Another Amazing Firewalk
I ran another firewalk last night. It was incredible. Around 20 people again — a couple drove up from NYC, five people came from Waterloo, an hour and a half from here. A mother and daughter who called from a shelter. All walks of life, all looking for a shot of courage to face upcoming challenges, or a general boost in their lives. Everyone got what they came for. I hired a film student to record the event, so I can post a short video on my firewalk page. He got some great footage. I have sooo much fun running these events. My heart sings.
The testamonials were so good that I do not even know how to pick them — so here are the first several from the top of the pile:
This was a wonderful experience, in all of its forms. Each step led me to a greater strength within. All parts of my body and mind were activated, engaged and embraced. I learned to trust myself and others — both of which have been very difficult for me in the past. Anyone who wants to feel part of something greater and feel love for yourself should take a chance and firewalk.
–Lisa Bennett, 30, teacher
Tony makes facing your fears feel safe. After an evening working with him, walking on fire is easy.
–Julia Bently, 30, project manager
I had so much fun tonight, and I would absolutely repeat this experience. It has always been difficult, if not impossible, for me to trust others — much less people I do not even know! However, tonight, because I let myself trust a group of amazing strangers, I feel like I can overcome any obstacle in my life, and for that I am eternally grateful.
–Miriam Lehrer, 19, student
Very profound — a truly transforming experience. I think it will take me some time to process it all — but in every way I know it to be great. Thank you.
–James W., 55, network administrator
Indescribable, almost euphoric. Thank you and everyone who participated in this experience. It was life-changing.
–Pamela Crossno, 39, photographer
It honestly was a life-changing experience. I suggest it for anyone who suffers abuse or any othr kind of suffering. People forget what it is like to trust and love — and this event will make you feel powerful, at peace, and more outgoing to stangers. Thank you so much for this chance to remember how it should always be!
–Cheyenne Crossno, 16, student
This was a really grounding, centering spirit exercise for me. At times, I get stuck in mundane life and forget that there is so much more in life to experience. I was able to step out of everyday life for a few hours and be between the worlds — remembering my own power and my own ability to step up and be brave!
–Eve Katz, 43, special education teacher
This experience opened my heart to trust and have faith in others and in myself — as well as strengthening my bond with Great Spirit. I am at peace… I was moved to tears after the firewalk by emotions I don’t understand. All I know is it was the next step on my path. I leave now stronger than I was when I came in. Faith, trust and love.
–Lin Hill, 50, social worker
This was a profoundly insightful experience I would recommend for everyone. I came here needing and looking for courage within myself and I found it! I plan on attending again. There has never been a three-hour experience where I have walked away with so many friends.
–Kristin White, 27, nursing student
To step into the fears of my life was very empowering. Too often I dismiss myself and offer everything to others. To have others genuinely there for me made me feel very supported and even “loveable.” It brought it home to me too, i.e. that I am “loveable” to me.
–Joseph O., 53, musician
…if I can walk through fire once I can walk through the obstacles that will soon face me in life. Thank you for giving me the courage to see the things I hide deep down under the surface.
–Melissa Gilbert, 25, residential sociotherapist
Thinking you have no fear or anything you can’t handle, then Tony throws you things to do and the fears pop up and you face them. He brings out the best in you that you have…. Total out-of-body experience. At the end, a sense of peace! I recommend it to anyone no matter what is going on in your life!
–Andrew Bennett, 24, youth care professional
It really humbles me that people take all this great stuff from my firewalk empowerment workshop. I am just the guy who went and studied how to run these exercises safely. The participants do all the hard work, and the exercises simply are what they are. I look forward to sharing it with more people.
August Firewalk
I led another firewalk last night, August 20. Despite life being painful right now — some personal loss I prefer not to go into on the blog — I rose to the occasion and a larger crowd than last month was really served by the experience. Unlike other walks, many people in this group wanted to walk silently. And once they got started, they did not want to stop! I used music for the first time, gave out “firewalker” pins, and talked a bit more about the link between firewalk and integrity. The dominant words in the testimonials were “exhileration” and “serenity.”
