Clearly I have NOT mastered this fine art of getting things done, as it has been a month since I last posted something.  Since then, however, I have been educating myself in the fine art of managing my time and the productivity of others.  I am currently availing myself of interns, with whom I am getting systemic changes accomplished that daily demands would have me ignore.  Like moving into Cooler Email, for instance, lock stock and barrel for managing my business from software-as-a-service.  There’s more to the story — stay with me.

Without some troops I would not tackle a project like shifting the locus of my business from my computer to another system so that others could share it.  Having that locus of control shifted makes many things possible that weren’t possible before.

While I have them (before they move on with their REAL lives), Ipek (on the left) and Semih (on the right) are making possible this transition to Cooler Email and other great tools of productivity.

On a related topic, I attended a business gathering last evening where we talked about execution of strategy.  The overarching theme of the evening was that for there to be a shift in the collective consciousness of bringing our heart to the business world, and not just our head, we all need to work for the common good and make decisions with the common good in mind, not just our selfish interests.

This is a theme of mine, and fortunately not JUST mine!  Working for the common good means that as we go about our regular work, we bring in the fine art of considering how what WE do will impact others.

I have helped Semih find a school where he will get his MBA, and I will help Ipek get a job.  I met these two young adults through an earlier intern, Orcun, whom I helped find a job and in doing so I lost him as an intern.  He replaced himself by introducing me to his two friends who needed internships.  THAT, my friends, is the FINE art of getting things done!  When I released my need for Orcun to be my intern, little did I know that I would end up doubling my workforce of interns!  My deciding based on the common good turned out to be good for me, good for Orcun, and good for Ipek and Semih.

I think that’s the way the world REALLY works, and it is NOT intuitive any more than leaning into the curve on a motorcycle is intuitive.  It is a choice, and in the end things get done that should get done, even though in the beginning we don’t see the whole picture.

I am not politically inclined as a general rule, I am environmentally inclined because as an environmentalist, it is easier to see that the winner is the planet and the people on it.  Likewise, it is pretty easy to see that waste is bad, preservation is good.  Not so easy in politics to spot clear winners.  However, even the Democrats appear to be running for the hills politically.  This, from the Wall Street Journal.

I’ve been dialoging on the topic of trust and integrity on a LinkedIn group called the Executive Reform Movement, hosted by Phillip Tanzilo.  In response to a suggestion that  we have the talent in this country to innovate and strengthen sustainable solutions, I said the following.

I don’t think it’s talent that’s missing. It’s good old fashioned values — for example, putting the good of ALL (including self, of course) as the forefront of considerations, asking, “How will this decision/product/financial strategy impact others? The world?”

To answer your original question, for me integrity and trust are not the same things. Integrity is how you go through the world, as I said before, reliably or not. And none of us is perfect! What we could be trusted to do, when we fail ourselves or someone else, is clean it up and make a new promise.

I believe that trust is generally granted to those who have integrity (to tell the truth, clean it up, take responsibility, be on time if humanly possible…), among other values.

In the broader realm, then, trust is earned, through consistent, continual behavior where evidence exists that my well-being (as a consumer, for instance, or a citizen of the world who has to breathe this air and depend on these oceans for food and eco-balance) has been considered when making that business decision, producing that product, creating that strategy.

For example, a garbage patch of plastics floats in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas, killing fish and destroying our oceans. Yet we all purchase plastic bottles and throw them away. CUT IT OUT. Lots of talented people produce those bottles, which are damaging our eco-system.

At an event recently, someone brought 2 plastic-wrapped boxes of many small water bottles, and I succumbed… it’s easier… rather than say, “These pollute. Take them back. Write to the manufacturer. Buy a water filter for your sink, use glass bottles they recycle.” Shame on me, and shame on all of us, for doing what is easy rather than what is right. It puts a tiny ding in my integrity, and I trust myself less the next time… why should others trust me?… if I don’t trust myself to do the right thing…  well, I did, and do, recycle.

Taking a stand for the greater good takes something. It is so utterly human to fail ourselves and others, and so incredibly courageous to take ourselves on, to tell the truth, to make a new stand and then live from it. Not unlike dieting… we know how to honor our bodies, do we do it? If we don’t honor ourselves, why would others honor us? And the human condition beat goes on…. but we’re seriously paying for it.