“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”[1] —Steve Jobs, cofounder and former Apple Inc. CEO
When I told Vinca Russell, senior manager of global ethics & compliance communications, training, and initiatives at Ingersoll Rand, that I was writing a book on integrity, she said it got her “thinking about a few things in my life. Mainly being honest with myself . . . we so often think about honesty as it relates to what we say and do to/for others. The greatest honesty, in my humble opinion, is to ourselves.”[2]
Of all the things she could have said about integrity, she had no idea that I consider this idea to be so important. She had no idea that I feel we have to work on honesty within ourselves before we can have integrity with others. She, in my humble opinion, hit the nail on the head. If we are not honest with ourselves, we cannot understand what our core beliefs are and make decisions that adhere to them. We cannot be authentic in our lives and we cannot be honest with others.
What is Authenticity?
Here are a few of my favorite descriptions of an authentic person:
Cultures and Norms
Being authentic helps you make more measured and balanced decisions that align to your beliefs. This benefits your personal life as well as your professional life. Yet many organizational cultures beg you to be someone else, expecting you to conform to their ideal behavior, thinking, or norms. Large organizations, especially, often have strict rules about “what is acceptable to say or do here.” During my almost 40 years of managing people, I struggled with this too. Eventually, I realized that people were often more productive if they were left to just be themselves. Some managers really don’t know how to run a business, so they micromanage their employees and focus on minutia and policies. They fuss over trivial things—like telling you what to say or how to act. Ironically, what these kinds of unnatural expectations can lead to is an inauthentic workforce.
Most organizations have a mission statement, value statement, and principles they use to develop a certain kind of culture. They define acceptable standards of behavior within a company and the organization’s values. Most standards are very rational definitions of good and honest ways to interact with one another in the workplace. However there are also unofficial norms not listed in the organization’s values or principles. They are often discussed one-on-one from mentor to mentee, at quiet lunches with no one else listening. These norms are present, but rarely openly discussed. The problem starts when these unofficial norms conflict with who you really want to be. That is when the war on your authenticity begins.
I know about working in a place where I couldn’t be my authentic self and how it impacted my integrity. I was in administration at a major healthcare system for 10 years. Many consider it to be the best healthcare system in the world and I wholeheartedly agree. However, healthcare organizations are at great risk of developing an “excessive culture.” By excessive, I mean a culture that excessively values one group of employees over another. In the healthcare system I worked in, that meant sometimes choosing to keep doctors happy over doing the right thing. I think this tends to happen in healthcare systems, because doctors gain so much respect for returning people to good health and they also generate large amounts of revenue for the systems. Where I worked, this led to a culture where the doctors could do no wrong, even if it meant bending the rules.
Cultivating Common Sense
Part of being genuine is having common sense. But there isn’t just one form of common sense—it comes in many forms. There’s common sense in business, raising a family, fixing things around the house, and so on. Some believe that you either do or don’t have common sense, but that is a myth in my opinion. It can be a natural gift, something you’re born with . . . and that perspective is to some degree true. But we can overcome the lack of a natural gift by learning. You can gain common sense through study and repetition. We can learn how to be handier around the house from practice, trial, error, and watching how-to videos online. If we don’t try, we cannot improve. The same is true for common sense. It is something that can be developed and cultivated.
I would pick something that you have always wanted to get better at, are not very knowledgeable about right now, and work hard on it for a while. It can be something personal, a hobby like woodworking, or something more work-related, like negotiating. Then as a dear friend of mine, Bojan Bajić, who lives in Sarajevo says, “Try and then learn. Try some more and learn some more.”
One of my issues at that healthcare system was about certain purchasing decisions. Some purchasing decisions were based on ego and lacked financial justification. When I tried to debate the wisdom of a purchasing decision, idea, or plan, different peers and leaders strongly discouraged me from debating with doctors. A former colleague shared a similar story to mine—something that’s not atypical in the healthcare setting. He was called into his boss’s office and told, “I heard about your disagreement with Dr. X. You were right and he was wrong . . . but never forget, the doctors are always right here. Don’t do that again.” There were many times when debate was encouraged in the system where I worked, but it was also discouraged. A number of discussions ended simply because of someone’s job title. I struggled with the decision-making process there.
