Frequently Asked Questions

Put simply, it’s the full integration of an organization’s values. Walking your talk. Practicing what you preach. Integrity goes beyond honesty to incorporate a wholeness, coherence and alignment that defines corporate character.

Most corporations would agree—integrity has always been a critically important value for organizations and institutions. Yet in our increasingly globalized and interconnected world, integrity is no longer assumed. It’s ironic—our level of connectivity has never been so high, and our level of trust in organizations has never been so low. Organizations need to learn how to measure, manage and proactively demonstrate corporate integrity, with greater confidence, credibility and authenticity.

Philosophers, ethicists, faith leaders, psychologists and other experts have, for centuries, been struggling to define and measure positive values (virtues), including the value of integrity. In their Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook, Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman (ENDNOTE 1) classify six core virtues made up of twenty-four measurable character strengths. One of these character strengths is integrity, defined in behavioural terms “as a regular pattern of behavior that is consistent with espoused values” (e.g. practicing what you preach). (ENDNOTE 2) Peterson and Seligman also connect the dots between integrity and other character strengths, including authenticity and honesty: Speaking the truth but more broadly presenting oneself in a genuine way; being without pretense; taking responsibility for one’s feelings and actions; the internal sense of being a morally coherent being.

In Corporate Integrity: A Toolkit for Managing beyond Compliance (Kennedy-Glans and Schulz, 2005), (ENDNOTE 3) management tools were introduced to guide organizations in their alignment of integrity purpose, commitments and actions. These tools were created to bring some clarity to the prevailing confusion, and angst, about corporate integrity:

“When speaking of integrity, some people think in terms of right and wrong, or black and white. Some people think of others as being either honest or dishonest. Some people think of corporations as either having business integrity or lacking business integrity. However, it is frequently difficult to say whether a corporate action or inaction is 100 percent right or 100 percent wrong. “Doing the right thing” often means different things to different people.”

These specialized tools have been upgraded and Integrity Bridges Inc. is excited to launch a new tool, A Measure of Integrity (together with a companion Scorecard), to help organizations not only declare integrity as a core value, but as well, to transform this core value into an integral, inseparable aspect of a company’s culture. We believe companies can have integrity in their integrity by:

Intentionally and proactively committing to integrity as a core value for their organization; and

Transforming this core value into an integral, inseparable aspect of the company’s culture by aligning the organization’s commitments and actions to this value in a comprehensive, systematic and encompassing way.

What’s the business case for managing corporate integrity?

Some people say acting with integrity is just the right thing to do. We don’t disagree….but we also encourage companies to ask themselves: why do we strategically manage the value of integrity? Every company has a unique business case.

Why does our organization strategically manage corporate integrity? To:

Define Corporate Character: More intentionally define corporate character e.g. reputation, authenticity, legitimacy, credibility.

Build Adaptive Positioning: Improve corporate ability to minimize missed opportunities and danger, and at the same time increase caring, responsibility and ability.

Enhance Creativity and Innovation: Improve corporate ability to recognize a full range of choices and proactively design innovative responses.

Build Integrity Acumen: Build corporate knowledge of how integrity functions, and build corporate ability to exercise better judgement and make timely decisions.

Measure Integrity: Equip organization to set integrity targets and measure integrity progress and decline.

Build Resiliency: Generate corporate resiliency—an organization’s ability to commit to values over the long term and recover from any integrity breaches (e.g. by catalyzing a healthier workforce, enhanced employee morale, community buy-in, positive political will.)

Embed Other Values: Create systems in an organization that allow other values, e.g. sustainability, to become embedded in the corporate culture.

Improve Constructive Engagement: Equips communities and other external stakeholders to have constructive conversations with an organization on issues that matter.

Build Competitive Advantage: Allows an organization to differentiate itself from its competitors (e.g. clearly distinguish compliance vs. non-compliance strategies).

Focus on Internalities: Restores corporate focus on internally-motivated corporate values (not just externally-generated performance markers). Allows organizations to balance internalities and externalities.

Enhance Response to Critics: Enhance corporate capacity to respond to criticisms from external stakeholders (e.g. queries re: human rights and corporate strategies).

Improve Capacity to Align Actions to Policies: Improves corporate capacity to align actions to corporate policies across an entire organization (and within individual departments and business units).

Improve Monitoring, Reporting and Communication: Enhances corporate ability to monitor and report on performance in Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility reports, and other corporate communications.

Enrich Shareholder Relations: Improves corporate preparedness for Annual General Meetings and other shareholder engagement.

Enhance Attractiveness to Social/Ethical Funds: Enhances the likelihood of a company being included in social/ethical funds; Reduces the risk of a company being removed from social/ethical funds.

Proactive Risk Management: Improves organizational ability to anticipate and diffuse issues framed by third parties (shift from reactive reputation management to proactive).

Build Credibility: Enhances corporate credibility with key stakeholders (e.g. employees, shareholders, governments, potential partners).

Maintain Social Licence: Helps organizations maintain social license to operate with local communities.

Mitigate Litigation Risk: Helps organizations mitigate the risk of litigation

Reduce Operating Risks: Helps companies reduce operating risks, e.g. delays.

Improve Access to Funding: Improves corporate access to funding.

Enhance Partnering Opportunities: Improves capacity to position a company as a strategic partner with other for profit, government and not-for-profit organizations.

Build Organizational Capacity: Enhances ability to transfer corporate learnings and experiences.

Reduce Surprises: Reduces the risk of a company being caught by surprise, failing to anticipate issues in advance.

Create a Learning Organization: Fosters a learning environment in an organization; stimulates opportunities for employees to learn.

Build Corporate Confidence: Improves corporate confidence in its ability to operate effectively, even in complex business environments.

Improve Governance: Improves Boards of Directors’ confidence in corporate commitments and actions, and in organizational governance

Other corporate rationales for managing integrity:

If you have additional reasons to manage corporate integrity, let us know. We would like to add your organization’s reasons to this checklist.

Is integrity more complex than ‘wholeness’ …or a lack of contradiction?

Of course it is. Acting with integrity is an energizing action; it’s not a collapse into static ‘wholeness’. John Tarrant, psychotherapist and teacher of Zen Buddhism (ENDNOTE 4) says it best:

“Acting with integrity is the way we work with and refine character. The root of the word integrity means “whole or undivided,” and so we think that in people with integrity their intention is not split from its embodiment—word and act do not differ; their spiritual impulses and soul impulses connect, and their life completes itself in the world. But we all have inner conflicts and so integrity must be something more complex than a lack of contradiction.” (ENDNOTE 5)

It’s critically important to understand how these ‘inner conflicts’ referred to by Tarrant can limit a company’s ability to imbed integrity into the organization’s DNA in a comprehensive, systematic and encompassing way. (ENDNOTE 6) Many companies commit to positive integrity targets; they sincerely want to be ‘good corporate citizens’. And yet, they routinely fail to make the changes needed to achieve and sustain their targeted level of integrity. Why?

Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey are organizational psychologists who have researched resistance to change in organizations, and their observations are insightful:

“Every manager is familiar with the employee who just won’t change. Sometimes it’s easy to see why—the employee fears a shift in power, the need to learn new skills, the stress of having to join a new team. In other cases, such resistance is far more puzzling. An employee has the skills and smarts to make a change with ease, has shown a deep commitment to the company, generally supports the change—and yet, inexplicably, does nothing.” (ENDNOTE 7)

Kegan and Lahey’s conclusions? This resistance to change isn’t a result of opposition or inertia. “Instead, even as they hold a sincere commitment to change, many people are unwittingly applying productive energy toward a hidden competing commitment.” (ENDNOTE 8 ) These individuals are manifesting a kind of personal immunity to change.

Acting with integrity is active work, and it’s challenging work. In A Measure of Integrity, we envision a dynamic pulsing energy moving from intention to commitment to action, making refinements and adjustments as needed, and building momentum for spiraling integrity. This dynamic action is needed to embed values into every fibre of an organization’s being. (ENDNOTE 9)

People, and organizations, develop their integrity by testing a situation or a method. In this testing, we do something and notice the consequences for ourselves and others and if we are honest about those consequences, we alter our future acts in response. Ken Low, leadership and organizational behaviour expert, speaks of this testing as adaptive positioning: the ability to minimize missed opportunities and danger, and at the same time increase caring, responsibility and ability. (ENDNOTE 10)

Here’s a short Corporate Integrity Tale describing how Oticon, a Danish hearing aid company, was able to rejuvenate profitability by this testing or adaptive positioning:

Integrity Tale: “Oticon, a Danish company founded in 1904, was the first hearing instrument company in the world. In the 1970s, it was the world’s number one manufacturer of ‘behind the ear’ hearing aids. However, as the market for ‘in the ear’ products grew in the 1970s and 1980s, Oticon’s fortunes plummeted and it lost money and market share. In 1987, so poor was the company’s performance that it lost half of its equity. The basic problem was that Oticon was a very traditional, departmentalized and slow-moving company.” (ENDNOTE 11)

How did Oticon transform this traditional, Danish company into a position to compete in this market against the world’s leading electronics companies? Oticon’s leaders decided to re-examine their organization, from the inside out. In this testing, the management team realized that the company was starting to see itself as a technology-manufacturing company…and not as a knowledge-based service business. Oticon decided to reassert its corporate purpose, declaring itself in the business of ‘making people smile’ –restoring enjoyment of life for people with hearing difficulties. Based on this clarification in purpose, the company adapted a holistic approach to customer care systems, including how to conduct conversations with customers about lifestyle needs. The company chose not to see itself as a technology-manufacturing company.

