Imagine a cup. What is the function of a cup? What was it designed for?

Exactly! It holds liquid inside.

When I think about a cup, as long as it is whole and complete, it can perform its job well. If I break a piece off the cup, it can’t hold liquid anymore. This metaphor serves as a powerful reminder of how integrity affects our ability to perform in life and business.

Many conversations I have with my clients center around understanding this metaphor. When I hold up a cup and show it to them, they get it. If the cup is broken, it can’t do its job, right? Yes!

Now, you and I are not cups. But just like a cup, we can act incomplete or broken when we don’t act with integrity. Unlike a cup, we are always moving and changing. There is a state of being where we are whole, complete, and functioning as designed in our actions.

Staying complete is more about alignment than being still as we move through life.

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There are three layers to being in integrity while moving through the world:

1. Play by the Rules of the Game: These are the rules of our society, family, and the organization we work for. It’s essential to recognize these rules to navigate effectively.

2. Follow Our Own Rules: These are our values and what we say is important to us. Understanding our personal values helps us align our actions with our beliefs.

3. Be Our Word: This means keeping our promises and doing what we say we will do. It also means informing others when we cannot do what we promised. Honoring our word builds trust with others and ourselves.

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Think of a flock of birds.🐦 They move in alignment, changing direction together. They are in integrity as a flock. They follow their own rules while staying in sync with the wind and each other.

Unlike birds, we don’t only use our feelings or what we see to communicate. We use language! This is how we align with one another. You can imagine your word like a bird: when you say you will go left, all the other birds (humans) will go left as well. If you say you will go left, but in reality, you go down, how can others align with you?

When what we communicate doesn’t match what we do, we lose trust. And where trust is lacking, the condition for high performance is not present. It’s like a cup wondering why it can’t hold water when it’s broken.

That’s why integrity is often the first and last thing I discuss with my clients. When an organization comes from integrity and makes it part of their culture, amazing things happen.

Today’s feelings often dictate our actions. Instead of constantly changing our plans, we should do what we said we would do. This way, everyone around us can plan and act according to our word. It’s not just about doing what we said we would do; it’s a shift in our identity. We not only do what we say, but we also become what we say.

Being our word.

Today, there’s a lot of talk about big goals, finding amazing values for the company, and being an inspiring leader. But without integrity, no future spoken by the leader will be fulfilled, or it won’t be fulfilled on time and may come at the cost of its employees.

Integrity doesn’t create high performance, but it is crucial for high performance in individuals, groups, and organizations.

And it always starts with you...

Where have you given your word but haven’t done what you said you would do? Have you informed the people impacted by your word? Where are you telling yourself you’ll do things but never follow through? Have you cleaned up with yourself?

Start there. Clean up your actions by doing what you say you will do. When you do this, you create the space for others to do the same with you.

Attached to this message, you will find a deeper explanation of this model of integrity by Erhard, Jensen, and Saffron, which has made a big difference in my work. 📩