Even when I was very young, I knew that my dad had gone successfully through several huge ethical fogs.  Several years before Dad met my mom, he turned down an unethical but lucrative job at the height of the great depression.  When I was just six months old, he blew a whistle on his powerful embezzling boss, a college president. Four years later, soon after Dad’s testimony helped send the boss to jail, Dad turned down another lucrative but unethical job at a social service agency.

As a child, of course, I didn’t understand the full impact of these stories. As an adult, I got enough details about whistleblowing and its impact to fill a book.

In the end, Dad’s only regret  was that no one had stopped the president when the wrongdoing was small, by saying simply, “No, Dr. Meadows, you can’t do that.”  Over the years, I also learned a lot about the stress of Dad’s whistleblowing on our family, and I healed.

What was left after the forgiveness and healing were some very powerful life lessons in basic integrity.  May they also serve you.

Integrity Tip 1:  Discover And Strengthen Your Integrity Signals

Each of us has a set of unique signals that let us know when we’re in or out of integrity, whether we call those signals our North Star, our touch stone, our inner compass.  Or my favorite, which I learned in Dad’s shop, the level and plumb which have helped carpenters build on true and on the level for over 5,000 years.

For Dad, moral disgust was visceral, like the feeling of being kicked in the gut when he realized what that his boss was embezzling. We once talked about the feeing of moral uplift — that warm feeling you may get in the upper chest in the presence of goodness–or the quiet buzz I sometimes get in the upper back, when you know things are on true or on the level.

Integrity Tip 2: Feed and Exercise Your “Integrity Muscle”

Dad often got integrity guidance from intuition or memories.  The first time Dad was offered an unethical job, he was helping to tear down an old, unsafe bridge when the boss offered to cut him in on a deal to paint the old parts to look like new, then underbid other contractors on a job in another county.

Standing along on what was left of the old bridge, Dad felt a moment of temptation.   “With so many people going bankrupt,” he thought, “you could even help your mama buy the farm she’s always wanted.” Just then a Canada goose flew close by.  It eyeballed Dad and seemed to say, “You know you’re got to do the right thing.”

For the first time in his career, Dad lost his footing. As he scrambled for balance, he imagined crashing onto the rocks below, then being swept down the rapids to death or severe injury. That’s when he remembered Psalm 121, which he had memorized as a child:  “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.  My help is in the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

The psalm then promised that God would not allow him to stumble or fall, that he would be guarded from evil, “both now and forever.” That helped him regain his footing and affirm his refusal to be part of corruption.

Integrity Tip No. 3:  Don’t Stand Naively Alone When You It’s Your Turn to Speak Out

Dad was lucky to have the support of several other faculty members who also blew the whistle.  A local politician connected him to the State Bureau of Investigation, and after the third try, he got the support of a great lawyer to protect himself. Dad also prayed a lot.

Whistleblowers have a lot more support today, starting with the Government Accountability Project (www.whistleblower.org). If Dad were speaking out today, he could benefit from a great therapist who understands how to alleviate stress.

And if you don’t already know how to document key information, get an attorney to teach you what you need to record and how to do it.  Assume that once you’ve spoken out, people who now seem like friends may be offered huge incentives to deny what they now admit is the truth. So get that truth in writing, before you go public.

Integrity Tip No. 4:  Don’t Take on Too Much.

Too many whistleblowers become obsessed with fixing the whole problem, winning a personal vendetta or being a martyr.  I grew up with inflated notions of all I thought I had to do to live in integrity, given my idealized image of my father.

My best ally here has been Rhena Schweitzer Miller, daughter of my lifetime hero, Albert Schweitzer.  While interviewing her once, I got the image that it’s possible to wear a powerful parental legacy or a calling as lightly as one wears a chiffon scarf.  Another ally is my minister, Rev. Dr. Patricia Keel, to seek guidance on what is mine to do, what is not.  To the extent I have courage to do that which really calls me and ignore my ego’s demand that I do something grand, I’m more likely to be in integrity.  I also get to have a great life while doing what’s I know to be right, because part of being in integrity is being whole and true to myself.

So what about you?  What stories and resources help you know, stay in or return to integrity?  What tips can you offer from your life or role models?

As always, many blessings

Pat McHenry Sullivan

Almost all the people I told about the writing gig made what they thought was a joke:  “Whistleblowers?  Oh, you mean ratters? Snitches?  Stool pigeons?” Given my father’s story, and given the 95-5 odds that my mother’s early death from a rare illness was caused by the FDA’s lack of attentiveness to under-reported side effects of a popular prescription drug, it’s amazing I didn’t do bodily harm to those jokers.

Today, it’s still considered okay to slander whistleblowers, then wonder why more people don’t speak out to warn us about fraud, waste or abuse.  And there are many who are so focused on not being “negative thinkers” or buttinskies or poor team players that we become complicit in all types of wrongdoing.  Fortunately, there are a whole bunch of resources to help you tell truth to power and thrive and/or to support those who dare to speak on your behalf.

