Showing Personal Integrity

Personal integrity generates trust and is the basis of many different kinds of deposits.

Lack of integrity can undermine almost any other effort to create high trust accounts. People can

seek to understand, remember the little things, keep their promises, clarify and fulfill expectations, and still fail to build reserves of trust if they are inwardly duplicitous.

Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty. Honesty is telling the truth -- in other words,

conforming our words to reality. Integrity is conforming reality to our words -- in other words,

keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. This requires an integrated character, a oneness,

primarily with self but also with life.

One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In

doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you

retain the trust of those present.

Suppose you and I were talking alone, and we were criticizing our supervisor in a way that we

would not dare to if he were present. Now what will happen when you and I have a falling out? You

know I'm going to be discussing your weaknesses with someone else. That's what you and I did

behind our supervisor's back. You know my nature. I'll sweet-talk you to your face and bad-mouth

you behind your back. You've seen me do it.

That's the essence of duplicity. Does that build a reserve of trust in my account with you.

On the other hand, suppose you were to start criticizing our supervisor and I basically told you I

agree with the content of some of the criticism and suggest that the two of us go directly to him and

make an effective presentation of how things might be improved. Then what would you know I

would do if someone were to criticize you to me behind your back?

For another example, suppose in my effort to build a relationship with you, I told you something

someone else had shared with me in confidence. "I really shouldn't tell you this," I might say, "but since you're my friend..." Would my betraying another person build my trust account with you? Or would you wonder if the things you had told me in confidence were being shared with others?

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart Such duplicity might appear to be making a deposit with the person you're with, but it is actually a

withdrawal because you communicate your own lack of integrity. You may get the golden egg of

temporary pleasure from putting someone down or sharing privileged information, but you're

strangling the goose, weakening the relationship that provides enduring pleasure in association.

Integrity in an interdependent reality is simply this: you treat everyone by the same set of principles.

As you do, people will come to trust you. They may not at first appreciate the honest confrontational

experiences such integrity might generate. Confrontation takes considerable courage, and many

people would prefer to take the course of least resistance, belittling and criticizing, betraying

confidences, or participating in gossip about others behind their backs. But in the long run, people

will trust and respect you if you are honest and open and kind with them. You care enough to

confront. And to be trusted, it is said, is greater than to be loved. In the long run, I am convinced, to be trusted will be also mean to be loved.

When my son Joshua was quite young, he would frequently ask me a soul-searching question.

Whenever I overreacted to someone else or was the least bit impatient or unkind, he was so vulnerable

and so honest and our relationship was so good that he would simply look me in the eye and say, "Dad, do you love me?" If he thought I was breaking a basic principle of life toward someone else, he

wondered if I wouldn't break it with him.

As a teacher, as well as a parent, I have found that the key to the ninety-nine is the one -- particularly the one that is testing the patience and the good humor of the many. It is the love and the discipline of the one student, the one child, that communicates love for the others. It's how you treat the one that reveals how you regard the ninety-nine, because everyone is ultimately a one.

Integrity also means avoiding any communication that is deceptive, full of guile, or beneath the

dignity of people. "A lie is any communication with intent to deceive," according to one definition of the word. Whether we communicate with words or behavior, if we have integrity, our intent cannot

be to deceive.

Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal

When we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize and we need

to do it sincerely. Great deposits come in the sincere words

"I was wrong."

"That was unkind of me."

"I showed you no respect."

"I gave you no dignity, and I'm deeply sorry."

"I embarrassed you in front of your friends and I had no call to do that. Even though I wanted to make a point, I never should have done it. I apologize."

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of

pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and

values in order to genuinely apologize.

People with little internal security can't do it. It makes them too vulnerable. They feel it makes

them appear soft and weak, and they fear that others will take advantage of their weakness. Their

security is based on the opinions of other people, and they worry about what others might think. In

addition, they usually feel justified in what they did. They rationalize their own wrong in the name of the other person's wrong, and if they apologize at all, it's superficial.

"If you're going to bow, bow low," say Eastern wisdom. "Pay the uttermost farthing," says the Christian ethic. To be a deposit, an apology must be sincere. And it must be perceived as sincere.

Leo Roskin taught, "It is the weak who are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart I was in my office at home one afternoon writing, of all things, on the subject of patience. I could

hear the boys running up and down the hall making loud banging noises, and I could feel my own

patience beginning to wane.

Suddenly, my son David started pounding on the bathroom door, yelling at the top of his lungs, "Let

me in! Let me in!"

I rushed out of the office and spoke to him with great intensity. "David, do you have any idea how disturbing that is to me? Do you know how hard it is to try to concentrate and write creatively? Now you go into your room and stay in there until you can behave yourself." So in he went, dejected, and shut the door.

As I turned around, I became aware of another problem. The boys had been playing tackle football

in the four-foot-wide hallway, and one of them had been elbowed in the mouth. He was lying there in

the hall, bleeding from the mouth. David, I discovered, had gone to the bathroom to get a wet towel

for him. But his sister, Maria, who was taking a shower, wouldn't open the door.

When I realized that I had completely misinterpreted the situation and had overreacted, I

immediately went in to apologize to David.

As I opened the door, the first thing he said to me was, "I won't forgive you."

"Well, why not, honey?" I replied. "Honestly, I didn't realize you were trying to help your brother.

Why won't you forgive me?"

"Because you did the same thing last week," he replied. In other words, he was saying. "Dad, you're overdrawn, and you're not going to talk your way out of a problem you behaved yourself into."

Sincere apologies make deposits; repeated apologies interpreted as insincere make withdrawals.

And the quality of the relationship reflects it.

It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it. People will forgive

mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily

forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of the first mistake.