These examples show that it’s not always easy for us to completely be ourselves while also conforming to cultural norms. When cultural expectations push you to go against what you know is right and what is best for the company as a whole, then I believe they go too far. Those are the moments that force you to make an ethical decision, one that may not be too popular in your culture. What kind of decision would you make? Would you go along with the norms to keep most people happy, even if it is detrimental to your company? Or would you make the decision that aligns with your core beliefs, although it may challenge the directives of certain colleagues? It’s not an easy decision to make.
The CULT in CULTure
One reason why it’s not easy to make decisions that go against cultural norms is that we all want to belong, to be accepted within our communities of colleagues, friends, families, and neighbors. Conforming helps us gain respect as recognized members of that culture. Conformity is important, helpful, and necessary for a society to function, but some of it is absolute poison for people who are different in a beautiful and harmless way. It’s led me to think about the word itself—ever notice that “cult” is in the word “culture”? There is a reason why.
People join cults to feel like they belong somewhere, are accepted, and protected. The norms within that cult may be very different from society as a whole, but its members change who they are in order to belong. While a cult is an extreme kind of social group to belong to (and usually has a very negative and unhealthy dynamic), people want similar things from their broader culture. They want to belong in their society, feel safe, and be accepted by others.
Integrity Dictionary
culture /ˈkəlCHər/
(noun)
The customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.
cult /kəlt/
(noun)
A group whose members have a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.
Cultures also have expected behavior patterns that may seem harmless on the surface, but which may be harmful to some in the long run. There are many wonderful aspects of every culture. However, most every culture has a little bit of cult in it. The negative side effect of all this is that cultures, whether at work or in our personal lives, can interfere with us being who we are, and encourage us to act in ways that do not align with our beliefs.
Yet, if you want to act with integrity, you need to stay true to yourself. You have to go all-in on who you are—and doing so may make you stand out within your culture. It takes courage to do so. As CEO, I was not afraid to hire people who did not fit the mold. More importantly, our management team was supportive of letting employees be who they were. We hired them to do a specific job, but months later (after figuring out who they were and what their strengths were) we tried to steer them into roles in which they truly fit. Finding a job that allows you to be yourself is more important than money or a good title. I would argue that you will eventually get more money and that good title if you find a job and a work culture that allows you to be yourself and plays off your strengths and uniqueness. Being in that kind of culture will help you thrive in an authentic way.
Roy-ism: It is hard to work on our integrity if we are pretending to be someone else.
Acting More Authentically
So how do you develop your authenticity? First you need to understand your core beliefs. What do you feel strongly about? What does your inner compass tell you to do? And do you listen to it? These are all questions that everyone can answer—it just takes real courage to answer them honestly. Once you can honestly assess what your core beliefs are, observe yourself to see if you act in accordance with them. Do you catch yourself telling lies? Do you say things that you don’t really believe just so you’ll fit in with a certain culture? Find out which actions you take that do not align with your beliefs and then start correcting them. It’s just that simple. Over time you’ll see some progress—your actions will support your beliefs and your beliefs will support your actions.
You can try one kind of evaluation in the “Stop and Self-Assess” exercise at the end of this chapter to take an honest look at where you’re at in this process. Share it with others and use it as a tool to develop self-honesty and self-awareness of where you are and where you hope to be.
Types of Liars
Lying of any kind is a dangerous, slippery slope. I have seen too many people start out small and end up in very bad places. Here are some of the top types of liars and the reasons why people lie. It may help you spot weaknesses in your integrity, as well as those of the people you know.
And get some outside support too—surround yourself with happy, genuine, and caring people. People can positively influence us to be our authentic selves. I am who I am, in part, because of the people I hung around with the most. These relationships have shaped my life—they’ve been overwhelmingly positive and impactful. Had I not gotten married and had children, my life would’ve taken a very different path. Had I not hung around the most knowledgeable people in the compliance and ethics profession for the last 23 years, I would’ve been a much different person.
