Opinion   Integrity   |14 July 2022

Within a business context integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values. It is closely aligned with incorruptibility. We can refer to an ‘integrity template’ of seven key attributes: Conducting one’s business in an honest, truthful and transparent manner, thereby gaining the respect of those you have business relationships with and cementing a sense of mutual trust. Businesses which take pride in their work, keep promises made regarding deadlines and budgets and generally operate with a sense of responsibility to associates, clients and the community will flourish. Finally, there is the issue of giving back and, through altruism and philanthropy, helping others.

In Seychelles standards of integrity could and should be higher than they are. This is not just a matter of financial corruption – petty and major – but also issues around practice. How many times has a company pledged to come to your premises at a specific time and then not bothered to either show up or contact you to inform you that they will not be coming? How many times has a company tried to squeeze you for additional payments long after the original price for goods or services has been agreed? And how many companies in Seychelles deliver high standards of integrity with consistency? Many begin brightly but then decline after the initial flourish of activity.

Associated with commercial integrity is personal integrity. Invariably a company which operates with high levels of integrity will be managed and/or owned by individuals who also possess and demonstrate high standards of personal integrity.

And on the other side of the coin we have all experienced people who display a lack of integrity, with behaviour ranging from explicit dishonesty and crookedness to shifty, ambiguous and evasive strategies. The associated inability to accept responsibility for one’s failings and deny accountability is, sadly, common in Seychelles, as is unreliability.

And of course we rely on corporate integrity across government and large businesses, where the proverbial ‘one bad apple’ may cause disproportionate and negative impacts upon a department’s reputation for straight dealing. The government should fulfil its commitment to the public (from where most of its funding comes) and should be held accountable for its works and deeds. The measurement of integrity will be central to such evaluation.

Where institutions, businesses, governments and individual people are honourable, the benefits of balanced and consistent integrity and solid work ethics are identifiable:

1. They create stability, confidence and certainty
2. They improve the overall potential for progress and success
3. They promote trust for smooth negotiations and lasting outcomes
4. They promote reliable management and governance
5. They build sustainable relationships for ongoing economic and social exchange
6. They promote core humanitarian values such as peace and freedom
7. They support fairness, equal opportunities and performance-based remuneration
8. They contribute to an ordered, happy and productive society.

A country with a high integrity index is also likely to be successful in terms of the satisfaction its population has with the national quality of life.  It seems that there is also a correlation between integrity and success – fiscal, cultural, sporting etc.

Having identified some of the fundamentals we might now consider a few questions for the future.

1. How do we better manage the risks of unethical business behaviour in society as well as when such behaviour extends beyond the business environment?
2. Do we need further legislation in order to create a social framework conducive to enhanced standards of integrity?
3. How can we motivate citizens towards the adoption of higher levels of personal and professional integrity?

We can begin by looking at the etymology of the word integrity itself.  What is really interesting is in the 14^th Century in France, the word “entegrite”, which means specifically ‘being of good character, spiritually sound and morally sound’.  This is all very well, but we can also see relate Integrity to the sibling word integrate, a condition where disparate elements come together in harmonious synergy. When things move in the opposite direction and disintegrate, we experience a degradation of the quality of life of most people.  Those who have integrity uphold these standards in private and in public, not necessarily through the way in which they act, but in the underlining philosophies and principles which determine how they react.  One can argue that without societal integrity you can’t place trust in people.What they are doing behind closed doors might compromise or contradict their public face.

Integration of public and private elements is a powerful concept. When people enter therapy, psychotherapy and counselling, part of the motivation is to integrate themselves and create a holistic self. This might be because there are parts of themselves, present or past, which are not truthfully integrated with their public persona. This disjoint can provoke them to become disintegrated people, and when that disintegration is pushed, they have breakdowns, they have panic attacks and they feel anxious.  We can take this personal narrative and apply it to whole societies. Within a historical context (which cannot be changed) nations like America and the UK are obliged to deal with slavery and their colonial pasts as disintegrated parts of national identity. There is a great deal of current traction designed to achieve an integration of past and present.