The Laws of Love and the Laws of Life

When we make deposits of unconditional love, when we live the primary laws of love, we

encourage others to live the primary laws of life. In other words, when we truly love others without

condition, without strings, we help them feel secure and safe and validated and affirmed in their

essential worth, identity, and integrity. Their natural growth process is encouraged. We make it

easier for them to live the laws of life -- cooperation, contribution, self-discipline, integrity -- and to discover and live true to the highest and best within them. We give them the freedom to act on their

own inner imperatives rather than react to our conditions and limitations. This does not mean we

become permissive or soft. That itself is a massive withdrawal. We counsel, we plead, we set limits and consequences. But we love, regardless.

When we violate the primary laws of love -- when we attach strings and conditions to that gift -- we

actually encourage others to violate the primary laws of life. We put them in a reactive, defensive

position where they feel they have to prove "I matter as a person, independent of you."

In reality, they aren't independent. They are counter-dependent, which is another form of

dependency and is at the lowest end of the Maturity Continuum. They become reactive, almost

enemy-centered, more concerned about defending their "rights" and producing evidence of their

individuality than they are about proactively listening to and honoring their own inner imperatives.

Rebellion is a knot of the heart, not of the mind. The key is to make deposits -- constant deposits of unconditional love.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart I once had a friend who was dean of a very prestigious school. He planned and saved for years to

provide his son the opportunity to attend that institution, but when the time came, the boy refused to

go.

This deeply concerned his father. Graduating from that particular school would have been a great

asset to the boy. Besides, it was a family tradition. Three generations of attendance preceded the boy.

The father pleaded and urged and talked. He also tried to listen to the boy to understand him, all the while hoping that the son would change his mind.

The subtle message being communicated was one of conditional love. The son felt that in a sense

the father's desire for him to attend the school outweighed the value he placed on him as a person and

as a son, which was terribly threatening. Consequently, he fought for and with his own identity and

integrity, and he increased his resolve and his efforts to rationalize his decision not to go.

After some intense soul-searching, the father decided to make a sacrifice -- to renounce conditional

love. He knew that his son might choose differently than he had wished; nevertheless, he and his wife

resolved to love their son unconditionally, regardless of his choice. It was an extremely difficult thing to do because the value of his educational experience was so close to their hearts and because it was

something they had planned and worked for since his birth.

The father and mother went through a very difficult rescripting process, struggling to really

understand the nature of unconditional love. They communicated to the boy what they were doing

and why, and told him that they had come to the point at which they could say in all honesty that his

decision would not affect their complete feeling of unconditional love toward him. They didn't do this to manipulate him, to try to get him to "shape up." They did it as the logical extension of their growth and character.

The boy didn't give much of a response at the time, but his parents had such a paradigm of

unconditional love at that point that it would have made no difference in their feelings for him. About a week later, he told his parents that he had decided not to go. They were perfectly prepared for his

response and continued to show unconditional love for him. Everything was settled and life went

along normally.

A short time later, an interesting thing happened. Now that the boy no longer felt he had to defend

his position, he searched within himself more deeply and found that he really did want to have this

educational experience. He applied for admission, and then he told his father, who again showed

unconditional love by fully accepting his son's decision. My friend was happy, but not excessively so, because he had truly learned to love without condition.

Dag Hammarskjold, past Secretary-General of the United Nations, once made a profound,

far-reaching statement: "It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses."

I take that to mean that I could devote eight, ten, or twelve hours a day, five, six, or seven days a

week to the thousands of people and projects "out there" and still not have a deep, meaningful

relationship with my own spouse, with my own teenage son, with my closest working associate. And

it would take more nobility of character -- more humility, courage, and strength -- to rebuild that one

relationship than it would to continue putting in all those hours for all those people and causes.

In 25 years of consulting with organizations, I have been impressed over and over again by the

power of that statement. Many of the problems in organizations stem from relationship difficulties at

the very top -- between two partners in a company, between the president and an executive

vice-president. It truly takes more nobility of character to confront and resolve those issues than it

does to continue to diligently work for the many projects and people "out there."

When I first came across Hammarskjold's statement, I was working in an organization where there

were unclear expectations between the individual who was my right-hand man and myself. I simply

did not have the courage to confront our differences regarding role and goal expectations and values,

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart particularly in our methods of administration. So I worked for a number of months in a compromise

mode to avoid what might turn out to be an ugly confrontation. All the while, bad feelings were

developing inside both of us.

After reading that it is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor

diligently for the salvation of the masses, I was deeply affected by the idea of rebuilding that

relationship.

I had to steel myself for what lay ahead, because I knew it would be hard to really get the issues out

and to achieve a deep, common understanding and commitment. I remember actually shaking in

anticipation of the visit. He seemed like such a hard man, so set in his own ways and so right in his

own eyes; yet I needed his strengths and abilities. I was afraid a confrontation might jeopardize the

relationship and result in my losing those strengths.

I went through a mental dress rehearsal of the anticipated visit, and I finally became settled within

myself around the principles rather than the practices of what I was going to do and say. At last I felt peace of mind and the courage to have the communication.

When we met together, to my total surprise, I discovered that this man had been going through the

very same process and had been longing for such a conversation. He was anything but hard and

defensive.

Nevertheless, our administrative styles were considerably different, and the entire organization was

responding to these differences. We both acknowledged the problems that our disunity had created.

Over several visits, we were able to confront the deeper issues, to get them all out on the table, and to resolve them, one by one, with a spirit of high mutual respect. We were able to develop a powerful

complementary team and a deep personal affection which added tremendously to our ability to work

effectively together.

Creating the unity necessary to run an effective business or a family or a marriage requires great

personal strength and courage. No amount of technical administrative skill in laboring for the masses

can make up for lack of nobility of personal character in developing relationships. It is at a very

essential, one-on-one level, that we live the primary laws of love and life.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1206