Chronicles of Grace

A compilation of stories of God's abounding grace and His everlasting love and faithfulness.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Can integrity be a determinant for success in business?

I just finished reading the book "Integrity: The Courage To Meet The Demands of Reality" by Dr. Henry Cloud, a Christian psychologist from California. He is also a consultant for various Fortune 500 companies and non-profit organizations. In this book, he gave 6 essential qualities determine your success in business. Integrity is more than just honesty because a person with integrity has the ability to pull together, to make it all happen no matter how challenging the circumstances. The 6 essential qualities of integrity are (italized notes are my thoughts):
  1. Are able to connect with others and build trust. Character is an integral part of integrity. The ability to connect authentically which leads to trust. (Sometimes people don't just get it. When we build about authentic connections, it is not always about us and our agenda. We connect with people because we are interested in them and we want to listen and learn from them. In the workplace, we are taught to be focused on the things that we are involved in. But sometimes this idea of being focused and prioritizing transcends in our relationships. We focus on our task but when it comes to people, we focus on them. It all about them not you.)
  2. The ability to be oriented towards the truth which leads to finding and operating in reality. (We most often assess one's character through the externals that's why many of us tend to admire people on what we see they can do rather than what they really are inside. Maybe because we also tend to focus the improvement of ourselves externally but we refuse to see the reality of what's inside us.)
  3. The ability to work in a way that gets results and finishes well which leads to reaching goals, profits or the mission. (If we are able to know who we are inside and out then we are able to accomplish greater things because we are able to balance our own strengths and weaknesses and use this knowledge to do our tasks with joy.)
  4. The ability to embrace, engage and deal with the negative which leads to ending problems, resolving them and transforming them. (In the book Good To Great, this is called "brutal facts", our strength of character is sometimes determined when we face troubles and tribulations. In Romans 5:3-4, Paul is saying that we can be hopeful in the midst of our suffering because it is one way of gauging our spiritual maturity. We need to be joyful despite our troubles because in the midst of suffering there is hope.
  5. The ability to be oriented toward growth which leads to increase. (Many of us are good problem solvers, we can make things better and things improve but it is only improvement of what already exists. But we need to be growers . But being a grower takes effort, the ability to sustain pain. The grief, too, that there are times we need to let go of things in order to go to the next level. )
  6. The ability to be transcendent which leads to enlargment of the bigger picture and oneself. (There are things in life that are bigger than us. God, His principles and values He gives to us are bigger than us but they have been made transcendent because these principles He wrote it in the Bible. Yes, they are bigger than us but God made it all possible that it can be transcendent and it is not impossible to do.)

Success in not related only to talent and brains because there are many bright and talented people who have not been successful. And the most successful are not the only ones who have the most talents. What Cloud is demonstrating in this book is the makeup of the person. All of us can grow in the kinds of real character that bring about fruitful relationships and achievement of purpose, mission and goals. Integrity is not something that you either have or don't have but instead is an exciting growth path that all of us can engage in and enjoy.

Integrity: The Reality to Meet the Demands of Reality by Dr. Henry Cloud (Harper-Collins, 2006)

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