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.