Integrity

Earlier this week, I attended a dinner honoring local heroes in our community. The honorees ranged from people who had opened their homes and hearts to refugees from third world countries, to people helping the homeless, to those advocating women's rights in Afghanistan.

One of the honorees in his acceptance speech, recited a quote that set my mind in motion:

There's right and wrong, and not much in-between.

How true, especially in the business world these days. That speech set me upon a search of quotes amongst business authors:

There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity. - Tom Peters

Guy Kawasaki, in his commencement speech at Palo Alto High School in 1995 advised the students to obey the absolutes:

Playing to win, however, does not mean playing dirty. As you grow older and older, you will find that things change from absolute to relative. When you were very young, it was absolutely wrong to lie, cheat, or steal. As you get older, and particularly when you enter the workforce, you will be tempted by the "system" to think in relative terms. "I made more money." "I have a nicer car." "I went on a better vacation." Worse, "I didn't cheat as much on my taxes as my partner." "I just have a few drinks. I don't take cocaine." "I don't pad my expense reports as much as others." This is completely wrong.

Preserve and obey the absolutes as much as you can. If you never lie, cheat, or steal,
    you will never have to remember who you lied to, how you cheated, and what you stole. There absolutely are absolute rights and wrongs.

Warren Buffet, the world's most successful investor says:

In looking for people to hire,
you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And
if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.

If we all took our lessons from Peters, Kawasaki and Buffet, we would never end up as subjects of SEC inquiries.