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!!
Six Questions to Demand of Your Employee Survey
Annual employee attitude surveys make good sense as a way to develop managers. They can also be a proactive tool for reducing personnel costs, enhancing service quality, and ultimately enhancing company profitability. The problem is that most employee surveys marketed by consultants cannot achieve these goals. Though they usually look good to the untrained eye, their effectiveness is limited by flaws in their planning, their measurement, and their implementation.
Following are six questions you should demand of your employee survey. If you cannot get satisfactory answers, think seriously about switching.
1 Has your survey shown a clear link between scores and operational and financial outcomes?
This question is important, because it tells you whether you have your hands on a lever you can use to improve your company’s performance. If you control surveys for 40 or more business units, you can run the test yourself. If not, use a survey that has been tested with employee responses and operational outcomes from at least 40 business units, preferably twice that number or more. Ideally that previous test should be in a similar business to your own. Do not expect a one-to-one correspondence between employee survey scores and financial outcomes. Profits, recall, are also affected by location, pricing, overhead, marketing, and a host of other factors. However, good surveys have shown statistically strong links to employee turnover, guest/customer satisfaction, and profitability.
Being the Betrayer… (cross-posted in forum)
This section of the forum is one of the most important, as it collects and considers stories
about how integrity functions and why. This is the place for presenting and discussing stories that are not already in The Integrity Dividend book. It is a way for all of us to keep learning about this fundamental issue.
Here is where we can tell and discuss stories about integrity failures, their causes and
consequences. The failures can be public — like the current banking crisis — or they can be failures of a boss you have had or known of. Or they can be our own. The story that follows describes one of my own integrity failures of a few years ago. If you have heard me speak, then you already know something about it… but there is more.
My school had just started a new degree program: A one-year accelerated MBA in hospitality. The new program opened up a new market for students: career switchers. These folks scored 50 points higher on entrance exams than our previous students. They were smart, driven, ambitious, and experienced — they were exciting to teach.
Read more »
Book Review at ManageSmarter
The Integrity Dividend
October 02, 2008
Leading by the Power of Your Word (Jossey-Bass; $27.95)
It’s business virtues 101with business consultant Tony Simons. In his book, The Integrity Dividend, Simons explains the importance of business ethics in maintaining a successful business.
Whether it’s a relationship between significant others, friends or co-workers, trust is everything. By establishing a culture of integrity and clear communication, business leaders can establish credibility, which in turn generates greater employee respect and commitment.
