may have. This process is basically what I mean when I say dialogue.

?In hiring and leadership, Integrity is often the most sought-after aspect of a person.?When we want someone to join our company it is to find ‘belonging together’, to know that we are a good fit to get the job done, with an ethical commitment to mutual flourishing. And in leaders to help unite us rather than divide us.?

Yet the problem is when we go looking for integrity, we are not so sure how to find it.?For as we said it is mostly revealed over time.?It is more like a daily practice to see where our values and habits are causing division and fragmentation and how to heal or reconcile them.

We are very quick to claim integrity for ourselves and our companies, a lip service, virtue signal to attract a good reputation and more business.?But integrity is not something you can fake.?You will be split in your very being and groups will split from other groups in opposition and strife.?This is not an issue you can solve on your own.?You could whistle blow on corruption and find yourself ostracised.?You could start opposing and even hating that company and employees who ostracised you for telling the truth.?Now I am not saying we should not stand up for the good and truth. We absolutely should.?We should just appreciate how deep the problem runs.?We should see that those who stand up for the good in humankind are trying to stand up for that which will give us a sense of belonging together on this planet with all the other living organisms. That is attractive and we should not let them stand alone.?

I believe we need to act on the level of communication and dialogue.?That is where we can reconcile and renew ourselves and our organisations, which will almost naturally decay and corrupt.?Even our bodies will decay and disintegrate, there is a limit to the renewal we can do.?But to renew our bodies we need nourishment, to restore our shared humanity we also need a form of nourishment and connection.?This I believe can be done via dialogue and shared meaning.

As an example, take the Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC) in South Africa.?The idea is a great one after the era of Apartheid, separation, and fragmentation.?Yet we did not manage to turn it into a country-wide dialogue yet.?Dialogue invites participation in life. To be a part of the whole in communion with it. At the TRC we had a few repenting and the rest of us trying to move on without having all these conversations in our homes, places of work and communities.?Dialogue is not an inquisition it is an understanding of our differences and how we can live together in that difference.?Our political parties are still opposed to one another and blaming each other.?We blame our governments and yet do not talk and reconcile our differences in an everyday sense.?

I suggest instead of claiming integrity and seeking integrity in others, let’s invite integrity in.?Invite each other in for dialogue.?That is where we will heal and become whole and gain a sense of belonging, in that everyday conversation, sharing meaning, gaining an understanding of our differences, where we can harmonise and dance to renewed variations of music and ways of being that will emerge.