Honesty: The Intent Not to Deceive
Last week, Boeing CEO, Dennis Muilenburg testified on Capitol Hill regarding the 737Max safety issues. While I wasn’t in the room, nor did I hear most of the testimony, it seems that part of what was communicated was that he didn’t know the issues until much later than one would expect. I find that response quite fascinating for several reasons.
In the early 2000s Boeing’s CFO was charged, found guilty and sentenced to prison for aiding and abetting illegal employment negotiations with an Air Force official who was at the same time reviewing a Boeing bid for a $20B contract for refueling tankers. In addition to both parties serving prison time, Boeing was prevented from bidding on government contracts for two years, placed under sanctions and required to do ethics training.
In 2006-07, I led first-level leadership training programs for over 1500 people at the Boeing Leadership Center. Due to the sanctions, Boeing was required to do ethics training with all their leaders. As a result, I got to sit in on their ethics training about 40 times. It was really well done, and there were several key takeaways I received from attending the sessions.
One of the things the ethics trainer shared was the following story. “At the end of a session, a participant walked up to me, and said, ‘Would you like a definition of honesty?’ I knew what honesty was, but I decided to humor him and said sure. He proceeded to tell me, ‘Honesty is the intent not to deceive.’ I was struck by the power of that, so I added it to my session.”
Think about that: Honesty is the intent not to deceive.
I love this definition as it creates what I call a cause for pause, i.e. a reason to stop and think about the action I’m about to take. Am I intending to deceive another or others? If the answer is yes, then I revisit my decision.
It seems that in spite of all the training that was done in the mid-2000s at Boeing, there is still a culture within the organization of operating with an intent to deceive. Boeing is not the only company. There was the Firestone tire story, the Volkswagon story and General Motors story to name a few. Carlos Ghosn the CEO and Chairman of Nissan was ousted for lining his pockets with money that was not due him. Then his successor was also ousted for doing something similar, albeit on a much smaller scale. In all these cases, leaders were operating with an intent to deceive.
And of course, this says nothing about our politicians who, regardless of party affiliation, routinely operate with the intent to deceive.
I’m in the process of reading Ray Dailo’s book Principles. In it, he tells the story of his humble upbringing to create the largest hedge fund in the world. He also shares the Principles in which he and they led the company. One of the things he spoke about is absolute transparency within the organization. It seemed extraordinary what they created and very challenging to execute. For example, all executive memo’s are shared with everyone within the company, complete transparency. No deception there. I’m not saying that you or I should operate with that level of transparency, but what would be possible in our organizations if we did? One could not survive in this type of organization if one operates with an intent to deceive.
Who I am is someone who is a student of leadership and fascinated by leaders. What makes them effective and what hinders their effectiveness. I believe that if we as leaders keep in mind this simple definition of honesty, the intent not to deceive, it will help us make sound decisions that would ensure that if our decisions ended up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, we would be proud if our parents, significant other, children or grand-children read it.