missing from so many things these days, not the least of which is business. Now certainly there are people, and we probably all know a handful of them, that have little to no integrity. But businesses without integrity are a whole different animal.
When a business is run without integrity, then the customer is cheated. While cheating a person is bad enough, add the scale of most businesses (read as lots of customers) and the cheating should be criminal. In some cases, the cheating is criminal. Just take a look at any of the past ten to twenty years of giant business collapses. I think we would find in most cases that the businesses were not run with integrity. In most cases, a few individuals in those failed business were after money. Now we all know that money is not bad (see my PSA #1 for more), but when that is the focus of your life or business, especially at the cost of your integrity or the integrity of the business, then, “Houston, we have a
problem.”
I have heard snippets from Zig Ziglar where he talks about integrity and how important it is. I think that one could argue (and I am arguing) that integrity is a foundational principle of life and of business. Cheaters never prosper, as the old adage goes. If you need proof of that, look at poor Mr. Madoff. He
looked good on paper, but we know where he is now. He lacked integrity. How do I know? He stole, lied, and cost many people many things. That screams lack of integrity.
So think about making decisions based on integrity. Open and run a small (or large) business using integrity as a guiding principle. If integrity is in place, the rest should follow.