Honesty is STILL the Best Policy

Dr. Cecil Clements
Duration: 14:32 (Compressed for the Internet)

I was thinking about an aunt of mine who many years ago worked for Central Excise and she would tell very about the many opportunities to get more than her pay check allows because of the work that she was doing. And she would talk about visiting some of her colleagues’ houses and seeing these things that they had acquired through their job and some of the dishonest things that they were doing to acquire them. And I remember her talking about this and saying, “I just do what I think is right and honest” and sometimes I used to look at her and think, “Is that what I should be doing? I know I have to be honest and continue to do what is right.” She went through life like that. She had many opportunities but didn’t live a life of dishonesty. And at the end of her life, I remember after she retired, sitting with her; she had two children and they both had done very well for themselves, she has her own apartment, they are living a good retired life and she said, “You know, I have no regrets about that; living the way I lived. Today everything has worked out well and I have no need today. Everything that I need and have wanted, I have got and I am so glad that I got it through honest means.”


Couple of weeks back also I was talking to a friend and she was talking about her dad who worked with custom and how when she used to go with her dad; when she was a little girl; into the homes of her dad’s colleagues and see all this that was there and come out and say, “how come they have all that and we don’t?” and her dad will then talk to her of the value of being honest. And she said, “at that time I didn’t understand but as I grew I began to realize how respected my dad was even with his colleagues and with the department and he was a man of honesty and integrity. And she was sharing that she was so thankful that her dad modeled honesty for her and that has become a key value for her as well.

Honesty in the work place; how does that sit with each one of you on this call? That’s a struggle isn’t it? As we look at so many dishonest practices that are out there and even with the desire to be honest there is such pull to be dishonest. I was wondering about you all on this call and thought, “I wonder how you all fare in that area of being honest. Do you create an environment for honesty in your in your companies, in your work places, in the environment that you work? I believe that unless there is a culture or ethos for honesty in the company, honesty will continue to be an elusive mirage in a parched desert bank, keep going on but never get there. What do you have in place to foster honesty into workplace?

Bob Selden, writing an article entitled “Honesty Pays” says that one of the strategies that management and companies must have as they train managers in the whole area of honesty is disclosure. He says particularly to self-disclose. Disclosure is the reporting of “stuff-ups” as they occur rather than waiting to be found out. We own up to what happened. I may have mentioned this before, I had a friend who lived in Brazil and went into the aircraft manufacturing company, Embreyer and across the hanger they had something that said, “To err is human; to cover up is sack able.” And Selden says that, we need to create an environment that allows disclosure; to be able to say, “I messed up or here’s is the goof up” is ok in an organization.

Robert Galford co-authoring a book, “A Trusted Advisor” and “The Trusted Leader” says that employers and leaders can foster honesty and trust in three ways.

1. Strategic Trust: to trust in the goals and strategies of the company
2. Organizational Trust: To be able to trust the processes and the procedures that is in place in the company.
3. Individual or personal trust: Do we trust the leader? Do we trust our executives? Do we foster that kind of a lifestyle that says, “Here is an honest person. I can trust this man. I can trust this leader. I can follow this person.”?

Well, if we look at today’s world, especially what we call postmodernism where the key to understanding postmodernism is that everything is relative, there are no absolutes, then it brings the question in the world that I am living in can there be an absolute honesty?

And I was reading another article by Richa Pant. And she says this, entitled this “Is Honesty at Work Always the Best Policy?” and the very article had a very good question. She's asking the question, “is that the best way to go about it?” she starts the article and she says “one chooses to be more honest with others, the morale and productivity of the whole team improves in the process. In fact, telling the truth is probably the single most cost-effective and simple way to productivity and employee satisfaction.” And then she goes on to quote Mitali Tyagi, 29, a recruitment consultant with a private firm in Pune, "It's not uncommon for managers to fire employees for being dishonest. Even in the case of a small and seemingly inconsequential lie, a vast majority of managers will be less likely to promote the employee in question."  And then she goes on to say that the common lies or parts of dishonesty in an office are

• Resumes: Putting something on the resume you actually haven’t done. Graduate or post-graduate schools which you haven’t gone to.
• References: giving people who you don’t know as references.
• Assertions made about others: you need to be very careful with people who talk about other people.
• Withholding information: not giving the right information when you know.
• Feigning sickness: fake medical bills.
• Covering up a failed project, mistake or missed deadline
• Falsifying expense reports

All these things she said are common things that happen in workplace; but adds that it is good to pursue a policy of honesty. But then she ends by asking the question “Is Honesty always the best Policy?” and she says, “when employees choose to be honest, teamwork and overall productivity also improves. However, there are some situations where 'dishonesty' (for instance, in the form of diplomacy) is sometimes better than being blunt, such as when having to appease a colleague, boss or customer. Such situations may actually warrant being 'dishonest'. And as I read that, my heart sank because what she is saying is that honesty is not an absolute virtue, it’s not an absolute value. And I think that when we begin to cloud the issue is when we get into trouble. When something that is clear and precise begins to be muddy and murky is when we begin to move into those areas and once we get there, there is no coming back.

At the risk of sounding a little crass; I read this article about a lady who was sitting in a hotel and a man came up to her and said to her, “Will you spend the night with me?” and she said, “are you mad?” and almost slapped him. Then he looked at her and he said, “I’ll give you a lakh if you do it.” And she looked at him and she said, “Well, okay.” And then he smiled at her and said, “Well, really not a lakh. How about 500?” and she got up off the stool and she looked at him and she said, “What do you take me for, a whore?” and the man said, “Lady, who you are, was already determined when you thought about my proposition. What remains now is only negotiating the price.”

Sometimes we can get murky into murky areas if we don’t stand for a clear principle. it’s easy to say,  “For me, my value system, honesty is important And I will be honest, whatever situation I may be in”. If we live by circumstances my friend, we will fall. We need to live by principles and principles alone.

I will never forget meeting a person in my office and he had done something wrong and his company had given him a termination letter, in fact to the point of giving him a cheque and he sat in the office and he said, “You know, I have a meeting with an NGO, somebody higher up there tomorrow and the union is telling me just deny everything and we’ll fight for you.” And he said, “What do I do?” and I said, “Speak the truth. If you did it, you did it. Tell them you are sorry, you apologize and it won’t happen again.” You see here’s what happens; when we walk in the area of honesty, God is able to come and work alongside of us because God cannot be in places of impurity and dishonesty. He did that. He walked into his MD’s office the next day and said, “I am really sorry it happened and I promise you it will not happen again.” And strangely the company actually reinstated him, ofcourse putting him down a couple of notches but he has worked his way up.

Honesty does pays. Our Bible says about God. He doesn’t like anyone who is dishonest but he lets good people be his friend (Proverbs 3:32). beautiful isn’t it? God likes honest people as His friend and who wouldn’t like God as his friend. Again Proverbs 11:1; “The Lord hates anyone who cheats but he likes everyone who is honest.”

I believe that honesty is still the best policy. Because it’s not about what you do, it’s about living yourself.  What you know about yourself will either make you dislike who you are or like who you are and being able to like yourself makes all the difference; in the way you hold yourself, in the way you engage people in conversation, the relationship you will make, the way people will respond.

I want to submit to you my friends; honesty is still the best policy. And to all of you on this call, I want to encourage you; stay clear with it, keep that as a core value, non-negotiable and you can never go wrong. You will live a wonderful, contended, beautiful life and be good friends with the almighty God.

God Bless you all.