Integrity is, to an extent, an acceptable marriage of words, intentions and actions/outcomes. Politicians are particularly vulnerable to being ‘called out’ when there are discrepancies. Matt Hancock, the British Minister for Health who oversaw draconian Covid restrictions broke his own rules through an extramarital relationship. This was caught on camera and provoked his resignation. His words and his actions were unaligned. Less contemporaneously we can consider prohibition in America. A law forbidding the consumption of alcohol was passed, which led to a complete fracture of law and public behaviour and of course the eventual dissolution of the prohibition legislation.

We find further related contradictions when we consider nations who score low on the integrity index, but remain increasingly powerful economically and, more worryingly, militarily. China, the Russian Federation and India come to mind. Could it be argued that their economic success is likely to be short lived because without integrity the stitches are going to become undone as a consequence of a lack of integrity and a daily distortion of reality? And conversely, what about nations who play it straight (or straighter), who have integrity in the sense that their words and deeds are more often than not married up, but whose radius of power and influence are waning?

Are people who live with an embedded code of integrity likelier to be happy? It is entirely possible, and also possible that the feel-good factor is part of their motivation for adopting ethically sound practices. This might well result in a sense of pride. Or, conversely, smugness…..

At the root of humanity lies a belief that all people are born inherently good and then individual nurturing will either reinforce this or demolish it. How do human beings learn to lie? Are they shown how to lie?  Are they put into a position where they think that they should lie?  Where did that come from and why did they start doing it?  Why do some people lie more than others? What is right and what is wrong? Is it an inevitability that adult integrity (or the lack of it) is determined when a person is very, very young?

We can now focus on integrity and incentives. There needs to be positive feedback for people to have the motivation to act with integrity. Many people who are perceived as successful within a community are role models for others – invariably lower down the ‘food chain’. Sometimes the role model will be aware of this, at other times not. Regardless the role model has an influence which can either be positive or negative depending on his or her behaviour – which will often annotate the route to the success which he or she enjoys and displays. Certain professionals also wield great influence, not because of their material success but because of the nature of their work. This is why it is so important that teachers, priests and politicians are recognised as people with integrity by those who look up to them.

The role of organised religion is relevant here. In western democracies traditional Christian belief has been in decline for decades. Here is Seychelles Catholicism remains strong, yet the relationship between parishioners and church has always been ambivalent. To be blunt, Seychellois – particularly the younger generations – will attend mass and generally subscribe to the church, describing themselves as Catholics if asked, but in some cases only until the church’s doctrine clashes with their personal life style or agenda. Our parents learned (or rote learned) much about integrity through their religious education, formally in church or school, less formally at home. This exposure crystalised around what we can call a natural conscience, the little voice inside your head that will tell you when you are doing something which is not right.  We are all connected and we can listen to that little voice that speaks up the minute that something you are doing is wrong. Perhaps those who listen and take action accordingly avoid losing their integrity. We naturally and intuitively know what is right and what is wrong. Even if a person does not follow a religion he or she may still follow universal principles of spirituality which serve as a template for human interaction –avoid causing deliberate harm to others, speak up against wrong doing and so on.

Running a business with regard to this basic integrity is a challenge. You sometimes have to work with people who do not have integrity, or at least not sufficient integrity. This can cause fracture; You expect them to behave like you do but they don’t. 