To flush out integrity laggards, do we really need another tool?

Corporate management toolkits are filled to the brim with guides telling us how to manage and lead ethical companies; do we really need yet another tool? Fair question! A Measure of Integrity is not THE model or THE tool or THE roadmap to corporate integrity. This tool is designed to complement and refine existing ideas and models and theories, and hopefully, to add fresh insight. Ultimately, companies have to select the tools that work for their organization.

A Measure of Integrity uses integrity as the framework—the corporate scaffolding—within which an organization’s commitments and actions can be systematically ordered and strategically aligned, including those relating to:

finance and fund-raising

corporate culture

corporate social responsibility

safety practices

security management

crisis response

competitive advantage

transparency

consumer expectations

privacy

productivity

government relations

industry leadership

relations with unions

shareholders

risk management

role in industry associations

governance

Indigenous relations

environmental protection

social impacts of investment

reputation

sustainability strategies

climate change responses

employee training

community relations

philanthropy

supply chain

human rights

innovation and research

respect for diversity

conflict and dispute resolution

compliance

public-private partnerships leadership training succession planning

leadership training

succession planning

You describe A Measure of Integrity as a corporate integrity tool. What does that mean?

Many professionals and researchers, even advocacy groups, have designed tools, guides and roadmaps to support organizations in their ability to imbed a particular value. For example, Transparency International is a not-for-profit organization, with offices set up in countries across the globe, focused on the value of transparency. This organization engages experts to measure the transparency of governments, and guides corporate investors on how to reduce bribery and corruption risks in countries that score low on the their transparency index. As well, experts and academic institutions often collaborate in their focus on a particular organizational value. For example, The Richard Barrett Values Centre (ENDNOTE 12)—a for-profit consultancy focused on organizational culture assessment and performance—partners with Royal Roads University’s Institute for Values-Based Leadership. (ENDNOTE 13)

Integrity Bridges Inc. is an organization focused on integrity: corporate integrity, political integrity, gender integrity, community integrity…many aspects of integrity. To support organizations imbed the value of integrity, Integrity Bridges Inc. has designed A Measure of Integrity and shares this tool with others in this learning community on an open-source basis. This assessment tool measures ascending and descending levels of corporate integrity:

The ascending scale of integrity in A Measure of Integrity marks off from level +1 to level +7 the gradients of positive integrity from strict compliance with laws (level +1) to thinking about regeneration and future generations (level +7). Level +3 marks the point where organizations move from compliance with laws to beyond compliance. An organization doesn’t necessarily operate at one single integrity threshold, but they often choose dominant integrity strategies. For example, companies may choose to operate at level +2 (compliance) re: payment of taxes and at level +3 (beyond compliance) with respect to other strategic decisions.

The scale of diluting integrity—also marked off from levels 1 to 7 –reflects what the demise of integrity can look like, and how these choices are rationalized. Organizations can slide into failed integrity; situationally justifying decisions (on a project, divisional or organization-wide basis) to side-step laws and policies that are perceived to be unfair (level -1) or rationalizing a sub-cultural norm to override compliance with third party laws and policies (level -2). At the mid-range of this declining scale are organizations willing to violate rules, even criminal laws, in response to catastrophic events or to stay competitive. It can be a bit like a game of Snakes and Ladders! At the very bottom of this scale, at level -7, you will find organizations and individuals who have plunged into full self-absorption: “it’s all about us/me, right now!”

Like nesting Russian dolls, each successive level of integrity transcends and includes the previous level or levels on A Measure of Integrity.

For example, at level +3, organizations are motivated to act beyond compliance with laws and policies. At level +3, that company is also motivated to comply with laws and policies (level +2); and strictly comply with legal requirements (level +1).

The same is true in the descending scale. An organization functioning at level -4 (conducting cost-benefit analysis of compliance with laws) would also be motivated to avoid compliance with laws and policies: to avoid criminal prosecution (level -3); to rationalize an overriding sub-cultural norm (level -2); and to situationally justify non-compliance with rules and laws (level -1).

Why didn’t we just create a corporate performance checklist?

A Measure of Integrity isn’t an externally generated ranking of how moral or ethical a company’s behaviours are perceived or judged.

It’s not a checklist.

There is understandable public cynicism about corporate motivation and capacity to act with integrity. Some for-profit companies have been condemned as uncaring, greedy and callous; the same holds true for governmental organizations. As a result, critics are demanding tighter regulation of corporate integrity, and advocates have developed their own definitions of ‘integrity’ that they would like to foist upon organizations. Certainly, it is useful for legitimate and knowledgeable third parties to help set and monitor corporate integrity performance indicators:

Human Rights Watch can establish human rights thresholds for companies and governments, and monitor adherence;

Greenpeace can shame CEOs and companies that cause damage to the environment or ecology;

Faith-based advocates can set the moral and ethical tone for their adherents.

And yet, many organizations are weary of engaging in polarized ‘shame and blame’ theatrics. With this tool, we invite organizations to look at the value of integrity, more intentionally, from the inside out. We don’t recommend that companies resist externally-generated integrity mandates: Compliance with laws and rules is a significant corporate motivator, and the court of public opinion is a very legitimate arbiter of effective organizational behaviours. Yet there are limitations to corporate integrity driven primarily by external power, utilizing carrots and sticks to reward good behaviours and punish bad behaviours.

“A time comes in the life of every individual when his image of himself is a more powerful determinant of his moral actions than the threatening admonitions of parent, teacher, clergyman, or politician.” (ENDNOTE 14)

Dr. Kenneth Cloke, lawyer and mediator, and author of several texts on conflict resolution, distinguishes between externally imposed moral structures and internally accepted values:

“When we try to define values, we create definitions rather than values, and it becomes easy to slip into preaching, moralizing, and imposing our values on others. While rules and morality can be preached and imposed on others, values and integrity are personal, subjective, chosen, open to change, and diluted by exhortation and coercion.” (ENDNOTE 15)

Integrity Bridges Inc. strives to be transparent and explicit about the thinking behind our approach. In education, some believe that the role of a teacher is to draw out wisdom from the student. In healthcare, some believe that healing can only happen with the patient’s full participation (e.g. the healthcare system can’t “fix” people). Our approach is similar. Corporate integrity isn’t something that can be branded on an organization from the outside-in. To regenerate corporate integrity, system-wide, we believe awareness of internally-generated corporate capacity and will is as crucial and as timely as our current focus on externally-generated performance markers. We need to balance internalities and externalities to build system-wide capacity and will—‘integrity acumen’—on a sustained basis.

Do you believe companies should be allowed to set their own integrity targets?

Emphatically, yes. We recommend that organizations be encouraged to choose their level of positive integrity. Not everyone agrees with us, but we believe that as long as companies and organizations aren’t violating rules set by legitimate and responsible governments or regulators, they should be allowed to exercise judgment and decide what ‘acting with integrity’ means for them. (And, of course…live with the consequences of their choices.)

In 1959, Dr. Clare Graves embarked on scientific research into values, openly acknowledging the potential for resistance:

“…there is no shortage of information as to what people feel is ethical behaviour or feel about ethical behaviour, but one must ask how much of this information is more than argument, opinion or just a priority presumptive?” (ENDNOTE 16)

Over fifty years later, we’re still facing similar resistance. In fact, for generations, ethicists and philosophers have designed principles of morality and attempted to distinguish between right and wrong by reference to these principles. Many tried to create a single principle or absolute ethical theory. Appreciating this context is important to our present understanding of resolute attempts to define corporate integrity in terms of right and wrong. To respond to this pressure to define right and wrong in absolute terms, it’s helpful to look at Graves’ scientific models: “Ethical judgments express one’s feelings about what is right and wrong, but ethical judgments do not tell in any way what is right and what is wrong.” (ENDNOTE 17)

A Measure of Integrity is created for the same aim. We don’t try to define right or wrong corporate behaviours (though we do acknowledge that compliance with laws and rules is a valuable and socially-accepted norm). A Measure of Integrity is designed to help companies understand the reasons behind their choices (and the conditions that accompany changes in these choices). This tool is designed to help companies answer these critical questions:

What does the value of integrity mean in our organization?

Where does our company want to be on A Measure of Integrity?

Where is our organization now?

What are the gaps?

What can we do to close the gaps?

What limits our organization’s capacity to close the gaps?

How is A Measure of Integrity going to help imbed corporate integrity in our company?

Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (1895-1983), an American engineer, inventor and futurist predicted that “the question of integrity will get finer and more delicate and more beautiful.” (ENDNOTE 18) We agree. Our aim is to support companies in the building of capacity, and will, to generate finer integrity in your organization, and in the lives of those around you.

How can this aim be achieved? By deepening your organization’s integrity acumen—your knowledge of how integrity functions, and your ability to exercise better judgment and make timely decisions. (ENDNOTE 19)

“If we do not listen to the voice of our integrity, we suffer. That suffering is a sacrifice to integrity, the way physical pain is a sacrifice to the health of the body. Both give us information we need before we can change. To make the right decision is not essential to integrity—the point is to notice the consequences….The ability to turn about, to change course, especially if we have a lot invested in our current direction, is a basic element of developed integrity. This ability is much more important than not making mistakes…” (ENDNOTE 20)

With integrity acumen, we can listen more deeply, ask more constructive questions and make more discerning choices. For example, a corporate CEO may pepper his speech with images of a company seeking to “give back to communities where we operate” and “do no harm”. With integrity acumen, internal stakeholders (e.g. employees and contractors) and external stakeholders (e.g. citizens in the community, advocacy groups) are better equipped to ask constructive questions and demand accountability, especially when corporate actions are out of synch with these words. We can also ask: Do we want to work for this company, partner with this organization, or welcome this CEO and his company into our community?