Having positive people in our lives helps us be more honest, treat others kindly, achieve more, make better decisions, and have more integrity. If nothing else, hanging around people who treat you well makes life that much more enjoyable. Seek out people with the traits you want to have—not only will you learn from them, but good integrity-filled people tend to support friends’ efforts to genuinely be who they are.
Make a conscious effort to migrate toward people you admire . . . and drift away from those who might be a bad influence. Pause every once in a while to seek out some time with those positive influences. Put down this book right now and email, text, or call one of those people to set up a lunch or dinner.
Craft your actions to align with your beliefs, find a culture that truly fits you, and surround yourself with supportive people to cultivate your authenticity. It’s one of the most important skills to work on to act with more integrity in your work cultures and communities.
Q & A: Joel A. Rogers on Being Authentic
Joel A. Rogers is the cofounder of Compliance Wave; he served as CEO and sold the company to Steele Compliance Solutions in 2017. Joel has traveled extensively speaking on business ethics to large corporations and government agencies and authored corporate codes of conduct and ethics for several global companies including Chevron, McCormick, and Lincoln Electric. He headed Corporate Compliance practices for UL EduNeering and RedHawk Communications, and was the director of ethics training for the City of New York; he also served on the steering committee of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws. Joel was also named a 2008 Millstein Rising Star of Corporate Governance at the Yale School of Management.
Joel Rogers seems to excel at being genuine while simultaneously maintaining civil relationships with other people and respecting different cultures. Joel is an entrepreneur who’s started a couple successful companies. He is also very truthful and has strong integrity . . . basically, I think he gets it. But I think where he really shines and is a good example for us all is in his authenticity. I asked him a few questions about being authentic. Here’s what he had to say.
ROY (R): I think you are more genuine than most people I have met. Why do you think I have that impression? Do you consider it a compliment?
JOEL (J): That certainly seems like a compliment, particularly because I know you to value genuineness. So I’m grateful for your sharing that impression of me. Honestly, I think that your seeing me that way comes less from the way I’ve come across generally in conversation, and more from some very specific things I told you early on about the culture—particularly the sales culture—that I sought to cultivate at my company, Compliance Wave. Our approach is to communicate with companies about our products with unvarnished honesty, and that includes saying “we don’t think this is the right fit for you” whenever we believe it. Between 30–40% of our sales calls end with us saying words to that effect.
Now, if you think I’m saying “look how much integrity we have,” let me add that the primary reason we do this is for self-preservation. We do it to maintain our focus on doing the “right” business. We do it to make sure we never have conversations where someone can say we sold them a bill of goods. And we do it to maintain our reputation for speaking plainly and honestly and being people you can trust. This kind of approach has been so essential to the success of the business.
R: Have you ever tried to help employees be their authentic selves? If so, how? Who was it and how did you try to help? Why did you try to help?
J: Most of my feelings about authenticity are as much practical as they are philosophical. What I mean by that is, I think “being your true self” is defined by some important ethical and spiritual dimensions. Yet I also believe “being your true self” is equally shaped by the crappy things that can happen to you if you speak or live in an inauthentic way. And here, by “inauthentic” I mean something like “communicating something or acting in a way that’s different from the plain truth as you know it.”
Here’s an example: The recent process of selling my company was rich with opportunities to share with employees my views of being one’s authentic self. This is because the due-diligence process that accompanies an acquisition can easily give rise to defensiveness and a certain kind of “strategic” presentation of a “narrative” of who you are and what you’ve done. I believe that this kind of reaction is a big mistake.
On several occasions during the due-diligence process, one or another employee would approach me and say, “They’re asking for X. How should we answer this?” My answer was the same 100% of the time: “Just answer it as clearly and as honestly as possible. Look,” I would say, “we are a very successful company and this other company is interested in buying us because they think we’ve done some things right. We also think we’ve done many things right. Why would we now start creating narratives about what we’ve done, when we can just tell it plainly?”