Integrity embraces humility and respect, qualities which very much synergise with ethical values.  But there is something more. What else constitutes integrity? Learned, rather than ‘natural’ integrity is subject to the influences of the man-made environment, the character of which differs widely from place to place. What might be considered to have integrity in one culture, one sect or one people might well be viewed as entirely different elsewhere.  There are attendant religious connotations, political connotations, and so forth but if we attempt to adopt a truly global perspective we see that any notion of a holistic and all-pervading integrity is patent nonsense. Of course, we witness honourable actions and principles globally, but – possibly due to the mass media’s obsession with negative narratives – more often issues such as hypocrisy, mass exploitation, corruption and pure evil take centre stage.  Global hegemonic powers control multi-national corporations, together making trillions and trillions of dollars whilst a significant proportion of the world’s population is poverty stricken.  The recent pandemic has clearly identified the vaccine haves and have nots. Global inequality with regard to the essentials of life – water, food, shelter etc mirrors the differentials clear for all to see in the ethical and moral positions adopted by those who hold the most power.

When we apply a powerful magnification to specific interactions methods such as transactional analysis – whereby social interactions are evaluated within the context of the perpetrators’ egos in order to understand human behaviour – can be helpful. Seychelles today is a result of a brief but complex series of historical events. The push-me pull-me of colonialism, slavery and later independence has created a raft of attitudinal problems. Seychellois who recall the period of transition will tell you that the message was very much a forerunner of the ‘proud Seychellois’ rhetoric peddled by politicians for the last 20 years. How will today’s Seychellois demonstrate pride without unjustified arrogance? The national psyche continues, to an extent, to degrade service standards in, say, the tourism sector, simply because the rhetoric of independence directed local people not to adopt subservient positions to visitors. Can one serve with integrity? Of course, one can, whether a person be a waiter in a hotel or the President of the country.

Generic codes of conduct only go so far, through legislation, school curricula and religious doctrine, to name but three examples. All humans possess personal codes of conduct with various levels of integrity holding a place in most. Unfortunately high levels of integrity are seen as a weakness which prevents the ruthless behaviour (in business for example) that we are led to believe is admirable and acceptable. Non-ethical opportunities are greedily taken up. Honourable, ethical behaviour is shunted to one side. One Council member offered an illustration which addresses the issue of potential weakness within a children’s narrative.

I was with my kids and we went to the seaside where there was a trampoline from which you could jump into the sea. I used to go there when I was a child and I wanted to take my daughters there so that they could make their first jump of their life into the ocean off the trampoline.We went there and the trampoline had a rope across the access step so it was closed.  Sorry girls we can’t get in.  Probably the guy locked it because of the sea or perhaps there is something wrong. So, we just stayed there and we swam. Then a man came with his daughter. And the daughter said “dad there is a rope, the trampoline is closed”.  And the father just said that all they have to do is to remove the rope and jump.  He went there, he removed the rope, they went up and they jumped.  Then my daughters looked at me like what is going on.  I had to find an excuse.  I almost lied.  I said that the man must be a friend of the owner and he told him to come and remove the rope. So, my daughters asked me whether we could now go and jump and I replied that I think we can.  As a dad I potentially showed a weakness.  That girl will always have a problem as she will believe that she can always remove the rope.

But will my daughters be held back in some way because in the future they will be disinclined to remove the rope, choosing to be complicit with rules and restrictions?

The Personal and the Public

We have collective integrity and personal integrity. Ideally the first embraces the second relatively seamlessly, however we know that this is rarely the case. If it were, we would have no need for prisons or a judiciary. The interface between the individual citizen and the corporate bodies which govern his or her homeland is complex. Often public standards of behaviour are elusive to significant numbers of the population, with one at odds with the other, and the governing bodies (usually) prevailing. As one Council member stated, if a communist nation had a population which universally possessed the integrity required to make such a notionally equitable political system work, then there would be no need for any political system at all. Catch 22.

The reality is that a society has to have logical and reasonable laws in place, with policing that is fair and just and a judiciary that is effective and fast. In Seychelles we have to question the second and the third of these.

We mentioned religion earlier. One can adopt a cynical position and point out that religious doctrines were developed hand in hand with the interests of the state. What are the ten commandments if not a rough blueprint for maintaining order, justice and ethical behaviour?