How can we talk to our key stakeholders about integrity? What’s A Measure of Integrity scorecard?

To make this dialogue a little easier, we’ve designed a companion tool to A Measure of Integrity—A Measure of Integrity Scorecard. This scorecard can be used by companies to guide conversations with their key stakeholders. Our form is designed for community stakeholders, but can be modified for use by any corporate stakeholder: internal (e.g. shareholder, individual divisions, and employees) or external (e.g. partners, supply chain, critics).

How does the scorecard work? First, we encourage companies and their stakeholders to identify a few key issues to be explored. Maybe it’s community investment, environmental protection or unionized labour. Then:

Ask the company: Where do you want your organization to be on A Measure of Integrity? Where are you now, in general, and re: these issues?

Then, ask the community stakeholders: What is your perception of this company’s integrity commitment, in general, and re: these issues? And, what are your expectations of this company?

Observe any gaps between your company’s integrity targets, and reality. Observe the community’s perceptions and expectations of your company’s integrity. Discuss what can be done to close the gaps, and what may limit your organization’s capacity to close the gaps.

Who is responsible for an organization’s integrity?

The short answer: Everyone! But there are different roles. External stakeholders—including governments and regulators, citizens in local communities, advocacy organizations and watchdogs, industry associations, consumers—set expectations and monitor corporate performance. Inside an organization, corporate leaders (including the Board of Directors) are usually accountable for the overall integrity targets for the organization, and may even champion efforts to move a company up (or down) a notch or two on A Measure of Integrity. Corporate managers generally oversee an organization’s effective implementation of integrity commitments and actions, and other corporate personnel will have day-to-day responsibilities required to imbed integrity in their organization.

Organizations that assess the ‘integrity acumen’ of their personnel and prospective personnel (and factor these evaluations into employee compensation, promotion and hiring practices) will enhance their corporate capacity to achieve targeted levels of integrity on A Measure of Integrity.

According to a 2010 CEO Officer Study conducted by IBM, integrity is the second most important leadership quality in our increasingly complex economic environment. (ENDNOTE 21)

Integrity acumen is required just about anywhere along A Measure of Integrity:

To champion strategies that move a company up a notch or two on A Measure of Integrity—or guide a company back to positive integrity in response to a crisis that has drawn the organization deep into the shadow side of integrity.

To align corporate commitments and actions to an organization’s targeted level of integrity on A Measure of Integrity

When a company maintains the status quo on integrity, you need to look a little closer to see what is driving this outcome. Acting intentionally to maintain the status quo (e.g. to remain at Level +3 on A Measure of Integrity) can require considerable integrity acumen in an environment where more and more laws are being imposed on companies. On the other hand, remaining at Level +3 on A Measure of Integrity because your organization is afraid of making a mistake isn’t a reflection of integrity strength.

The correlation between organizational leadership and integrity is significant; here is a small sampling of the many questions we can ask:

Are ethical organizations (only) led by ethical leaders? Do corporate leaders require personal integrity to lead an organization with positive integrity?

What leadership qualities are needed to move an organization up a level or two on A Measure of Integrity?

If a company slips, or plunges, into the dark side of integrity, what leadership qualities are needed to bring that company back to positive integrity?

Many leadership experts have waded into these questions. For more on this topic, check out research section where the learnings of development psychologists, David Rooke and William R. Torbert (ENDNOTE 22) are introduced under the question: How do you lead organizations with positive integrity?

Is our goal to encourage companies to progress up this integrity scale?

Integrity isn’t a journey of continuous ascent. The primary aim of A Measure of Integrity is to refine intention, commitment and action on integrity in an organization. Ultimately, we encourage companies to reflectively and adaptively set their own targets for integrity, of course, in adherence with applicable laws and rules.

The question of hierarchy vs. heterarchy is relevant.(ENDNOTE 23) Just like our childhood game of ‘rock, paper, scissors’, under different circumstances, each (positive) integrity strategy can have a higher value. Machiavelli’s advice to rulers was somewhat similar in his seminal book, The Prince: A prince…”must learn from the fox and the lion; because the lion is defenceless against traps and a fox is defenceless against wolves. Therefore one must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who simply act like lions are stupid.”(ENDNOTE 24) We can’t lose our ability to think at lower levels of A Measure of Integrity, even if we choose to act at higher levels.

And yet, like others, we believe that for the overall benefit of society, higher levels of integrity are better than lower levels. The pioneering work of Dr. Clare W. Graves (ENDNOTE 25), clinical psychologist and designer of systems of core values, creates compelling spiraling images akin to those imbedded in A Measure of Integrity:

“…the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiralling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behaviour systems to newer, higher-order systems as man’s existential problems change.” (ENDNOTE 26)

In alignment with Graves’ approach, we aren’t implying that organizations operating at higher levels of A Measure of Integrity are superior to or better than organizations operating at lower (though positive) levels on this scale. What we are saying is that operating at lower levels of integrity may no longer be functional for some organizations and this awareness is critical for involved individuals, organizations themselves and society at large. (ENDNOTE 27)

Many management experts and academics encourage companies to build up internal systems that rely on engagement, communication, and a sense of common purpose and identity. (ENDNOTE 28) In fact, some experts now predict that the pursuit of mutual benefit (ENDNOTE 29) (e.g. where business organizations are both profitable and functional for the common good—a position of integrated strategic focus on both organizational self-interests and stakeholder interests) holds the key to future profit and value creation:

“Companies that fail to notice are, like the [boiling] frog in the story, putting their future at risk. Our premise is that declining resources, radical transparency, and rising expectations have reached a critical point where the rules of the game have changed. Embedded sustainability is not just a better environmental strategy; it is a response to a radically different market reality, one that unifies the profit, ecological, and social spheres into a single integrated value creation space.” (ENDNOTE 30)

Why does A Measure of Integrity look at the dark side of integrity?

A Measure of Integrity approaches corporate integrity in a way that reminds us–integrity has a dark side and a light side. To retain this full frame on corporate integrity, we encourage companies to ask full spectrum questions:

‘Why do some business leaders make such bad choices?’; and

‘Why do some business leaders make good decisions which result in mutual benefit to the company and wider society?’ (ENDNOTE 31)

The negative scale on A Measure of Integrity helps corporate managers recognize the dilution of integrity when it happens in other organizations (e.g. along their supply chains, or inside the organizations of their partners, potential partners or competitors). And, even the most high-performing organizations can find themselves in situations where they are at a tipping point on integrity. A Measure of Integrity helps corporate insiders recognize the risks, and recover more quickly. As Sir Winston Churchill famously said:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

Notwithstanding the oft-stated aspiration for positive integrity in organizations, the frequency and recurrence of cheating in our culture cannot be denied. At level -4 of A Measure of Integrity, the tool acknowledges the rational weighing of costs and benefits that does happen. In 1968, Nobel laureate Gary Becker argued that “the calculus of criminals is best understood as a set of rational trade-offs between the benefits of crime and the costs of punishment, discounted by the probability of detection.” (ENDNOTE 32)Many today see white collar crime the same way.

The dark side of integrity can be lurid. We’re fascinated when well-paid athletes and celebrities, rising stars in the political world, masters of the business universe and prominent religious leaders are inexplicably caught, acting without integrity. In a New York Times feature, journalist Benedict Carey reported on baseball hero Barry Bonds’ alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs, delving into the psychology of cheating and asking constructive questions like: “What drives people to cheat?” and “How does the public react to cheating? (ENDNOTE 33)

Recently, a friend loaned me an intriguing book titled Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), written by two psychologists, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.(ENDNOTE 34) They ask: Why do humans share the impulse to justify ourselves and avoid taking responsibility for any actions that turn out to be harmful, immoral or stupid? According to these psychologists, it goes further than this: “Most people, when directly confronted with proof that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously.” Rather than admitting our mistakes, we dig in our heels and self-justify our actions.

When fraudsters like Bernard Madoff, Ponzi schemer, are put in jail, ‘good citizens’ are generally delighted: “Flouting the rules is, for them, not only morally wrong but a lasting offense to good citizens everywhere: If guilty, offenders should pay, whether they’re rich or poor, malingerers or masters of the universe—like the financial figures central to the economic collapse of 2008….The sentiment runs particularly high now at tax time when almost everyone thinks that he’s paying too much while others cheat.” (ENDNOTE 35)

At Levels -1 and -2 of A Measure of Integrity, it is, paradoxically, often an obsession with fairness that can lead people to begin cutting corners and rationalizing non-compliance with government rules. “Cheating is especially easy to justify when you frame situations to cast yourself as a victim of some kind of unfairness,” said Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the use of prescription drugs to improve intellectual performance. “Then it becomes a matter of evening the score; you’re not cheating, you’re restoring fairness.” (ENDNOTE 36)

The incremental slide into the dark side of integrity—the slippery slope—is familiar. It begins with minor violations and shortcuts: lies on tax returns, cheating on final exams, illegal downloading a few songs, skimming change from the tip jar. The move from small infractions to a deliberate pattern of fraud often reflects a more intentional strategy.

According to many experts, including psychologist David DeSteno at Northeastern University in Boston,(ENDNOTE 37) the rationale is personal and very often emotional, and may include:

Resentment of an authority or specific rule e.g. laws requiring helmets be worn, smoking bans; abusive bosses at work

A deep sense of unfairness e.g. resentment of other students with private tutors, or colleagues with private money, or competitors with advantages

A belief that everyone else is cheating too

Very importantly, people don’t want to be seen as ‘The Chump’. People want to avoid anger, self-blame and bitterness—the sensation of being duped.