Why We Must Love Whistleblowers At Least Enough To Support Them

Think the only people who suffer when whistleblowers are quashed or retaliated against are just the whistleblowers, their friends or families (if they have friends or family who still speak to them after all the retaliation some suffer)?

Think again.  Since caveman times, we’ve needed people to warn us about fraud and dangers in our food, water supply, and protective services.  Today, as we rely on more goods and services from people we will never meet, we need whistleblowers even more.

If we don’t stop routinely ignoring or putting down people who expose wrongdoing, we just won’t have safer streets.  Safer medical care.  Safer economy.  Safer everything.

Imagine how many people would still have their homes and jobs if early truth-tellers about the housing bubble, Enron wrongdoings and Bernie Madoff were heeded and honored by groups that were supposed to be watching out for us, like the SEC?

Truth-Telling is a Basic Spiritual Practice

Almost every Old Testament Prophet story reports how scary it is to heed that call of “You want me to go where?  And say what to that powerful tyrant who has the power to kill me or at least make my life miserable?”

In those stories are also the wisdom that we just can’t evade the call to speak out sometimes.  Even if, like Jonah, we try to run far, far away.

Speaking out is also part of our spiritual call to be there for each other, to get each others’ backs,  so to speak. As Pastor Martin Niemoller put it in his famous Anti-Nazi poem,  “…Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

An Overdue Celebration of Whistleblowers from the Government Accountability Project.

Last night the Government Accountability Project (GAP), Participant Media and the Paley Center for Media live-streamed a powerful program, “Anyone Can Whistle” featuring 8 whistleblowers.  Among them were Frank Serpico (the NYC cop who was left for dead when he dared expose police corruption), Daniel Ellsberg (whose disclosure of the Pentagon papers exposed deceit over how the government handled the Vietnam War), Kit Foshee (who alerted us to the use of ammonia in beef products which was supposedly going to get rid of salmonella), and Coleen Rowley (Time Magazine’s 2002 “Person of the Year” after exposing intelligence breakdowns before the 9/11 attacks).

To see the archived presentation, go to the GAP website. Then please check out the whole site. Actively support whistleblower protection legislation.

Needed: Training In Effective Truth-telling

Don Soeken has often said that a big problem is that while we are taught to tell the truth, we’re not taught how to do it — though we are taught to fear being called a tattletale. He’s done a great service by supporting whistleblowers in many ways and providing tips for effective whistleblowing.

Coming tomorrow, the integrity training I got from my dad’s whistleblowing experiences.  Coming next week, tips and ideas from a prominent attorney who helps companies flourish by making integrity and civility a touchstone of the corporate culture.  Please join us!

In the meantime, please add your comments below.  How do you blow a whistle on wrongdoing respectfully, in small situations or larger ones?  How do you avoid it?  What tips do you offer for how to support whistleblowers?

As always, many blessings,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

Imagine, to use another John Lennon pet phrase, that it’s true.  Love IS all you need to bring more integrity, more purpose, more joy, more peace in the world through the ways  we work and deal with money.  Actually, I’m far from the first person to pose this idea.  One of the best discussions of love, business and money was Tim Sanders’ wonderful article, “Love is the Killer App” in Fast Company Magazine.

Imagine the Most Powerful Force in Work and Money is Love — Not Greed, Fear or Unbridled Competition

It’s been almost 8 years since Sanders wrote this in the “Love is the Killer App” article:  The most powerful force in business isn’t greed, fear, or even the raw energy of unbridled competition. The most powerful force in business is love. It’s what will help your company grow and become stronger. It’s what will propel your career forward. It’s what will give you a sense of meaning and satisfaction in your work, which will help you do your best work.

Since Sanders wrote this, there have been more examples of how disastrous the results of greed, fear and unbridled competition are for everyone than anyone could have imagined in 2002.  Yet, there have also been numerous examples of a movement toward sustainability.  The field of spirit and work (which one prominent publisher told me around 2000 had peaked and was dying), has grown and become mainstream.  Movements in socially responsible capitalism are growing. Millions, probably billions of us, have put our finances on sounder footings of reality and meaning rather than fear and the chase for the latest shiny thing.

Today, Market Forces are Moving Us Towards More Integrity — An Essential Element of Love

Workforce Management recently published “10 Ethics Trends for 2010“  by attorney Stephen M. Paskoff which started with the trend towards even greater public scrutiny for the misdeeds of corporations and their celebrity spokespeople.  I was most excited by the impact of the last two trends he noted:

• Organizations will increasingly come to recognize that uncivil, abusive treatment—whether legal or not—causes business risks that exceed the economic costs of employment claims. These must be reined in during a period of diminished resources. This realization can be found in the health care field and will continue to spread to other industries.