Of course, sometimes the issue was something that you might think wouldn’t make us look as good as we’d like to look. My answer in those cases was still, “just answer it as clearly and honestly as possible.” The last thing we want is to conceal some truth, or tell a half-truth, and have it discovered later. We also don’t want to be purchased by a company that wouldn’t want to buy us, if they knew the whole truth. That would be catastrophic.
If you tell an unvarnished version of the truth, you don’t have to burn any time thinking up flattering narratives, remembering what stories you told, or keeping track of the tortured meaning of the numbers you put into spreadsheets. This is because your authentic self isn’t in conflict with the artificial mechanisms you’ve built to try to control the outcome.
R: Do you think most struggle with being authentic, and, if so, why?
J: I doubt that most people think about being authentic at all, so in that sense I don’t think they struggle. On the other hand, I suspect that many people don’t realize how much effort and pain can be avoided simply by being authentic. They don’t recognize the incredible freedom that can come from simply being who you are in the world, instead of trying to create a narrative of a fake self that others will approve of. So, for those people, I’d say it’s not that I think they struggle with being genuine, it’s that they struggle (enormously) because they are not genuine.
R: What if anything in our culture works against our efforts to be genuine?
J: Seems like pretty much everything in our culture works against our efforts to be genuine, though I suppose that’s probably true for many or most cultures. Here are four obvious ones:
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College admissions requirements—which seem to ask students to become hyper-competitive performance machines, often (I think) at the expense of pursuing avenues and modes of being that would help a young person discover his or her true self.
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Social media—the use of which encourages people to create an idealized version of themselves for the world to view.
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The media generally—whose polarizing effect tends to blunt many of the nuances of thought and expression that most people naturally have. In other words, in the United States we are so encouraged by the media to identify as either liberal or conservative—either CNN or Fox News. It’s easy to forget that most people—including ourselves—don’t line up completely with just one or the other of these identities.
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Everything related to celebrity and youth culture—which encourages us to value pretty much all of the wrong things. It’s not hard to see that millions of people have subordinated their true selves to meaningless, largely consumerist pursuits.
R: Was there a specific tipping point in your life where you think you went from trying to conform too much to being who you wanted to be?
J: I think I’ve always sought to be true to myself, but that’s not to say that there haven’t been important inflexion points along the way that have given me more information about who that self really is.
One such experience was the time I spent in the U.S. Navy. Up until that time, I had no real sense of how poorly suited I am to taking orders from others in an unquestioning way. It seems that I question most everything that comes my way, and I wouldn’t know how to stop doing so.
Another example is from business, and for me it was the realization that my business will most thrive when I’m clear about exactly what we do, exactly who we want to do business with, and how to be unambiguous in communicating those things. Not trying to be things we are not—that is, not trying to be something a prospective customer wants us to be just because they have money is radically freeing. It frees us to focus on what’s most important, and frees us from a huge amount of stress. This is the environment I choose to operate in, and that has made all the difference—not only in the success of my business, but also in the quality of my own life.
Now You Try: Stop and Self-Assess
I recently read a Forbes article on being genuine, the “12 Habits of Genuine People” by Dr. Travis Bradberry.[7] He’s the author of a great book on a related subject—emotional intelligence—and his consultancy firm provides emotional intelligence tests and training to many Fortune 500 companies. Bradberry’s list makes the vague concept of authenticity a little clearer.
Take a moment to have an honest conversation with yourself by evaluating where you are in your genuineness journey. How do you fare in each of the qualities of genuine people outlined by Bradberry in this chart? Look at it and write down where you think you are on each of them.
I would consider sharing your assessment with someone who knows you well, and ask for their thoughts. And don’t argue with whomever you choose—if anything, ask clarifying questions. I would NOT ask for examples. There are few certainties in life, but one is that most of us become defensive when being told we could do something a little better next time. Plan on fighting the urge to disagree, debate, or disprove what they tell you. Let what they say marinate for a while before you react. Just listen and trust them—don’t argue. That way you’ll be more likely to get an independent, unbiased assessment. Then do what my stepmother Dottie used to tell me to do, “Shut up and say thank you.”