The document explores the concept of integrity, highlighting its importance in guiding moral and ethical decisions. It emphasizes that integrity is foundational to establishing personal and business standards, with real-life examples provided from the author's experiences. The author advocates for prioritizing integrity in decision-making, reflecting on the potential impact of operating without it.

1. INTEGRITY
INTRO:
I’m prompted to write this piece, as I consider myself to be
a person of high integrity and I recently re-read the book
“The Remedy” by Pascal Dennis. Pascal asks a series of
searching questions about integrity, which inspired me to
think a bit more deeply about it.
WHAT IS INTEGRITY?
Siri describes Integrity as:
“Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a
consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral
and ethical principles and values.”

2. INTEGRITY
MY GROUNDING:
Whenever I am faced with a difficult choice in life, where I must
weigh up various factors such as cost, time, ease/convenience,
plus any ethical or moral aspects, I have always asked myself
“What would make my Dad proud?”. It is from my Dad that I
gained my strong moral and ethical principles and values.
I always responded favourably to one of my former Toyota
Managers, the excellent Mr. Paul Fitzpatrick, who when faced
with a complex issue with many possible solutions, would
always say, “Let’s Do The Right Thing”.
“Do The Right Thing” has been my primary value since starting
my own business 10 years ago. It may not always be the most
profitable thing to do, but I sleep well at nights knowing that I
have stuck to this principle firmly on those occasions when
difficult decisions have to be made.

3. INTEGRITY
STANDARDS:
Pascal Dennis asks “What is integrity and how does it relate to standards?”
My interpretation of this is that having those strong moral and ethical
principles and values can help us to create standards that outline, for a given
situation, what is “The Right Thing” to do, or the right way to do it. It can
influence policy, such as how your business conducts itself.
Integrity in this arena would be things like, being open and honest in all
dealings with other parties and with its workforce. It can mean paying
suppliers’ bills on time, minimising environmental impact, not profiteering
excessively when an opportunity arises, dealing promptly and
sympathetically with complaints from customers and the neighbouring
community, then actively seeking ways to avoid further such complaints in
future. It can be having strong Health & Safety policy and procedures to
protect the workforce, or strong quality procedures to minimise poor quality
product or service being passed onto customers.

4. INTEGRITY
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Pascal asks “Is integrity possible in the absence of standards?”
I would answer “Yes”, because for me, integrity is about a state
of mind, a way of behaving and for me it is the basis of how you
set your own personal standards. So, integrity comes first,
standards second.
That isn’t to say that you can’t have standards without integrity.
They would simply be different (lower) standards. That’s
because some people are quite prepared to operate without
integrity.
Does your business operate with integrity?
In what ways do its standards reflect this?
I’d love to hear some examples ……..