Today it is evident that in nations where autocracy flourishes – Russia, Chine, North Korea etc – organised religion is being presented to the population as irrelevant. Instead, the interests of the state and approved nationalistic agendas are presented as the principal forces devised benevolently to guide the people.

In democracies the issue of promoting integrity is complex, with an unregulated social media increasingly challenging the traditional sources of knowledge and information. The powers of the parent and teacher are now frequently undermined by influencers and high-profile celebrities – a new legion of the stupid and the rich. Tradition is often a target, for the currency of the influencer is that of the new. Moral Bitcoins.

One counterpoint would be to have more soft skills teaching in schools. Aspects of human behaviour and associated value systems such as respect and integrity would replace the memorisation content of the academic curriculum which is, in the light of modern technology, increasingly worthless.Part of the curriculum for children, apart from the daily teachings, should be to do nothing for a certain moment so that they can step back and self-reflect, nurturing a certain self-awareness. In a number of developed nations - Germany for example - this is already in place in order to supplement academic achievement and confidence with more humanitarian and egalitarian qualities. In short they want to create better citizens of the future.

With regards to some of the businesses in Seychelles there is a perceived lack of transparency around access to services, access to exact pricing and access to agreed delivery deadlines for which companies and individuals are accountable. And being small, many businesses are able to very much pick and choose how they respond to clients, adopting a sliding scale of service depending upon who the client happens to be.This is prevalent everywhere one might say, but the difference in Seychelles is that it is not only common business practice, but totally accepted practice which valorises a lack of integrity.

Many people feel that things are getting worse. Anecdotal evidence suggests, rather surprisingly perhaps, that the younger generations feel this to be the case – more corruption, lower standards in society, less humility, kindness and generosity. One Council member presented this personal anecdote;

Before I came back to the Seychelles, about 10 years ago, my mother said “Son, let me give you a piece of advice.  Before you go back to Seychelles remember the people that you are going to come into contact with, they are not like the people that used to come around our house in the 70s, nor are they like the people that you would meet and hang around with when you were a kid.  I’m sorry to tell you that they are just not like that anymore”.  I was a lot younger and I thought that people couldn’t really have deteriorated so much. It is sad to say that even if not everyone is that bad, a few people that I have come across in Seychelles, you wouldn’t read about.   You couldn’t even find them in a horror film.  She was absolutely spot on with what she said”.

How might we begin to make sense of this decline, particularly because unlike data on, say, COVID-19 infections, we are dealing with more abstract evidence. In order to prove a decline in integrity we have to be able to measure it. Since this is impossible we are obliged to resort to memory, feelings, intuition and – probably the most empirical  strand– observation. So, what do we see in Seychelles which can contribute to our essential but unprovable assertion that standards of public and personal integrity have declined?

Firstly, we can consider the possibility that there is no fear for the law. There is no fear and little respect. Again, this relates to our size, but also the fact that many of our laws were drafted decades ago and are in need of revision. The integrity of the police force and the judiciary can also be questioned. Less than 10 years ago a legal expert who had spent time working within the judiciary was asked by a Council member how many lawyers she considered to be operating with full integrity in Seychelles. Surprisingly the person replied. She said: “Two.”

Secondly, we can return to our almost mandatory proposal for improving any aspect of life in Seychelles – the education system. The school curricula need to be revised with a sweeping and radical approach. In making them fit for purpose as we face a future unprecedented in its uncertain character, we can also embed humanistic and principled content which – properly and responsibly delivered – will enhance the lives of children and underwrite a more conscious and responsible generation of future citizens. More on this can be found in the paper on education which is part of this collection.

Thirdly and finally, we need to accept the challenge inherent in living a life which is subject to self-evaluation against the highest possible standards of compassion, humanitarianism and integrity.

Living in this way requires drawing a very difficult card and subsequently holding onto it,however, people will be temptedto choose and play the life cards which are easier to deploy and which promise (at least) the illusion of success and entitlement.

Contributed by the Mahé Council Think Tank

Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of the Seychelles NATION newspaper.