There is a lot yet to learn about the dark side of integrity. In a few sports, we keep track of errors and fouls. In baseball, for example, we record runs, hits and errors. No player wants to earn an error, but we know they are unavoidable. Mistakes are inherent in the game of baseball. Perhaps if we could recognize that errors are inevitable in business and politics too, we could deal with mistakes and poor choices more effectively. But first, we need to learn how to acknowledge when we are on the dark side of integrity.

Why do we resist making the changes needed to achieve our targeted level of corporate integrity?

Exploring integrity—both positive and the negative—requires an understanding of how change happens. As discussed above, many companies commit to positive integrity targets; they sincerely want to be ‘good corporate citizens’. And yet, they routinely fail to make the changes needed to achieve and sustain their targeted level of integrity.

Why would people inside an organization drag their feet on the implementation of changes needed to imbed progressively positive integrity targets? Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, organizational psychologists, conclude there may be an unrecognized and competing commitment:(ENDNOTE 38)

“I don’t really want this new initiative to succeed”: Corporate employees may have a competing commitment to undermine their own advancement. An employee may believe that if he or she is successful in achieving this positive integrity target (e.g. moving from compliance at Level +2 to a Responsible Care model at Level +4), even more will be expected. The employee may worry that he/she won’t be able to continue to deliver results in an ever-changing corporate culture.

“If we make this change, I’ll lose any control I now have”: Although an employee may seem to endorse a flattening of the organization and a more creative business integrity environment, this same employee may have a vested interest in the status quo. When an organization aspires to shift to a more integrated, systems-based approach to integrity, more seasoned personnel may fear anarchy, endless philosophizing, even the risk of being undermined by younger employees (especially those young leaders equipped with more adaptive social networking skills).

“If we adopt this new integrity strategy, everything will be a debate”: The opportunity to pursue integrity targets at Levels +5 and +6 on A Measure of Integrity (e.g. by considering not only financial but social and environmental impacts of investment) may sound appealing, yet some employees may have an unrecognized competing commitment to maintain a compliance-model. Managing integrity to compliance allows for more cut-and-dried decision-making within individual departments and unambiguous targets and deadlines; moving to beyond-compliance choices may not just spark dialogue, but debate across departments, even conflict. It may feel less confrontational to simply comply with rules.

What can be done to reduce this immunity to change—inner contradictions that ‘protect’ organizations from significant changes they may genuinely strive for? Being able to bring these competing commitments to the surface is critically important for organizations seriously committed to making the changes needed to imbed targeted levels of positive integrity. A Measure of Integrity encourages this deepening of the integrity dialogue, and the creation of the safe space needed to foster these honest conversations.

Will we need courage to act with integrity?

Peterson and Seligman (ENDNOTE 39) classified integrity (together with bravery, persistence and vitality) as a character strength under the core virtue of ‘courage’. Placing integrity under the courage umbrella is significant. Courage is a prerequisite to integrity (e.g. especially when it requires public acknowledgement of moral convictions, even if those convictions aren’t popular).

Organizational change expert Will McWhinney (ENDNOTE 40) defines this courage in the context of change: “The first and most profound courage is that required to maintain awareness that the world we encounter is of our own choosing.”(ENDNOTE 41) For example, in A Measure of Integrity, this courage enables for-profit companies to recognize they have a choice to operate, sustainably and profitably, beyond compliance with laws and rules. Perceiving this choice amidst a business environment where peers and competitors alike bemoan the heavy burden of compliance requires considerable courage.

Once a decision is made, for example, to operate beyond compliance with laws and rules at Level +3 or higher on A Measure of Integrity, corporate leaders require even more courage to maintain this vision of operating in ways that may well be beyond their own experience. Companies making these choices must sustain the organizational courage required to act consistently towards these commitments.

Still more demanding is the ‘moral courage’(ENDNOTE 42) required to perceive the suffering of others, and to choose to act in response. Choosing to lead a company from negative integrity to positive integrity is often triggered by an understanding that continuing to ignore laws and circumvent rules causes suffering. Even on the positive side of A Measure of Integrity, corporate leaders may choose to move beyond a singular focus on profitability to consider the social and environmental impacts of their operations (e.g. catalyzing a healthier workforce, enhanced employee morale, community buy-in and positive political will). These choices require moral courage.

There are many ways to approach integrity within organizations. How is this tool positioned?

We agree. You can explore: personal integrity of individuals within an organization; the integrity of a particular company; organizational integrity theories and science; and even philosophical questions like the role of business in society. To orient A Measure of Integrity, it’s helpful to use the Integral Orienting Model developed by Ken Wilber. This integral, all-quadrant (AQAL) framework helps to classify and orient corporate integrity issues and themes along the individual/group and interior/exterior axes designed by Wilber.

A Measure of Integrity affects, and is affected by, matters of integrity located in all four quadrants of this model. Primarily though, this tool focuses on the ‘WE’ portal: how do individual organizations set their integrity purpose, and the ‘IT’ portal: what do these integrity commitments and actions look like, in practice.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

How can we participate in this corporate integrity learning community?

Integrity Bridges Inc. has launched a corporate integrity learning community to share, test and explore new ideas and experiences on how to imbed integrity in organizations. We invite you to join this community.

How can you move your good ideas for integrity into action? What next? If you would like to try to implement A Measure of Integrity in your company, or at a systems level in your sector or community, contact us.

What are Corporate Integrity Tales….and how do we share our organization’s experience with integrity?

As a member of this corporate integrity learning community, we invite you to share your own organization’s experiences with integrity, observations, questions and ideas. One way to do this is by telling your organization’s story. What are Corporate Integrity Tales? They are fictionalized accounts of real-life experiences—the tales of organizations participating in the quest to act with integrity.

Do any of these storylines below resonate…or is there another integrity tale you would like to explore? Consider sharing your company’s fictionalized tale with us, either in written form or as a short video. (Any historical experience can be ‘reconstructed’ as a tale). The most compelling tales will be shared.

What to do as your supply chain grows longer and longer, and it becomes more and more difficult to influence integrity behaviours with your contractors and suppliers?

What to do when your new joint venture partner’s integrity values read the same as your company’s values…but their actual practices look very, very different?

What to do when young staff in your organization blog openly and critically about your company’s reluctance to commit to voluntary environmental standards?

What to do when you enter into a public-private partnership, or an industry association, and everyone seems to be talking about integrity…in different languages?

What to do when shareholders complain that your company’s donations to charities dilute profitability?

What to do when the citizens in local communities where you operate keep asking for more and more from your company, and never seem grateful?

What to do when your company’s high profile projects align to your company’s integrity commitments, but less visible projects do not? How do you respond when reputation and PR seems to a primary motivation for your CEO or executive team?

Here’s a sample Corporate Integrity Tale:

Corporate Integrity Tale: Awesome Canadian Extractive Company

Hero: Bob Smith, 45, Engineer, Regional Manager

Setting: Remote communities in northern Saskatchewan, Canada

Organization: Awesome Canadian Extractive Company Inc., a Canadian mining company

Once upon a time, Bob Smith, a 45-year old mid career professional engineer, was hired as Regional Manager by Awesome Canadian Extractive Company Inc. (‘Awesome’), a for profit company, to manage the company’s mining sites and processing plants in remote communities in northern Saskatchewan. Why would Bob want to live in northern Saskatchewan? His family hails from Saskatoon so this is a great chance for him to return to his ‘homeland’, and it doesn’t hurt that Awesome pays its employees well. Bob is also influenced by his 80-year old mother’s positive impressions of Awesome, a company that commits to ‘integrity’ as a core value in its press releases.

In morning chats at the local Tim Horton’s coffee shop in the small town where Bob now lives, and during 6:00 am hockey practices at the community hockey rink, Bob quickly surmises from others that his new employer is a law-abiding corporate citizen. The company grumbles a little about the taxes it pays, but it complies with rules and pays particular attention to regulatory standards for its operations (e.g. environmental standards, safety standards). Bob doesn’t believe his new employer will voluntarily commit to go beyond compliance with existing rules and laws. Bob has his handy-dandy Measure of Integrity tool in his hip-pocket, and quickly surmises that Awesome is a company motivated to manage integrity at Level +2. “We believe, for civilized people, laws are essential…no ifs, ands or buts.”

There is one proviso though. In conversations with local citizens—people living near the company’s plants and mines—Awesome keeps saying: “We’re a company that cares about local community priorities.” In fact, Awesome does. The company invests heavily in training of locals and supports the development of small local enterprises (e.g. catering and trucking services that support the mining operations). When the CEO talks at the AGM, or with the press, Bob notices that she always reinforces Awesome’s commitments to the community and talks about not wanting to do any harm. What’s up? Is the CEO off message, is she wearing her heart on her sleeve, or does the company have a different level of integrity when it comes to dealing with community stakeholders?

Bob is a little confused by this; the company seems to see ‘integrity’ as compliance with laws and rules (level +2), and yet the company is willing to make voluntary commitments to the local communities where the company operates. If he’s going to fulfill his management duties, Bob needs to understand his employer’s commitments to integrity. So, he does more due diligence. He reads the company’s mission, vision and value statements. He checks out corporate policies and communications. He pays attention to how others make decisions.