• “Lean and clean” will replace “lean and mean.” Too many people and organizations have suffered too much because of greed and corporate corruption. There will be a renewed focus on values such as integrity, and these will replace the “greed is good” mentality prevalent in many organizations over the past 25 years.

“All You Need Is Love” May Sound Simplistic, But It’s a Great Starting Point

I discovered the “All You Need Is Love” singout through an e-mail from my friend Francine Brevetti.  “All You Need Is Love” certainly works for our friendship.  Not love in a passive “I think nice thoughts about you” kind of way, but in an active relationship where we are there for each other professionally and as buddies, for richer or poorer, in laughter and pain, in sickness and in health.

This morning, while I was viewing “All You Need Is Love,” my husband John joined me.  Later, we came up with these thoughts:

• All you need is love to guide you from hate or confusion towards caring and clarity.
• All you need is love for yourself to give you the courage to speak out when others harm you and to get help to deal with workplace bullies.
• All you need is love to create a richer foundation for any workplace or financial challenge that just your left brain or business as usual.
• All it takes is love to move from a state of “my heart just isn’t in it” to a commitment to do your best for yourself and others.

How Can You Put Love to Work Right Now?

Obviously, I hope you listen to the video and let it move you.

I hope you savor the articles listed above, as well as an earlier post in this blog, “True Love of Money is the Root of Many Blessings.”

To repeat the blog post’s  central thesis, what if  true love of money returns many benefits spiritual and material, including a more sane, kind and profitable economy for everyone? What if you love money according to the definition in Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13, where love is defined as patient, kind and many more wondrous things?

As always, many blessings, and please add your comments.

Pat McHenry Sullivan

“Can you give me more tips and resources for how to put more of my values into my business?” asked a participant in a class I taught on business planning at the San Francisco Small Business Administration www.sba.gov/localresources/index.html). That led to the following list, which I’ll use in tomorrow night’s class.  Links are kept visible, in case you want to print out the list and share it.

1.  Be very clear about what matters most to you:  what and who you care about, how you’re called to serve and use your talents.  Focus a vision around your values, then build your business plan around your vision and values.  Resource: “Finding Visions for Work and Life” at www.workwithmeaningandjoy.com/html/your_work_vision.html

2.  Read biographies of people who do business profitably in a way that excites you. Take a walk and imagine your role model giving you practical advice and inspiration.  This process can be magical.  Just ask any kid who becomes more courageous by imagining she is more like her hero. Business consultant C.J. Hayden‘s (www.cjhayden.com) public service website (http://www.howtobecomeahero.com) is loaded with tips.

3.  Think quadruple bottom line:  profits, people, planet and purpose. Research the conscious capitalism and socially responsible business movements; find meetings and gatherings.  Resources:  Fast Company Magazine and its Ethonomics online channel (http://www.fastcompany.com), Heart of Business (www.heartofbusiness.com), Ode Magazine (www.odemagazine.com), consciouscapitalism.com, www.livingeconomies.org and quite possibly your local business school.

4.  Go green! The Sustainable Business Alliance (www.sustainablebiz.org) is a membership organization for companies committed to greater environmental and socially responsible business practices. This San Francisco East Bay, CA group is a role model for any sustainable, socially responsible member group.  Gil Friend’s book and talk on The Truth about Green Business are outstanding.  See www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKB20j4sWAE  Also see his free newsletters at http://www.natlogic.com/approach/new-bottom-line/.

5.  Make integrity your bottom line. (http://spiritworkandmoney.com/creating-a-culture-of-integrity-for-work-and-money/).\   Using your mental inner compass, North Start, gyroscope, or carpenter’s level and plumb line, note how to measure when you are on true with your deepest self and on the level with others.  Then stick to your principles.  Elizabeth Doty’s new book:  The Compromise Trap, How to Thrive at Work without Selling Your Soul, is totally practical.  (See www.worklore.com/CompromiseTrap and  spiritworkandmoney.com/how-to-thrive-at-work-without-selling-your-soul.

6.  Turn every business task into an opportunity to implement your deepest values. For more than thirty years, a growing spirituality and work (also called “faith and work” or “spirituality and business” or “workplace spirituality”) movement has sought to heal the split between work and what matters most:  integrity, purpose, joy, time to pet the cat and be with people we love, etc.  For an overview of this movement and many resources, see www.spiritandworkresourcecenter.com.

7.  Be absolutely respectful in implementing your values at work. The wisdom of our diverse faiths needs to be practiced, not preached.   (spiritworkandmoney.com/all-faiths-are-rich-in-wisdom-for-money-and-work-part-1/  Etiquette for spirituality and work is thankfully a growing field (www.workforce.com/archive/feature/25/96/27/index.php?ht=)  When in doubt, be kind.  http://spiritworkandmoney.com/kindness-the-best-workplace-spirituality-practice-ever/