Integrity and Ethics

I was away on the weekend with the boys to help celebrate/prepare a good friend for his upcoming wedding.  While on a wine tour, one of the guys Mark (the chef) turned to me out of the blue and said…

"At the end of the day all you have is Integrity and Ethics".

And he is right.  I would also add that you need to live with yourself and that words can not undue deeds.  In consulting and life the above is hard to maintain.  One of the reasons I wanted to start Project X is that I felt that Graham was the embodiment of the above mantra and I wanted to start a company that would live by these words.

He really wanted me to do a post on this, but I am not sure you need to delve deeper into this.  What are your thoughts around this topic in today’s marketplace.

  1. Graham Boundy Reply

    The singer Tracy Chapman has a sone lyric that contains the following: “…don’t give or sell your soul away, cause all that you have is your soul.”
    The one person you have to live with no matter what you do, is yourself.
    “Don’t be tempted by the shiny apple, don’t you eat of the bitter fruit. Hunger only for a task of justice, Hunger only for a world of truth. Cause all that you have is your soul.” Tracy Chapman

  2. Stephen Reply

    I remember talking with someone in the dot com days and their litmus test was:
    Would you want whatever you were doing on the front page of the Globe and Mail or National Post.

  3. Jim Reply

    One way of thinking about integrity and ethics is to think about the long term. If you avoid the short term gain where you might compromise your principles, in the long term you will surely win. As a personal strategy there is no better way.
    Another thing is to learn from your experience and move on, we all make mistakes.
    Often thinking about trust also helps keep you on the right track. Trust is such a precious commodity. Behaving ethically and with intergrity will always inspire trust.

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