Based on this research, Bob confirms that, overall, his new employer wants to manage integrity at level +2 on A Measure of Integrity…and the company genuinely cares about complying with regulatory standards set for emissions and safety. But, he sees that the company has a different approach on community; to Bob, it looks like the company is managing relationships with the communities at level +4. Awesome has made an intentional decision to upgrade its integrity purpose in relation to communities.

Now that Bob has clarity on Awesome’s integrity purpose, he can clarify his region’s commitments and make sure that actions are aligned (and identify what resources and strategies he needs to meet these integrity targets and score a positive Return on Integrity). To manage the company’s operations in northern Saskatchewan at level +2, Bob knows he needs a good team of lawyers and open relationships with local regulators to ensure his people understand the regulatory requirements. And, he needs to ensure there are well understood processes in place to manage operations.

Bob is comfortable operating the company’s North Saskatchewan division with a compliance strategy, but he sees a few hiccups. There are two plants in his region, located in neighbouring municipalities. Bob knows the waste-water bylaws in these two municipalities differ. He is a bit dismayed; he doesn’t want to operate these two plants at different standards. Dual standards aren’t appealing to Bob, personally. Yet he recognizes the need for senior management approval to operate the plants on a standardized basis (one plant will be operating beyond compliance). On reflection, Bob sees this as an opportunity to lead the company up one small step on A Measure of Integrity.

Bob also recognizes that his division’s approach to local communities needs clarification, within his management team and with local citizens. Awesome wants to be seen by locals as a responsible investor that really cares, even if that means going beyond what is required of the company by law or regulation (level +4). At one of the plants, Bob’s plant manager is in the midst of designing a second access road into the plant and neighbouring land-owners are grumbling about the construction and increased traffic. Bob directs the plant manager to meet with the adjacent land-owners, to really understand their concerns and needs. And, Bob encourages his plant manager to decide the road placement in consultation with these locals. Maybe this access road could even be designed in a way that could be useful to others in the community?

Bob is new to management. He realizes that managing integrity is part of his job. And, he astutely realizes that if he going to get recognized for his management skills, he needs to demonstrate a ‘return on integrity’ practices. He works hard to make sure corporate intentions, commitments and actions align, especially in the company’s focus areas: compliance with laws and rules and community engagement. To ensure his region is operating with integrity in its integrity, Bob knows he needs to pay attention to individual projects within his scope of responsibility, and even individual departments. Any gaps need to be identified, understood and managed.

When Bob looks even more closely at his team’s performance, he notices a few less obvious integrity gaps. As a remote location, his supply chain management team are challenged to source goods and services at reasonable rates. To encourage local entrepreneurs, and stimulate the local economy (all in alignment with level +4 targets re: the local community), employees on the supply chain management team have rationalized compromises. A few sweetheart deals, for cash, with friends and family have been justified as a norm in these remote communities. Bob is disturbed: he knows these choices drag the integrity of Awesome down…even to the shadow side on A Measure of Integrity.

Gaps that are ignored risk getting wider, and can be really damaging to Bob and to Awesome. Bob intervenes quickly to talk about expectations with his supply chain team lead. This individual has been in his job for decades and isn’t happy being criticized by Bob, who he sees as a young whippersnapper. The supply chain team lead berates Bob for his naivety —“You are a new manager here. You don’t know how we do things in northern Saskatchewan. We’d be the laughing stock of this community if we changed our practices now. We can’t compete if we don’t grease a few local wheels. Our competitors would slaughter us. Besides, you said we really care about people in local communities.”

In these heated discussions with the supply chain team lead, Bob also learns that the community investment folks in his division have from time-to-time bribed local Aboriginal chiefs with lucrative contracts to garner their cooperation in Awesome’s investment in the region. Bob feels the integrity in his division disintegrating.

How does this tale end? Bob has choices:

OSTRICH: Bob dithers, refusing to address these integrity breaches with his management team. Meanwhile, a local contractor steps forward to claim that he was paid in cash, ‘under the table’, by an Awesome employee. Then, to make things even worse, a local Aboriginal woman steps forward to talk about bribes made to local chiefs, and how these funds don’t trickle down to help her or her children in the community. The implicated employees are found guilty of bribery and corruption, ending up in jail. Bob is fired. Awesome’s reputation—across the country—is tarnished.

MARTYR: Bob is furious, yelling at his operating team in northern Saskatchewan and calling them all idiots and crooks. Their reaction? Mutiny! Bob is ridiculed by his entire operations team. The group sides with the long-standing employees, refusing to change their practices. Bob goes to his boss, at company’s HQ in Calgary, to demand intervention. His boss condemns Bob’s management skills, and tells Bob to focus on plant operations. Corporate lawyers will figure out what employee education is needed in his region, in due course. Bob is miserable. He needs this job; he has a mortgage to pay and children’s hockey equipment to buy. But, he can’t condone this breach of integrity. Bob sees no space to negotiate this gap between personal values and organizational values. He quits.

HERO: It’s tempting for Bob to ignore these integrity gaps. But, he knows that would be a failure of both management and leadership. Bob understands it may cost more to source goods and services in compliance with laws. Yet in his gut he knows that the practice of paying cash ‘under the table’ is illegal and unethical, and totally out of alignment with the company’s integrity purpose. Even if competitors engage in this practice, it can’t be rationalized. Plus, Bob doesn’t want to compromise local suppliers and contractors. These are the very people his company cares about.

As for the practice of inducing the cooperation of local Aboriginal leaders with lucrative contracts, this is horrifying to Bob. Someone may have done the cost-benefit analysis of compliance with laws vs. the risk of criminal prosecution, but operating at level -4 is not to be condoned.

Bob immediately and firmly forbids the practice of paying bribes and organizes a meeting of his full management team (including lawyers) to discuss the problem; to explain bribery and corruption in unequivocal terms; and to identify alternatives that support local suppliers and communities. Many on his management team are relieved this issue is out in the open, and identify creative ways to transparently build the capacity of local companies to provide required services and supplies, not just to Awesome’s plants but to other industrial investors as well. Entrepreneurs and small businesses in the local communities are thrilled by these offers of support. Citizens in local Aboriginal communities are also encouraged by Awesome’s commitment to transparency, and step forward to talk about how to engage more openly.

The End

Do I need permission to use A Measure of Integrity? And, what is a Creative Commons License?

A Measure of Integrity, frequently asked questions and Corporate Integrity Tales have been created by Integrity Bridges Inc. (“Original Materials”) and are freely made available to the public on an open-source basis. You may copy, distribute, transmit, use and modify the Original Materials to create adaptations based on the Original Materials (“Derivative Materials”). The Original Materials are registered with Creative Commons under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licenses. This registration is evidenced by this symbol on the materials:

The use of Original Materials by you and any person is governed by the terms and restrictions of these licenses, which require that you: (a) credit Integrity Bridges Inc. with the Original Work (without suggesting that Integrity Bridges Inc. endorses you or your use of the Original Materials), and (b) in turn make the Derivative Materials freely available to the public.

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Who participates in this corporate integrity learning community?

A Measure of Integrity was created by weaving together the learnings, experiences and aspirations of people who care about corporate integrity: managers inside corporations, academic researchers, community and government leaders, and citizens who care. We continue to expand this corporate integrity learning community. In particular, A Measure of Gratitude is extended to:

Dr. Bernie Novokowsky, recognized systems expert in Calgary, Canada who teaches Higher Order Thinking. The nesting or ordering of levels of integrity, and recursiveness, are just two of many concepts derived from Bernie’s work. Bernie’s Higher Order Thinking Calgary class of 2010/2011 contributed their wisdom and insight to this model as it emerged. See this link.

Allan Pedden, Western rep for Canadian Business Ethics Research Network and a community-based advocate for integrity, Calgary Canada

Rick Baker of Spirited Leaders Corporation, Waterloo, Canada, a champion of more strategic thinking within companies

Pastor Ryan Anderson, Lutheran Pastor in Calgary, Canada, leader of social justice advocacy on behalf of faith communities

Linda Alvarez, attorney in San Mateo, California and founder of the “Discovering Agreement” model for negotiators within larger corporate settings (That is: how to empower negotiators to operate at high levels of personal integrity in traditional business settings where such integrity is often perceived as weakness or even counter to the company’s best interests.)

Michael Herman, partner in the Gowlings law firm, Toronto, Canada who teaches integrity and ethics to lawyers (“lawyers with integrity: not an oxymoron!)

Marie Legault, Ph.D., president of Legault & Associates Leadership Development Inc. in Burlington Ontario and creator of Developing Ethicful™ Leaders for a Sustainable Future

Paul Smith, graphic artist in Cochrane Alberta, for his ingenuity in designing the symbols and images to communicate integrity

Michael Bowerman, Calgary, Canada, co-creator of the Calgary Social Innovation Exchange

Yasmin Dean, Professor of social work and academic activist at Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

Rahim Sajan, Educator, systems-fanatic, and TEDxCalgary founder, Calgary, Canada

Charles Borkowski, HSES and Social Management Consultant to extractive sector companies operating internationally

Trina Metz, Senior Advisor, Governance Office, Nexen Inc., Calgary, Canada

MORE RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Is A Measure of Integrity grounded in practical application, academic research, or science?

Yes. In Corporate Integrity: A Toolkit for Managing beyond Compliance (Kennedy-Glans and Schulz, 2005), several integrity management tools were designed by a practitioner and an academic on a cross-disciplinary basis using a systems approach. These specialized tools have been upgraded based on feedback from people on the inside of organizations and citizens on the outside. As well, academic expertise from a cross-section of disciplines has been accessed, including insight from the fields of ethics, philosophy, management, strategy, organizational behaviour, psychology and leadership.