Here is a sampling:
“There was initial anxiety and trepidation…By the time I faced the fire, I found myself in the center of calm & a feeling of serenity. It is that feeling that I will hold onto for the rest of my life. Thanks, Tony!”
– Preston C., Educator, 53
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“A very liberating experience like breaking through a barrier. A feeling of calmness pervades my body & mind. I highly recommend it.”
– Paul Strebel, Financial Advisor, Instructor, Consultant, 52
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“The fear was more effort than performing the firewalk and other enlivening tasks of this incredible evening.”
– Daniel Keough, Public Health Advocate
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“Freeing…lightening…essence of what all of us need in life: a dram of courage, a dose of ‘yes I can.’”
– Eric Machan Howd, Educator, 42
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“..it is empowering. I really felt like I was in the moment and in myself.”
–Lindsay Myron, Student, 21
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“Tonight’s experience was absolutely liberating!…Any words to describe [it] would somehow take from the experiece.”
–Jason Wilson, daddy, 36
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“It is about commitment. You can do anything if you step into it.”
–Naari S., Student, 21
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“Very exhilerating!”
–Douglass Bennett, Landscaper, 39
What a joy it is to be able to give that experience to people! I look forward to running multi-day events, with a firewalk at the beginning. What a wonderful space gets cleared. I look forward to filling that space with integrity.
What We are Learning about Behavioral Integrity
I just assembled nine papers, by various teams of scholars, to propose they be presented at this summer’s annual Academy of Management conference in Montreal. That conference is the biggest academic conference for management and organizational behavior each year. Around 10,000 business school professors, and a few consultants, converge on a few hotels in one city each August. The program is as thick as a phone book. About one in three submissions get accepted for presentation. I assembled sets of papers on behavioral integrity in 2006, 2008, and 2009. All were accepted. This year I had enough papers to propose two sessions. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
People are asking very cool questions about how behavioral integrity works. One team of scholars is exploring how leaders’ behavioral integrity affects employee innovation in response to extra job demands. Another looks at behavioral integrity as a buffer that softens people’s responses to their leaders’ violations of values at (get this) a megachurch. Another team, of which I am a part, is measuring behavioral integrity as a driver of patient and staff safety at hospitals in the US and Europe. Someone else has run an experiment to check whether behavioral integrity still increases trust when the promised behavior is bad. Those papers, coupled with my team’s brief review of everything we know so far makes up one session. This stuff is really relevant!
The second session looks at what drives behavioral integrity – as well as its consequences. A sharp student is looking at political skill as a factor that makes it easier for leaders to communicate in a way that conveys integrity. Another team is looking at transparency as a driver. A third looks at Chinese managers’ sense that their company supports them as a driver of their behavioral integrity, which in turn drives both their subordinates’ performance and their own. The last paper in that second set looks at behavioral integrity, transparency and trust in work teams.
I know that is a whirlwind tour. I just scratched the surface in describing these projects, and these projects just scratch the surface of the incredibly rich challenge that is integrity. But I just wanted to share my excitement about the wonderful questions that scholars are asking about behavioral integrity and how it works. We are learning!!
The Firewalk of Integrity
I have just completed my firewalk instructor certification course with the Firewalk Institute of Research and Education (F.I.R.E., get it?). It was a mind-boggling experience is no many ways. I learned some WONDERFUL new training tools for empowerment — and, as side benefits, I felt massively empowered myself by doing all these exercises. Oh, and I also joined a new family that welcomed my integrity work and totally got how integrity is a firewalk. Wow, could I possibly have hoped for more?
I first did a firewalk three or so years ago, as the first evening of a three-day goal-setting retreat. What a thing! First the firewalk convinces you that you can do anything, and then you spend a few days setting up a BHAG (“big hairy audacious goal”– a Jim Collins expression) that you can live your life into. That was when I decided to become a thought leader by 2014. Anyway, the firewalk was outrageously empowering and deep, had that effect on everyone present, and nobody at all got hurt! So, now I am trained and certified to share that experience with others.
