Integrity, is it over rated?
One of our colleagues recently raised an interesting point. He suggested that we teach to “Negotiate with integrity” as a key part of our advanced negotiation skills programme.
I agree 100% that we in Scotwork should negotiate with integrity, but if we proclaim that as a message we are at risk of trying to change the world to that philosophy, instead of giving our participants the skills to handle both those with and without integrity.
Integrity to me means; being honest with what you can and can’t do, following up with promises you make, apologising for mistakes that you make, taking responsibility for your actions, acting upon issues in a timely manner. But I do recognise that others may have differing views.
In the 1900s many in the British navy thought that submarines were morally indefensible; battles should be fought man to man by battleships. In the age of chivalry armies lined up and started the battle at a pre-arranged time. The Geneva Convention wrote the “rules” the conduct of warfare. “Getting to Yes” has a philosophical message. Yet when we look around the world we see advantages gained by those who don’t play by the “rules”.
The Israelis occupy land taken by force of arms in the face of UN resolutions; North Korea sells nuclear weapons to rogue states; Iran and Syria arm the Hezbollah in defiance of world opinion; the Russians are planting flags at the North Pole contrary to international treaties; the Faroese are catching 10 times the agreed sustainable fishing quota; the Pakistanis are cheating at cricket to allow betting fraud; the Zimbabweans are seizing farms and giving them to government cronies; the US imprisons “foreign combatants” in Guantanamo Bay without any rights under US law or the Geneva convention; Greek workers riot on the streets until they get what they want; the French Government refuses to pay EU fines for breaking the rules they themselves set; terrorists blow up innocent civilians and end up in the government of Northern Ireland; the Australians criticise the Japanese for killing whales “for scientific research”, because they are “sentient beings”, but shoot kangaroos as pests.
And so it goes on, the world is not always fair. What I see as right may not agree with what you feel is right. There are few, if any, absolutes in this world.
Integrity is an excellent philosophy, but it is not always how it goes in the real world. We have to understand that for many people their customers and their competitors often don’t give a monkey’s about integrity; what they care about is profit, success and survival. Our skill set can be used to suit that “law of the jungle” world, but as negotiating trainers and consultants we should avoid trying to adapt the world to any rose-tinted view of how it should look, and deal with it as it is.
We have always said that to apply the skills and manage the process you do not have to meet another “8 Step” trained negotiator. In order to negotiate with integrity it requires the other party to have the same philosophy for the approach to work. When their approach is to cheat, lie, connive, plot, stab you in the back, deal creep, be two-faced; then you may have to adopt the same approach to survive.
In Scotwork we will continue to act with integrity and try to demonstrate that for long term relationships it is the best approach
John McMillan, Scotwork
Patrick 11:03 am on November 8, 2010 Permalink |
John
the integrity you describe is about adherence to moral principles, which is perhaps the most fundamental meaning of integrity. In that context, I agree it is not for Scotwork to lay down the moral code for others to follow.
This does not mean integrity itself is not important. I can see two pragmatic advantages that integrity brings to a negotiator. If
The first comes from the kind of integrity you describe and relates to what happens when things go wrong. When we deal with people who consistently behave in a way we respect, we are more likely to enjoy working with them. This kind of integrity helps to build relationships in which people are prepared to give each other the benefit of the doubt. This more trusting and forgiving type of relationship helps people overcome difficulties, especially when nobody is at fault. But it also means that people are more likely to forgive someone they believe is of good character, if he/she makes a mistake.
Integrity also means unity or wholeness. In this context, we may learn something from martial arts (not just sumo and judo). I am told by those who should know that one is far better served by mastering a single martial art than mixing them together. A blackbelt in either karate or judo will likely fare better in a fight than someone who has a brown belt in both. Goodness knows what would happen to someone who tried to do sumo and judo simultaneously! In much the same way, I suspect that mastering one method of negotiating achieves better results than picking and choosing between several.
Scotwork has a robust and integrated methodology, which focuses on the use of incentives and sanctions as the source of power. As you know, Harvard takes a somewhat different approach. A key tenet of the Harvard approach is to minimise or even avoid the use of power in order to reduce resistance. So a negotiator who tries to combine the two approaches will probably run into difficulty.
Whether in terms of mastering a single method or in building an emotional reserve to carry us through difficulty, integrity is important.
Your final point reminds me of the debate two weeks ago following the announcement by the head of MI6 about not using torture to protect the UK from terrorism. Negotiators confronted by someone who is underhand face a real dilemma. But the negotiator who responds by giving up his own integrity will leave himself is if navigating without a compass. Scary.