By Laura Lee Rose, author of TimePeace: Making peace with time
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – Corporate Exit Strategist for the Blooming Entrepreneur – and I am a business and life coach that specializes in time management, project management and work-life balance strategies. As a business coach, I sometimes receive late requests to change an appointment. Because of my busy schedule, it’s not easy to accommodate these types of last-moment requests. In my professional life, I easily handle this with my cancelation and refund policies. But how do we handle similar things in our personal and social lives? Well, I recommend that we respond in similar tones.
Many people define integrity as: Saying what you mean, and doing what you say.
Most of us will say we have integrity. If so, then why are we still:
- late for appointments
- avoiding certain phone calls and meetings
- not following-through on commitments to ourselves and others
- telling people what we think they want to hear
- asking just short of what we really want, because we don’t think others will give us exactly what we want
- say something we don’t really mean
All the above are examples of ‘a slip of integrity’.
Everyone has been disappointed by a seemingly sincere person. And everyone has disappointed someone in the very same way. Therefore, everyone has hiccups in their integrity. It’s natural. It’s human. To me, integrity is a muscle that we can make stronger with p
ractice and time.
A key integrity-muscle toning exercise is how we respond when we do fall off center. Do we not only apologize, but go out of our way to make amends? Or do we make a string of excuses for the mistake? Do we blame others? Do we allow the shame of making a mistake compound the situation?
Generally, it is not the initial hiccup that causes people to question our sincerity and reliability. It is actually how we handle our mistakes that define our true integrity. People don’t normally lose respect for us when we make a mistake. It’s how we take responsibility for that said mistake.
Toning exercises:
1) Acknowledge and be at ease with the fact that we will falter from time to time.
Think of a tight-rope walker. They are literally walking the straight and narrow. But if you look closely, the entertainer is constantly falling off balance. They are constantly regaining their balance with the continuous adjustment of their body from the tip of their heads to the top of their ankles. Their adjustments are so quick and subtle that, in the big picture of things, they are perfectly in balance and on course.
2) Define a personal refund or amend policy.
In any business and social endeavor, we are ultimately in the service of others. If we take on the ultimate service position, then we need a personal refund policy. You cannot be all things to all people. Because of this, some people will be disappointed at one time or another. Create a personal refund policy and protocol that you can immediately initiate and execute when we miss the mark. If you are prepared to make amends, your respond will be appropriate and immediate.
3) Immediately execute your refund/amend policy.
If you commit to a refund or amend policy ahead of time, you are more likely to take your word more seriously.
If you are interested in some real-world, real-life scenarios and examples, continue to the appendix section at www.lauraleerose.com/Integrity Booster.pdf
If you are interested in similar articles, they can be found at Laura Lee Rose’s Professional Career Development Library (or subscribe to this link http://eepurl.com/dUi81)
If you are interested in more detail professional coaching or a professional coach to help you stay on target with those goals, please consider one-on-one coaching sessions to propel you forward faster.
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