I see myself offering simple firewalks — stripped down, they pack a whole lot of personal transformation into a single evening. I also see myself doing integrity dividend firewalks, both as one-evening events and also as part of longer integrity dividend programs.
How, you might ask, is integrity a firewalk? Let’s start with the fact that integrity is sometimes terrifying. It can mean confronting the messes you have created, telling people things they do not want to hear, admitting vulnerabilities, changing comfortable habits, holding yourself accountable, holding others accountable, others holding you accountable… A lot of scary stuff. Fear is by no means the only thing that keeps people back from integrity — there is also greed and sloth and a few other of the deadly sins. (Come to think of it, why isn’t fear one of the deadly sins? Perhaps it should be. It has certainly caused people to do some horrible things.) Anyhow, fear is something that holds many people back from going for fuller integrity. So now, with use of the firewalk and some other exercises, I help people conquer their fear.
I am thrilled to be able to offer that gift to people.
Special Issue on Leader Integrity
Hey, folks–
My google alerts just told me that I was being cited on the web, and I found a whole issue of the International Journal of Leadership Studies dedicated to this critical topic. Have not read all the articles yet, but they look promising. I know some of these guys. Nice work!
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/home.htm
Integrity Goes to Washington
What if a new approach started to gain traction in the halls of Washington? Where people might actually say what was really on their mind. Where politicians debated their real reasons for votes. Where promises were reliably kept. Where opinions were recognized as opinions, and facts as facts.
We just might see some civility. We might see some trust across the aisle. We might see people getting things done. I know most of the people in Washington mean well. But a new set of tools might help.
My book, The Integrity Dividend (Jossey-Bass, 2008) presents evidence that people more readily follow leaders who live by their word. That being seen as living by your word makes a person more effective in a host of ways – followers are more engaged and more directed in their efforts, companies are more profitable, and adversaries are more cooperative. Measurable performance results. The Integrity Dividend is not about morality; it is about effectiveness. The book then goes on to address several ways in which the practice of integrity is challenging, and how it can be attained.
The Integrity Dividend is a business book, written for managers and executives. It is not a political book. But the message applies.
I believe a widespread practice of striving to build credibility through deliberately living by your word might just make a difference in Washington. Now is the time for it. The current financial crisis can be squarely laid at the feet of executives who failed to execute their stated charges responsibly, and opted instead to exploit loopholes in the financial systems. People sense this. And what passes for debate in the halls of congress seems very different from a thoughtful consideration of the actual drivers of politicians’ votes. Often the politicians do not even bother to show up to hear the words of the opposition – a testament to the emptiness, or perceived emptiness, of the argument. Integrity seems to be in short supply.
And it just might help.
I am not naïve enough to think that one book would solve the integrity problem in Washington. The incentives are tilted too heavily against it. Politicians need to raise tens of thousands of dollars every day to stand a chance of retaining their positions – and common folk don’t offer that kind of money. There is structural work that needs doing if we really want to see honest debate and decision making. But ideas do matter. And integrity is an idea that many might want to promote – if for no other reason than that it makes them look good to do so. It might catch on.
I would like to see the idea of integrity take root in Washington. Because Washington would work a whole lot better if it did. It would serve the people, the economy, the planet.
So I am wondering how to get copies of The Integrity Dividend into the hands of every senator, every congressman, every cabinet member, the president, maybe the supreme court. And to have it read by as many of them as possible. Get them talking and thinking about it. Because it just might make a difference. Even a small difference would be worth the trouble.
The question of the hour is how to make that happen.
–Should I create a nonprofit organization to which people can contribute? Or ally with an existing one?
–How should I raise money for it? It would not require too much.
–Who should write the cover letters? Individual constituents (“send a book to your congressman, and send a message…”)? Sponsoring companies? A media heavyweight? An elder statesman, or a team of them (e.g. Bush Senior and Carter?)
–How can I get the book read? How can I get past the clutter these incredibly busy people must face?
