We make commitments to others and ourselves all the time. The question is: Do we keep them? When we fail to keep a promise, it communicates to the other person that we don’t value him or her. We have elected to place something else ahead…

Honesty, we say, is the best policy. And yet, it’s hardly news to anyone that in much of our lives, dishonesty rules. Salespeople lie about the benefits of one product over another, or about how useful those “extended service plans” really are. Partners lie about whether they liked dinner, or about what they did last…

The internet is full of lies. Without plenty of effort, you can’t even prove my name is Thursday Bram. So why should you hand over your bank account numbers, passwords and other financial data to me? That’s essentially what Mint and other money management sites are asking you to do. These companies have many…

When it comes to success in today’s world, being the kind of person others like outranks all of the fashionable traits like competitiveness, willingness to work harder then anyone else, piling up qualifications, or blind obedience to the demands of the people at the top. Pleasant, likable people have the best chances of being hired…

One of my favorite themes in the MWA coaching curriculum is something we refer to as the ‘selfish mentoring of ‘imi ola.’ ‘Imi ola is the Hawaiian value of personal vision; it literally translates to ‘seek life’ and as a business value, we use it to coach managers on how to seek their best possible…

Trust is an essential component in almost all dealings between human beings, other than outright hostile ones like wars and terrorism. It is certainly vital for the proper running of any organization, as well as for almost all the components of trade and commerce. Lack of trust between trading partners undermines the proper functioning of…

After the election last week in the United States, change is a hot topic, but it isn’t political change that I have been thinking about recently. It’s how organizations and their leaders cope—or, more often, fail to cope too well—with the need for changes in business practices to promote growth and foster creativity. It’s a truism…

Wouldn’t be useful to know who is lying to you. How would you trust a person – only if the person wouldn’t lie to you. “The truth is out there” – (insert X-Files theme song) – see, human love to know the truth. Elisabeth Eaves at Forbes gives number of ways for you to detect lies…

Hamburger Management is a shoddy, debased version of real leadership that focuses on just three things: whatever demands least, can be used fastest, and costs least. It thrives wherever organizations seek to meet unrealistic targets with insufficient resources to maximize short-term profits. Indeed, Hamburger Management is short-term by nature, and will habitually sacrifice long-term advantage…

I’ve been thinking and writing quite a lot this week about Hamburger Management: the type of management approach that is based on always doing whatever is quickest, simplest and (above all) cheapest. Hamburger Managers provide the kind of leadership that is best described as: “Never mind the quality, look how fast it goes and how…

Lisa Lerer at Forbes has a short article on how to get people to trust you in a short period of the time. This is a pretty good hack in term of business, because usually your customers or contacts will not be your friends or know you for a long time. The article includes bits…

Trust in other people is one of the foundations for creating a civilized working environment. Many managers are overworked primarily because of a lack of trust. They take on too much themselves, because they don’t trust their subordinates to do the work properly. They cannot allocate enough time to their own work, because they don’t…

A civilized workplace is one where people have the time and freedom to do their jobs to the best of their ability. No one is bullied or hassled by some boss high on ego and testosterone. Leaders trust their subordinates to do what they’re paid to do; and subordinates trust their leaders to act with their interests in mind as well as the firm’s profits (and the executives’ stock options).

Earlier today, I googled the word “trust.” It was a sobering experience. I was more than 20 pages into the results before meeting a single instance of trust in the sense of belief in something or someone.

Lying your way out of trouble often causes far greater harm. Integrity is worth more than you may think.