One new voice on the topic of corporate integrity and accountability is Donna Kennedy-Glans, author of Corporate Integrity: An Toolkit for Managing Beyond Compliance.” I met her at the SAP GRC conference in Orlando, Florida last week, and found her an engaging and credible speaker. I highly recommend her book because her tools and templates make integrity measurable and actionable. I especially recommend applying her “Integrity Ladder” and “Integrity Grid” tools which can help organizations set clear objectives for integrity and pinpoint areas for organization changes that can help move it up the integrity ladder if that’s an explicit corporate goal.

Donna nicely illustrates how each department (finance, HR, legal, operations, etc.) plays a critical role in acting with integrity. What was missing for me in her book is the role of sales and marketing in corporate integrity. Perhaps it’s contained in “operations” or embedded in public relations which is often invoked for damage control after the fact. I would build on her case for corporate integrity by having sales and marketing execs consider the following questions as a checklist for your own corporate integrity contributions:

• Do you just comply with CAN-SPAM laws which protect people from unwanted mail or go beyond by finding ways to build trust with customer prospects through nurturing campaigns?
• How close is your customers’ post-purchase experience to the promise you set in the pre-sales phase? The bigger the gap the bigger the “out of integrity” customers will perceive between what you told them and what you delivered.
• How does your organization handle loss or failure? A company’s true colors often come out in adversity such as in a product failure or loss of a customer to a competitor. How well do you show your management team the links between product performance, customer retention and brand reputation?
• What actions build or diminish brand reputation? How strongly do you advocate for brand building outside the typical marketing tactics of advertising and PR? For instance, do you push for investments in the product development phase that would improve customer satisfaction, your suppliers’ contribution to your brand, reduce warranty returns, etc?

Finally, I personally believe that integrity is as much about “being” as it is about “doing.” Donna spends much of her book on “doingness” which is perhaps exactly what we need in this era of leadership lapses, malfeasance, and disappointing behaviors. But I would like to think that corporations and individuals can always be inspired to be honorable. After all, as Donna points out in citing Socrates, integrity is a virtue. It’s time we valued this virtue more. Behaviors will follow.

Hi Sridhar,

I bought a few groceries yesterday and noticed that the clerk had neglected to wring up a $40 item, so my bill was $15 when it should have been $55. I immediately pointed this out to her and she appeared to be shocked not that she had missed ringing up this item, but that I brought it to her attention, when I could easily have walked away. I thought nothing of it, but it saddened me that so much of our society comes from a place of "What can I get away with?" rather than "What is right?"

Sometimes the difference between the two is a difficult area to navigate. One trick I learned is that if I have to self-justify my actions, there's probably something not completely kosher with them.

Sounds like it was an interesting session. And your distinction between "being" and "doing" is spot on. If you are coming from a place of integrity, figuring out what to do is a lot easier.

Posted by: Elise | March 19, 2008 11:16 PM

Very refreshing to see a thoughtful piece on corporate integrity. With widespread corruption at the highest levels of government, it's no wonder that many corporate execs also feel above the law.

At the end of the day, the companies with leaders who act with integrity will foster the best relationships with partners, customers AND investors.

Posted by: John Gillett | April 17, 2008 1:20 PM