How does this tool align to other research?

A Measure of Integrity is a tool influenced by the research of pioneers in the field of organizational values and behaviours, including:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (ENDNOTE 44)

Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development (ENDNOTE 45)

Dr. Clare W. Graves’ Levels of Existence: An Open System of Theory of Values” (ENDNOTE 46)

Don Beck and Chris Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics mapping (ENDNOTE 47)

Alignment to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In 1943, Maslow created the Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow’s hierarchy is depicted as a pyramid,(ENDNOTE 48) with the most fundamental needs at the bottom and the need for self-actualization at the pinnacle. Maslow’s theory—that the most basic level of needs must be met before the individual will focus on the next level needs—is quite familiar.

The layering of levels of integrity (both positive and negative) in A Measure of Integrity is intentional as a means of encouraging finer and finer discernment of integrity. We do not use a pyramid image (building from a wide base to a smaller peak). Instead, we create an image of nested layers—with each layer transcending and including the previous levels.(ENDNOTE 49) This nesting more accurately reflects the systems thinking embedded in A Measure of Integrity, in particular, the interconnectedness of the value of integrity and systems.

A Measure of Integrity includes a negative scale and a positive scale, with integrity as the monad or over-arching architecture. In A Measure of Integrity, the lowest rung of the negative scale reflects human response to physiological needs (e.g. at Level -7, there is a focus on survival). Negative integrity often derives from the need for safety or the need to belong, and sometimes, the need for esteem.

Realization of full potential –self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy—is quite specific. For example, one person may want to become a good parent and another person may want to become a good athlete or artist. We hypothesize that this same level of specificity would also apply to organizations. For example, it isn’t sufficient to want to become “a good company”.

Viktor Frankl later added self-transcendence to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In Man’s Search for Meaning, (ENDNOTE 50) Frankl explained the relationship between self-actualization and self-transcendence:

“The true meaning of life is to be found in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system…. Human experience is essentially self-transcendence rather than self-actualization. Self-actualization is not a possible aim at all, for the simple reason that the more a man would strive for it, the more he would miss it…. In other words, self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.” (ENDNOTE 51)

At Level +7 in A Measure of Integrity, we hypothesize that organizations have transcended self-actualization, and are moving into the realm of self-transcendence that Frankl describes.

Alignment to Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) was an American psychologist who taught at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. Kohlberg developed a theory of stages of moral development (the basis for ethical behavior) that included six development stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor. (ENDNOTE 52) Kohlberg’s six stages are grouped into three levels: pre-conventional; conventional and post-conventional:

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)

Obedience and punishment orientation (How can I avoid punishment?)

Self-interest orientation (What’s in it for me?)

Level 2 (Conventional)

Interpersonal accord and conformity (Social norms) (The good boy/good girl attitude)

Authority and social-order maintaining orientation (Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)

Social contract orientation

Universal ethical principles (Principled conscience)

We hypothesize that A Measure of Integrity corresponds to Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, albeit using more detailed layering, as follows:

At the Pre-Conventional Level 1, we find the same questions at negative levels of the A Measure of Integrity. For example:

At Levels –7, -6 and -5 on A Measure of Integrity, individuals and organizations focus on their own self-interest: “It’s all about me/us, right now!” “Do whatever we have to…to keep this company afloat, to keep your job, to make money.” “You have to exploit and be greedy.”

At Levels -4 and -3 on A Measure of Integrity, individuals and organizations try to avoid punishment: “Doing cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the cost of compliance vs. risk of criminal prosecution”

At the Conventional Level 2, we find alignment to levels -1 and -2, and levels +1 and +2 on A Measure of Integrity. The emphasis here is on social norms and compliance with authority to create social order and stability. For example: “for civilized people, laws are essential…no ifs, ands or buts.” At Levels -1 and -2 we find organizations focused on compliance, but the question is one of proper authority. Many gangs have codes of honour that are strictly complied with and enforced, though their rules may not conform to the edicts of authorized regulators.

At the Post-Conventional Level 3, we find alignment to positive levels +3 and +4 on A Measure of Integrity, with emphasis on social contract orientation and universal ethical principles (e.g. universal human rights).

Kohlberg believed that stages of development could not be skipped; we argue the same is true for A Measure of Integrity. Each successive level of integrity transcends and includes the previous level or levels on A Measure of Integrity. Although it may appear that a company has leap-frogged from strict compliance with laws and rules at Level +2 to focus on achieving positive social, environmental and economic impacts at Level +5, the values reflected in the intervening levels of integrity would have been integrated in this progression.

In his theory, Kohlberg believed it was extremely rare for individuals to regress in stages—to lose the use of higher stage abilities. The same is not necessarily true in organizations given the different experience of institutional knowledge creation and retention.

Alignment to Graves’ Levels of Existence (ENDNOTE 53)

Graves’ Levels of Existence include ten behavioural levels (subdivided into subsistence, existence and being levels) and nine existence levels (chaotic; animalistic; frightened; omnipotent; sociocentric; personalistic; seeking; comprehending; appreciation and infinite). Our hypothesis is that levels on integrity on A Measure of Integrity correlate as follows:

Graves’ Behavioural Levels

Subsistence levels responding to physiological, safety, power and belonging needs: These subsistence levels correspond to A Measure of Integrity’s negative scale

Existence Levels responding to esteem, information, understanding and beauty needs: These existence levels would correspond to A Measure of Integrity’s positive scale to Level +6

Being Level responding to the need to express oneself: This being level would correspond to positive Levels +5 and +6 on A Measure of Integrity and possibly level +7

When constructing his scientifically-grounded model for ethical behaviour, Graves carefully set measures for assessment. This criterion included, inter alia:

recognition that certain people do feel that there are right and wrong ways to behave;

the need to describe ethical behaviour in some orderly manner; and

ways to measure and assess movement from lower to higher levels of ethical behaviours (including associated values) and regressive movement from higher to lower levels of ethical behaviours (and even lack of movement).

Graves also adopted a systems approach to this work: incorporating the intellectual system, the motivation system, the feeling system, the perceptual system and the ethical system. (ENDNOTE 54) This systemic approach makes Graves’ work compelling, and his theory allows insight into understanding how values are a part of ethical systems, and how organizations move from one set of ethical values to another set of ethical values.

This systems approach is inherent in A Measure of Integrity. And our understanding of why and how movement along the scale happens (up, down and no movement) is enriched by Graves’ research. A Measure of Integrity aims to access a deeper understanding of the worldviews out of which integrity choices arise.

Alignment to Beck and Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics mapping

In 1996, Don Beck and Chris Cowan launched Spiral Dynamics mapping, a values-based leadership algorithm derived from the work of Graves. Beck and Cowan believe that humans adapt to their environment by creating new, more complex, conceptual models of the world that allow them to handle new problems. (ENDNOTE 55) Each new conceptual model on the Spiral Dynamics map includes and transcends all previous models.

Beck and Cowan use colours to differentiate the various core value systems they describe as ^vMemes. There are two tiers of ^vMemes: The second tier includes more emergent levels, shifting from ‘subsistence’ levels to ‘being’ levels. These systems of core values express themselves through memes (self-propagating ideas, habits, or cultural practices). Experts in Spiral Dynamics recommend thinking of the colours as representing what people in each world seek out in life as the systems grow out of those which came before. (ENDNOTE 56) According to Beck and Cowan, these systems are applicable to individuals and entire cultures, including, of course, organizational cultures. (ENDNOTE 57)

First Tier ^vMeme Levels – Subsistence (ENDNOTE 58)

Beige: Archaic – instinctive—survivalistic/automatic/reflexological

Time of origin: c. 100,000 BC

Description: “Express self to meet imperative physiological needs through instincts of Homo sapiens.”

Purple: Animistic – tribalistic

Time of origin: 50,000 BC

Description: “Sacrifice to the ways of the elders and customs as one subsumed in group.” This is the level of traditional cultures.

Red: Egocentric – exploitive

Time of origin: 7000 BC

Description: “Express self (impulsively) for what self desires without guilt and to avoid shame.” Expressed by the mentality of street gangs, Vikings.

Blue: Absolutistic – obedience—purposeful/authoritarian

Time of origin: c. 3000 BC

Description: “Sacrifice self for reward to come through obedience to rightful authority in purposeful Way.” Embodied by fundamentalist religions.

Orange: Multiplistic – achievist– scientific/strategic

Time of origin: c. 1000 AD on

Description: “Express self (calculatedly) to reach goals and objectives without rousing the ire of important others.” Expressed in the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.

Green: Relativistic – personalistic—communitarian/egalitarian

Time of origin: From 1850 on (surged in early 20th century)

Description: “Sacrifice self-interest now in order to gain acceptance and group harmony.” Expressed in 1960s pluralism and systems theory

Second Tier ^vMeme Levels –Emerging

Yellow: Systemic – integrative

Time of origin: 1950s

Description: “Express self for what self desires, but to avoid harm to others so that all life, not just own life, will benefit.”

Turquoise: holistic

Time of origin: 1970s

Description: An integrative system which combines an organism’s necessary self-interest with the interests of the communities in which it participates. The theory is still forming.

Within this Spiral Dynamics model, individuals and cultures do not fall clearly into any single model or colour. The same is true for organizations in A Measure of Integrity. Individual organizations may embody the integrity purpose set out at one, two or even more levels on A Measure of Integrity, with varying degrees of intensity in each. Usually though, there is a dominant integrity level targeted by an organization.

