Trust & Integrity

The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past.Edition 253.

Most long term successful careers, relationships and lives are built not just on hard work, perseverance, discipline, forgiveness and resilience but also trust and integrity.

Trust enables speed and enables people to take risks on those they trust.

Integrity allows one to gain trust and live in internal and external harmony.

They may not result in fame and fortune but often result in contentment, calmness and comfort in one’s own self.

Gaining trust and living with integrity is difficult since human frailty leads to lapses and mishaps. But it is possible to put into practice habits and approaches that engender trust and allow one to live a life of integrity.

And best of all neither requires money or permission, allowing one to thrive anywhere and at all times by living authentically and with candor.

Earning Trust

To earn trust one must be a) clear about intentions, b) show the data, c) be transparent and d) self-correct.

Intentions: If one is not clear about what one is trying to achieve or what our goals are then many people begin to get suspicious. They wonder if there is a hidden agenda or there is some multi-dimensional chess game underway. If we wonder what someone is really trying to achieve it is hard to trust them

Data: In a data driven world how many people are willing to share and show the data on which they are making their decisions or drawing their conclusions? People talk about data but how often do they reveal the facts and figures which how they are coming to conclusions? Show the data versus asking belief in some hidden black box.

Transparency: In addition to clarity of intentions and the access to data it is necessary to be transparent on the process which leads to a recommendation or perspective. One needs to share not just the dish (goal) being prepared and the ingredients (data) but the process (recipe) of combining and turning the ingredients into the dish. This allows people to interrogate and also correct wrong recommendations by identifying where one’s goals, or one’s data or one’s thinking can be enhanced or improved.

Self-Correction: To be human is to err. So often one makes mistakes. A key part of keeping and gaining trust is correcting mistakes, clarifying miscommunications and adjusting one’s behaviors. Often it is how one reacts to something that goes wrong that earns trust than if things did not go wrong.

Achieving Integrity

Integrity is achieved when what one says, one believes and one does are aligned and also consistent with the realities of science and economics.

Clearly there are many times that what we say, what we believe and what we do may not be consistent.

Words, thoughts and actions may not align all the time.

It could be as simple as a white lie where not to hurt another’s feelings we hold our tongue.

Or it could be that we cannot afford to lose our job or endanger a relationship that we end up saying one thing while believing another or doing things not aligned with belief.

But over time a disparity between thought, belief and action leads to an internal corrosion, a draining of agency and is rarely the recipe for long term success.

It makes one insecure, hesitant and reduces the likelihood of success.

We end up living in other people’s minds where external aspirations are disconnected from an internal motivations. By following the wrong star home we our lose the way.

But aligning words, belief and action is not enough to live a life of integrity since life occurs in the real world where the rules of science and economics prevail in the long run.

We can say you we not believe in gravity and we can jump out of the window of a high floor. This aligns words, beliefs and actions but it also leaves us dead.

Or we can truly want to provide help to people, say so and do so but soon we or our companies will grow broke since someone has to create value and build resources before we allocate them away. Supply and demand, incentives of self interest and market economics always end up prevailing.

Words, beliefs and actions aligned with reality of science and economics is the way to achieve integrity.

Art by Karin Onsager a reader of this thought letter. More about Karin : https://www.karinonsager.art/

Rishad is an author whose new book Rethinking Work is helping people take charge of their careers in transformational times. More here: https://rethinking-work.io/