Integrity is important to individuals, groups, organizations and society because it creates work- ability. Without integrity, the workability of any object, system, person, group or organization declines; and as workability declines, the opportunity for performance declines.

Morality refers to a society’s standards of right and wrong behavior for individuals and groups within that society, while ethics refers to the normative set of values that apply to all members of a group or organization.

If something is in integrity – is whole, complete, unbroken – it has maximum workability.

1. What you said
2. What you know
3. What is expected
4. What you say is so
5. What you say you stand for
6. The social moral standards

1. Not seeing that who you are as a person is your word
2. “Living as if my Word is only What I Said (Word 1) and What I Assert Is True (Word 4)
3. “Integrity is a virtue”
4. Self Deception about being out-of-integrity
5. Integrity is keeping one’s Word
6. Fear of acknowledging you are not going to keep your Word
7. Integrity is not seen as a factor of production
8. Not doing a cost/benefit analysis on giving one’s word
9. Doing a cost/benefit analysis on honoring one’s word
10. Integrity is a Mountain with No Top
11. Not having your word in existence when it comes time to keep your word

You simply cannot be a whole and complete person if you don’t honor your word to yourself.

No. Integrity is a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, in perfect condition. Your morals and ethics have nothing to do with having integrity.

The proposition is that if you violate the Law of Integrity, the opportunity set for your performance will shrink and therefore your actual performance is likely to suffer.

1. What you will or will not do
2. Doing it on time

When held as a virtue rather than as a factor of production, integrity is easily sacrificed when it appears that a person or organization must do so to succeed. Virtue is valued only to the degree that it engenders the admiration of others, and as such it is easily sacrificed especially when it would not be noticed or can be rationalized.

When...
1. It is whole and complete with respect to its word. This includes that nothing is hidden, no deception, no untruths, no violation of contracts or property rights, etc.

2. That is to say, an organization honours its word:
• Internally, between members of the organization,
and
• Externally, between the organization and those it deals with. This includes what is said by or on behalf of the organization to its members as well as outsiders.

Yes, unless you explicitly express that you are not going to follow one or more of the "rules".

Without integrity, the workability of any object, system, person, group or organization declines; and as workability declines, the opportunity for performance declines. Therefore, integrity is a necessary condition for maximum performance.

whatever you are expected to do or not do (even when not explicitly expressed), and in the case of do, doing it on time, unless you have explicitly said to the contrary.

The person is just being sincere and is not even thinking about what it will take to keep their word. So if anything makes it difficult to deliver, then they provide reasons instead of results.

Consider the experience of dealing with an object that lacks integrity, such as a car. When one or more of its components is missing or malfunctioning, it becomes unreliable and unpredictable, and it creates those same characteristics in our lives: the car fails in traffic; we inadvertently create a traffic jam; we are late for our appointment; and we disappoint our colleagues. In effect, the out-of-integrity car has created a lack of integrity in our life, with all sorts of fallout and repercussions that reduce workability.

Integrity is a purely positive proposition. It has nothing to do with good vs. bad. Integrity just ‘is’. Morality and ethics, on the other hand, are normative concepts in that they deal with matters of good or bad, right vs. wrong.

If you violate the Law of Gravity without a parachute, you will suffer severe consequences.

a) one has explicitly and publicly expressed an intention to not keep one or more of these standards, and b) one is willing to bear the costs of refusing to conform to these standards.

No because the belief that integrity is keeping one’s word – period – leaves no way to maintain integrity when this is not possible, or when it is inappropriate, or when one simply chooses not to keep one’s word. This leads to concealing not keeping one’s word, which adds to the veil of invisibility about the impact of violations of the Law of Integrity.

By not being serious when we give our word to ourselves, we forfeit the opportunity to maintain our integrity by honoring our word to ourselves. If you aren’t serious about this aspect of integrity, it will create ‘unworkability’ in our life: we will appear to others as inconsistent, unreliable or unpredictable.

Being in integrity means being whole and complete. This has nothing to do with integrity. However, when you give your word to someone, that means you are in agreement with the group ethical standards of right and wrong, and if not then you are willing to bear the costs of refusing to conform to those standards.

The proposition is that if you violate the Law of Integrity, the opportunity-set for your performance will shrink and therefore your actual performance is likely to suffer. We argue that if you respect the Law of Integrity you will experience enormous increases in performance, both in your organization and in your life.

Whenever you have given your word to others as to the existence of some thing or some state of the world, your word includes being willing to be held accountable that the others would find your evidence for what you have asserted also makes what you have asserted valid for themselves.

You should honor your word. As soon as you are aware that you cannot/will not keep your word, you should say to everyone impacted that you will not be keeping your word, and that you will keep that word in the future, and by when, or that you won’t be keeping that word at all, and what you will do to deal with the impact on others of the failure to keep your word (or to keep it on time). Though you will not keep your word, this will honor your word and be more responsible and respectful to all parties involved rather than hide that your word will not be kept.