Spiral Dynamics claims not to be a linear or hierarchical model; there are infinite stages of progress and regression depending on circumstances and environment. In fact, further iterations of Spiral Dynamics theory include other higher levels, including coral and teal layers. A Measure of Integrity has been designed with seven positive and seven negative levels; as time progresses, it will be interesting to evaluate if these levels are finite. Regarding the question of whether or not A Measure of Integrity is linear or hierarchical, like Spiral Dynamics, there are stages of progression and regression.

Both Spiral Dynamics and A Measure of Integrity focus on containers, not contents. Graves’ concept was originally called “Values Systems Theory” -and this was confusing because the word ‘values’ meant many things to many people. The word ‘moral’ likewise creates confusion. (And, so does the word integrity!) The Spiral Dynamics model isn’t about moral or ethical standards; rather, it explores how people think about things (as opposed to what they think); why people respond to certain motivators; why and how values arise and spread; and how change happens. This approach aligns closely to the aim of A Measure of Integrity.

Graves’ work examined the relationship between the environment or life conditions, and the brain/mind coping capacities, and this work is imbedded into Spiral Dynamics and is helpful in applying A Measure of Integrity. (ENDNOTE 59) For example, a mismatch of organizational culture (the “WE” quadrant in Ken Wilber’s integral framework) and the personal integrity of individual employees (the “I” quadrant) can create uncertainty and frustration.

When an organizational culture that values creativity and adaptiveness (e.g. Level +4 or +5 on A Measure of Integrity) is subsumed by a compliance culture (Level +1 or +2), perhaps in response to a regulatory violation, individual employees can struggle to work in the emerging compliance culture.

When a government bureaucracy— built on a culture of order, routine and stability (Level +2 on A Measure of Integrity) — is privatized, and the new agency is forced into a competitive business climate, employees may be uncomfortable shifting to beyond compliance levels on A Measure of Integrity.

A Measure of Integrity is a tool primarily focused on organizational integrity. Yet, as Graves’ research evidences, the interplay of personal capacities and organizational environment are crucially important. Individuals need to pay attention to their personal interpretation of the value of integrity. Unless you are a sole proprietor, it’s unlikely the integrity purpose of an employer will align perfectly with personal interpretations of the value of integrity. If this tension is healthy—and open for dialogue—it can stimulate personal and/or organizational growth. But, organizational momentum can be strong. It’s not productive when organizations are pulling individuals along in a direction they don’t want to go. When corporate integrity and personal integrity get way out of alignment; individuals can become frustrated, disengaged or cynical.

Being able to identify these gaps, and better understand why they exist, is a first step to creating the conditions for the constructive dialogue and changes needed to close those gaps. The question Graves asked is not how to deal with a ‘kind of person,’ or even with people at a given level; the question is how to deal with the thinking of the level when it is activated in its particular way within the particular person. (ENDNOTE 60)

Our hypothesis is that levels of integrity in A Measure of Integrity have resonance with Graves’ theory and that of Spiral Dynamics (the colour references below are derived from Spiral Dynamics and the two-digit reference correlates to Graves’ work), as follows:

Spiral Dynamics	Graves’ Theory	A Measure of Integrity	Description
Beige	AN	Level -7	Survival; often act out of fear to survive or stay safe
Purple	BO	Level -6	Follow traditions or rituals of group/tribe; appeases until powerful enough to overthrow
Red	CP	Level -5,-4,-3	Like a jungle where tough and strong prevail; assert self to dominate others
Blue	DQ	Level -1 -2, +1+2	Stability/order; controlled by a higher power or authority that punishes evil and eventually rewards good works; conforming, obedient
Orange	ER	Level +3	Environment full of resources to develop and opportunities to make things better and bring prosperity; pragmatic, test options; guided by example, not a set of rules, beyond compliance
Green	FS	Level +4,	Harmony/love; joining together for mutual growth; awareness, belonging; find love and purpose through affiliation and sharing
Yellow	GT	Level +5, +6	Fitting in a living system; a chaotic organism where change is the norm and uncertainty an acceptable state of being; systemic, integrative, interdependent; competency and empowering approach
Turquoise	HU	Level +7	Global community/life force; survival of life on Earth; consciousness, transpersonal, interconnected

With corporate integrity, do we see Incremental Shifts or Paradigm Shifts?

The seven positive and seven negative levels on A Measure of Integrity encourage discernment of incremental changes in integrity. Notwithstanding these increments, we sometimes observe quantum or paradigm shifts in corporate integrity. We look for paradigm shifts:

From the lowest levels of A Measure of Integrity (focus on safety, power-seeking in a jungle-like corporate culture) to compliance behaviour at Levels -2, -1, +1 and +2.

From compliance-behaviours to beyond compliance behaviours at Level +3.

From harmonious (Level +4) to integrative and systems thinking (Levels +5 and +6).

From integrative and systems thinking to global consciousness and regenerative (Level +7).

Paradigm shifts can also happen in reverse. For example, one of the most significant challenges observed in organizations in the last decade has been the need for organizations functioning beyond compliance to shift ‘backwards’ to compliance levels (Levels +2, +1, -1, -2) in response to the flurry of new rules and laws.

Recognition of similar paradigm shifts— from power-seeking to compliance to beyond compliance—have also been noted in other fields of applied studies. For example, in the field of conflict resolution, Dr. Kenneth Cloke points to similar paradigm shifts in his work mediating conflicts:

“While power-based processes focus on preserving hierarchy and obedience, rights-based processes focus on enforcing contractual language and technical compliance. Interest-based processes such as mediation and collaborative negotiation, on the other hand, focus on commonality, identifying the reasons people seek power or rights, and revealing and resolving the underlying reasons that generated the conflict.” (ENDNOTE 61)

What intelligence (IQ, EQ, SQ) do we need to manage corporate integrity?

For the last century, we have been progressively creating better ways to assess human success in organizations. Cynthia Wigglesworth, proponent of Spiritual Intelligence, (ENDNOTE 62) leads us through this evolution:

“Intelligence Quotient” or “IQ”: In 1905, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon developed the first modern intelligence test. IQ was expected to be a strong predictor of success in careers. It wasn’t; IQ is relevant to set minimum standards to enter a given profession but IQ does not predict success.

“Emotional Intelligence” or “EQ” was popularized by Daniel Goleman in 1995. “EQ” research predicts that star performers in companies have stronger relationship skills than average performers (e.g. self awareness, “other” awareness; self management skills and social skills).

“Spiritual Intelligence” or “SQ” is defined by Wigglesworth in her competency-based, faith-neutral SQ assessment instrument as “the ability to behave with wisdom and compassion, while maintaining inner and outer peace, regardless of the circumstances.” (ENDNOTE 63)

We hypothesize that to move an organization’s integrity from compliance to beyond compliance levels on A Measure of Integrity; a high level of “IQ” isn’t likely to be sufficient. The organization needs high “EQ” to function in a less structured, conforming environment. And, we further hypothesize: To move an organization’s integrity to even higher levels on A Measure of Integrity (e.g. +5, +6, and +7), the organization needs employees with positive “SQ”.

Attributes of SQ (as described by quantum physicist Dana Zohar (ENDNOTE 64)), relevant to achieving organizational integrity at higher levels of A Measure of Integrity, would include:

self-awareness

vision and values led

capacity to face and use adversity (learn from mistakes)

holistic thinking (seeing inter-connectedness)

valuing diversity

courage to be independent (this sounds similar to courage to act with integrity)

prone to asking “why?”

ability to reframe issues and questions

spontaneity (described by Zohar as being responsive to the world)

Organizations that seek to operate at higher levels of A Measure of Integrity need to attract and retain personnel with positive IQ, EQ and SQ. This may require modification to employee evaluation and hiring practices, as well as compensation and promotion strategies.

How do you lead organizations with positive integrity?

As discussed under the question “Who is responsible for an organization’s integrity?” the correlations between organizational leadership and organizational integrity are significant. Many leadership experts have waded into these questions. In this section, the research of development psychologists, David Rooke and William R. Torbert, (ENDNOTE 65) is introduced.

Rooke and Torbert developed a survey tool called the Leadership Development Profile. This model allows for the profiling of individuals into one of seven development action logics or dominant ways of thinking—Opportunist, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist, Strategist, or Alchemist. Different leadership styles influence distinct corporate performance, and the chart below hypothecates on correspondence between these seven leadership styles and A Measure of Integrity:

Rooke & Torbert Leadership Development Profile	% of R&T research sample profiling at this action logic	A Measure of Integrity	Characteristics of Leadership
The Opportunist	5%	Levels -7, -6, -5, -4, -3	Wins any way possible. Mistrustful, egocentric, manipulative; bad behaviour is legitimate in an eye-for-an-eye world; write your own rules. Unlikely to lead an organization to positive integrity, on a sustained basis.
The Diplomat	12%	Levels -4, -3, -2, -1	Avoids overt conflict. Seeks to please higher-status colleagues; loyally serves the group; cooperates with group norms. Avoidance of conflict compromises ability to lead organizations in the deeper, tougher conversations needed to achieve positive integrity.
The Expert	38%	Levels -4, -3, -2, -1, +1, +2	Rules by logic and expertise. Seeks rational efficiency. Particularly effective leading compliance at Level +2 on A Measure of Integrity
The Achiever	30%	Level +3	Meets strategic goals. Effectively achieves goals through teams. Action and goal oriented. More complex and integrated understanding of the world; accept ambiguities. Often challenges Experts’ rational approach. Necessary leadership style to advance from compliance to beyond compliance approach to integrity.
The Individualist	10%	Level +4	Interweaves competing personal and company action logics. Creates unique structures to resolve gaps between performance and strategy. Aware of possible conflict between their principles and their actions, or between the organization’s values and its implementation of those values. Can tend to ignore rules they see as irrelevant. (e.g. “So what if that is what the law says.”)
The Strategist	4%	Level +5, +6	Generates organizational and personal transformations. Exercises the power of mutual inquiry, vigilance, and vulnerability for both short and long term. Able to focus on organizational constraints and perceptions, which they treat as discussable and transformable. A transformational leader, a change agent, capable of leading an organization up a level or two on the integrity measure. Work well at Levels +5 and +6: typically have socially conscious business ideas that are carried out in highly collaborative ways.
The Alchemist	1%	+7	Generates social transformations. Integrates material, spiritual, and social transformation. Capable of leading an organization, and society-wide transformations, that include regeneration and incorporate future generations (example: Nelson Mandela). Able to catch unique moments in the history of their organization.

