Integrity Management – Chapter 1 Preview

Introduction

"Integrity is one of the most important, yet perhaps most misunderstood, concerns in the world of work today." (Debbie Thorne LeClair)

"Integrity is based on the character and core values of an organization." (John Fraedrich)

A large industrial agricultural products manufacturer pays $100 million in organizational fines after a lengthy, highly publicized federal investigation into a price-fixing scheme.

A book wholesaler allegedly programs its computers to systematically overcharge government libraries, automatically rescinding promised discounts when customers’ purchases are entered into the database. When customers complain, sales personnel are instructed to describe the charges as mistakes and adjust the computers so that particular client is not overbilled again.

After analyzing several race-discrimination lawsuits, an Internet legal advice service recommends that companies routinely destroy documents, sign confidentiality agreements with subordinates, and prohibit workers from taping conversations.

A coworker advising a new employee on how to fill out expense forms offers this advice on how to get reimbursed for expense items not listed on the forms: "You can’t include tips, so one way you can be reimbursed is by increasing the amount of your cab fares. As you see, most cab drivers stamp the receipt and let you fill in the amount. I have been with the company for five years, and I should know what’s okay to do."

These incidents represent real world integrity issues. You can probably think of more examples based on your own observations and experiences in the workplace. Headlines in your local newspaper, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Business Week spotlight the growing importance of integrity in the workplace. Many of these headlines stem from misconduct resulting from a failure to incorporate integrity into organizational policies.

To us, integrity management is an organization’s uncompromising implementation of legal and ethical principles. An organization should include integrity in its strategic planning to provide a complete focus on productivity and success. We therefore decided to develop this book as a guide to planning, organizing, and implementing organizational integrity. We want to help managers in all types of organizations comply with laws and regulations by offering a blueprint for improving integrity in the workplace. We believe that integrity management ultimately improves organizational character and increases most measures of trust, customer service, productivity, and profits.

Before we proceed, we think it is important to tell you what this book does and does not do. First, this book is a guide for organizational integrity, not personal ethics. Second, it does not moralize or tell you what is right or wrong in specific situations. Third, although the book discusses integrity and decision-making processes, we do not advocate any particular philosophy or process as the best or most ethical. Rather, our goal is to help you understand and apply your current values and convictions to decisions and to encourage you to think about the consequences of your decisions on business and society. We want to help you develop integrity programs and resolve ethical and legal issues. The framework we develop in this book therefore focuses on processes for integrity management—implementing a legal and ethical compliance program.

Anyone who says that creating a high-integrity workplace is easy does not understand the challenges and pressures that most of us face as we make decisions on a daily basis. This book is about creating an organizational culture of integrity to help deal with those challenges and achieve professional and organizational success. To get started on the road toward organizational integrity, we will explore in this chapter the growing importance and rewards of managing integrity in today’s organizations.

Next