–Should I write an extended executive brief to accompany the book? Should I try to make the translation into the language of politics?
–Should I target the ethics enforcement committees in the house and senate?
I would welcome ideas about how to make this happen, pledges of financial or other forms of support, debate about whether or not it might make some difference, and other dialog. Top ideas will be rewarded with a signed copy of the book.
–Tony Simons
Weak Integrity Got Us Into This Jam – And Strong Integrity Can Get Us Out
The current economic crisis is a result of integrity failures: Many people did not live by their word. Financial executives, lobbying for deregulation, said they would self-police. They didn’t. They wrote mortgages and issued credit cards, assuring their customers that the payments were manageable. They weren’t. I am no finance guy, but I knew that a variable rate, interest-only mortgage is a very, very bad idea. Surely those whose business it is to know that also knew. Downstream, finance gurus created products that systematically understated risk and overstated earnings. They knew better.
They were all gaming the system. Looking for loopholes. Looking for the ridiculous twist of the rules that magically makes you a winner. According to their still flush bank accounts and high salaries, perhaps they were right.
But the rest of the world is noticing that perhaps they were not. We have had enough gaming. Time for a little straight talk and hard work.
There is nothing more fundamental in business than this question: “How good is your word?”
Reviews are In…
From a workshop Charles Feltman and I did with Thayer Lodging. We were brought in to an already very well-functioning company because their co-chairman agreed with the integrity dividend premise that excellence starts with integrity. Our one-day workshop focused on how to make and request commitments in a way that enhances organization-wide follow-through and impeccable delivery on promises. A little over a month after the workshop, they met with their team to see how the session worked. Here is the letter we received:
The senior leadership team at Thayer Lodging Group each read The Integrity Dividend, after which we participated in a one day seminar led by Tony Simons and Charles Feltman. The book has a powerful message, is well-written, and clearly made the case for keeping your word and closely managing the commitments you make. The workshop reinforced the message and created a framework for the team to support each other in managing commitments and improving the processes by which we work together.
What we did not expect was the reaction after the workshop. Several weeks later, we called the participants together and asked them for their evaluation. What we heard truly surprised us. People broadly reported much higher levels of job satisfaction, less personal stress, greater sense of freedom and a much greater sense of accomplishment. Participants noted a significant decline in the level of frustration, and a higher level of personal optimism, despite the difficult business conditions present at the time.
The smiles around the room were enthusiastic and sincere as people shared how they felt about themselves and their experiences of dealing with each other after the workshop. Truly a transformation had occurred, and is continuing to occur as we work together more and more effectively.
–Lee Pillsbury, Co-Chairman & CEO, Thayer Lodging Group
–Bruce Wiles, COO, Thayer Lodging Group
Why Shoot Straight in a Crooked World?
Posted by Marshall Goldsmith on October 6, 2008 11:13 AM
originally posted at
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This week’s question for Ask the Coach:
With the crazy economy, the up-and-down stock market, the layoffs, buyouts, and takeovers, I’d like to know: What’s the good in being good?
A lot of people are discouraged right now. Many people have lost, or are in fear of losing, their homes, their jobs, and their retirement funds. At the same time, it has been a challenge to work together toward a common solution due to a general lack of trust and a lot of finger pointing. I asked Dr. Tony Simons, professor and noted author of The Integrity Dividend, to share his answer to this question.
MG: Tony, you’ve been doing some interesting research about the global trust/deceit level. Would you share some of it with us?
TS: Of course, Marshall.
Recently, the Wall Street Journal commissioned a global survey on deceit. They surveyed more than 20,000 people in 19 countries, asking whether cheating in business transactions is more or less common that it was ten years ago. Sixty-five % of Americans said it is more common; 70% agreed it is “a real problem.” The majority of respondents across the globe said cheating is more common now than ten years ago.
MG: Why do you think that cheating is seen as so prevalent?
How Integrity Feels as a Leadership Idea
My friend Bill Jawitz sent me this cartoon within hours of hearing about the integrity dividend. I think it is incredibly insightful.