Rooke and Torbert’s Leadership Development Profile, and supporting research, document the challenges for organizations wanting to transition from one level of integrity to another. The leadership transition from Expert to Achiever “remains one of the most painful bottlenecks in most organizations. We’ve all heard the eternal lament of engineers, lawyers, and other professionals whose Expert success has saddled them with managerial duties, only to estrange them from the work they love.” (ENDNOTE 66) In the integrity realm, this parallel shift from compliance to beyond compliance thinking can likewise present a quantum leap.

Moving leaders from Achiever action logic to Individualist and Strategic action logics is, arguably, even more daunting. In the opinion of Rooke and Torbert:

“Although organizations and business schools have been relatively successful in developing leaders to the Achiever action logic, they have, with few exceptions, a dismal record in recognizing, supporting, and actively developing leaders to the Individualist and Strategist action logics, let alone to the Alchemist logic. This is not surprising. In many organizations, the Achiever, with his drive and focus on the end-game, is seen as the finish line for development: “This is a competitive industry—we need to keep a sharp focus on the bottom line.” (ENDNOTE 67)

So, how do organizations develop leaders beyond the Achiever action logic? Recommended interventions include the following actions:

encourage self-awareness and greater awareness of other worldviews (respect for diversity)

tap into influential networks and mutual peer-peer mentoring opportunities

“create a sustainable community of people who can challenge the emergent leader’s assumptions and practices and those of his company, industry, or other area of activity” (ENDNOTE 68)

We would argue that these strategies are likewise effective in building organizational integrity to move to higher and higher levels on A Measure of Integrity.

REFERENCES

Peterson, Christopher; Seligman, Martin E.P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Peterson, Christopher; Seligman, Martin E.P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 250
Corporate Integrity: A Toolkit for Managing beyond Compliance, Kennedy-Glans, Donna and Schulz, Bob, John Wiley and Sons, 2005, p. 7
And author of The Light Inside the Dark, Harper, 1998
The Light Inside the Dark, Tarrant, John, Harper, 1998, p. 172.
Ken Wilber refers to this as an integral approach. See Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute website for more details on integral thinking: http://www.integralinstitute.org/
The Real Reason People Won’t Change, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Harvard Business Review, November 2001, p. 85
Ibid.
Laszlo, C., and N. Zhexembayeva (2011) Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage (California, US: Stanford Business Books)
Ken Low is the Calgary based founder of Action Studies Institute and Leadership Calgary.
Managing Change: A Strategic Approach to Organizational Dynamics, edited by Bernard Burnes, Prentice Hall Financial Times/Pearson Education 4^th edition 2004, case study starts at p. 360
See their website for details of the Values Centre’s cultural assessment tools and other tools: http://www.valuescentre.com/
For details of this Institute based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, see their website at: http://values-based-leadership.institute.royalroads.ca/institute-values-based-leadership
Bonner, Hubert. Psychology of Personality, New York: Ronald, 1961, p. 409
Cloke, Kenneth, The Crossroads of Conflict: A Journey into the Heart of Dispute Resolution (Janis, 2006), p. 303
From the Historical Collection of the work of Dr. Clare W. Graves compiled by William R. Lee, March 2001, and shared at http://www.clarewgraves.com/articles
Ibid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller
Definition of acumen is based on the teaching of Dr. Bernie Novokowsky, Calgary, Canada. Dr. Novokowsky teaches Higher Order Thinking.
John Tarrant, The Light Inside the Dark (Harper, 1998), pp. 197-200
Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the 2010 IBM Global CEO Study
See Seven Transformations of Leadership, David Rooke and William R. Torbert, Harvard Business Review, April 2005
In his Higher Order Thinking training, Dr. Bernie Novokowsky does an excellent job of explaining the differences between hierarchy and heterarchy.
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (Penguin Classics, 2003), pp. 56-57.
A substantial body of the work of Dr. Clare W. Graves (1914-1986) is shared in a website at http://www.clarewgraves.com. Dr. Graves’ research on human development laid the foundation for Spiral Dynamics mapping, a values-based leadership algorithm introduced by Don Beck and Chris Cowan in 1996.
For more on Graves’ theory, see Graves, Clare W., “Levels of Existence: An Open System of Theory of Values”. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, November 1970.
This quote from Dr. Clare W. Graves is particularly relevant, extracted from the research notes shared on his website at http://www.clarewgraves.com: “I am not saying in this conception of adult behavior that one style of being, one form of human existence is inevitably and in all circumstances superior to or better than another form of human existence, another style of being. What I am saying is that when one form of being is more congruent with the realities of existence, then it is the better form of living for those realities. And what I am saying is that when one form of existence ceases to be functional for the realities of existence then some other form, either higher or lower in the hierarchy, is the better form of living. I do suggest, however, and this I deeply believe is so, that for the overall welfare of total man’s existence in this world, over the long run of time, higher levels are better than lower levels and that the prime good of any society’s governing figures should be to promote human movement up the levels of human existence.”
The Unselfish Gene, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2011, Yochai Benkler, p. 79
Laszlo, C., and N. Zhexembayeva (2011) Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage (California, US: Stanford Business Books)
Ibid, Introduction, page 2
Godwin, L.N. (2008) ‘Examining the Impact of Moral Imagination on Organizational Decision-Making’, (Case Western Reserve University: http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Godwin%20Lindsey%20Nicole.pdf?case1207280043, accessed June 24, 2011): 17-19
The Unselfish Gene, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2011, Yochai Benkler, p. 78
The Psychology of Cheating, Benedict Carey, April 16 2011, The New York Times newspaper
Mistakes Were Made (by not by me), Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson (Harcourt, 2007)
Ibid.
http://ccn.upenn.edu/~chatterjee/
http://www.northeastern.edu/psychology/people/faculty/david-desteno/
The Real Reason People Won’t Change, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Harvard Business Review, November 2001
Peterson, Christopher; Seligman, Martin E.P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press
See Paths of Change: Strategic Choices for Organizations and Societies, Will McWhinney, Sage Publications, 1997, pp. 224-228 for more on courage
McWhinney, ibid., p. 224
McWhinney refers to moral courage or “perpetual courage” as being dependent on one’s capacity to perceive, to let one’s self see the suffering of others. Ibid., p. 225.
See Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute website for more details on integral thinking: http://www.integralinstitute.org/. Also recommend looking at the work of Dr. Cook-Greuter, the principal of Cook-Greuter & Associates, and a founding member of Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute, internationally recognized authority on Mature Adult Development.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. A.H. Maslow, A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50(4) (1943):370-96.
Kohlberg, Lawrence (1981). Essays on Moral Development, Vol. I: The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row
Graves, Clare W., “Levels of Existence: An Open System of Theory of Values”. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, November 1970.
Beck, Don and Cowan, Chris (1996). Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change. Blackwell Business.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow_hierarchy_of_needs
Insight on this systems way of thinking, including nesting of values, is credited to Dr. Bernie Novokowsky and his Higher Order Thinking approach, which is supported by McWhinney in his research, Paths of Change, W. McWhinney, Sage, 1992
Man’s Search for Meaning. An Introduction to Logotherapy, Boston: Beacon, page 175.
Ibid.
Kohlberg, Lawrence (1973). “The Claim to Moral Adequacy of a Highest Stage of Moral Judgment”. Journal of Philosophy (The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 70, No. 18)
Graves, Clare W., “Levels of Existence: An Open System of Theory of Values”. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, November 1970.
From the Historical Collection of the work of Dr. Clare W. Graves compiled by William R. Lee, March 2001, and shared at http://www.clarewgraves.com/articles
Van Marrewijk, Marcel. “Strategic Orientations: Multiple Ways for Implementing Sustainable Performance.” Technology and Investment, 2010, 1, 85-96
From http://www.spiraldynamics.org website; an excellent source of information on Spiral Dynamics application and theory, including training
Beck, Don and Cowan, Chris (1996). Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change. Blackwell Business.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics
http://www.spiraldynamics.org/faq_levels.htm
See http://www.spiraldynamics.org/faq_levels.htm” http://www.spiraldynamics.org/faq_levels.htm
Cloke, Kenneth, The Crossroads of Conflict: A Journey into the Heart of Dispute Resolution (Janis, 2006), p. 58
http://www.consciouspursuits.com/SI/SpiritualIntelligence.aspx
Ibid.
For more on Zohar, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danah_Zohar. Zohar’s theories on SQ are found in her book titled SQ: Spiritual Intelligence, the Ultimate Intelligence published in 2000.
See Seven Transformations of Leadership, David Rooke and William R. Torbert, Harvard Business Review, April 2005
Seven Transformations of Leadership, ibid., page 8
Ibid.
Ibid, page 9