Walking the walk

Integrity. It’s a great word that can mean different things to different people. It is often used interchangeably with “honesty”.  However, the best definition I have heard is: Honesty is making your words consistent with reality and integrity is making your actions consistent with your words.  That is, doing what you say. And the test of true integrity is overcoming whatever temptation and doing it even when nobody is looking.

For example, every month we produce a book of operating statements for each division that shows detail financial and operating results.  In addition, it contains key operating statistics such as customer counts, sales per customer, pieces per transaction, etc.  All in all, these reports show how we are doing, where we’re succeeding and where we are falling short.  It’s the kind of information that our competitors would love to have about us so we are careful to keep them from getting it.

So imagine our former CEO, Dan Jorndt’s, surprise when one of our folks walked into his office one Friday afternoon with Wal-Mart’s book of detailed operating statements and placed it on the corner of his desk.  The book had been left behind on a flight to Chicago and our person had stumbled across it and recognized what it was.  What an opportunity to get an inside look at our fiercest competitor!  We could get our finance and operations analysts to tear into it to learn chapter and verse about Wal-Mart and none would be the wiser.

I wonder what must have been running through his mind looking at the unopened book sitting on his desk.  I don’t know if he thought about it at all because it was still sitting there as he turned out the lights in his office at the end of the day and headed home for the weekend.  But I know he must have thought about it over the weekend because he dealt with it the first thing when he came in Monday morning.

He prepared a short note and slipped it along with the book into an envelope and gave it to his assistant to forward on.  The note was addressed David Glass, CEO of Wal-Mart. It read: “One of our folks found this. We didn’t peek.”

Movies that speak to us

Certain movies resonate with something inside us.  Our favorites are those we can watch over and over and still enjoy them.  They may not be blockbusters, critically acclaimed or even popular with others.  But there is something about them that makes them rhyme with who we are.

There are three movies that stand out for me.  They have stood the test of time in that once they were “on the list”, they’ve stayed there.  Maybe it’s an age thing.  As I’ve grown older, certain things I have been taught have been confirmed through experience.  Sometimes sweet experience and other times bitter. Here they are:

1. It’s a Wonderful Life - I have been watching this since I was a kid. It is a family tradition in our house on Christmas Eve. As the kids have grown older they seem to find other things to draw them away from the room once the show starts.  But I bet they will come back once they get kids of their own or have seen enough bad road that comes with life. The movie reminds me that we may never know how we impact others; but we do have an impact.  That doing the right thing sometimes comes at a cost. That despair can disappear in an instant.  That nothing is more precious than to love and be loved.

2. Groundhog Day – Lots of people think Caddyshack is Bill Murray’s best work.  They’re wrong. It’s Groundhog Day hands down.  He has the perfect persona – smug arrogance wrapped in cleverness and sarcasm – the perfect “it’s all about me” guy waking up every morning to do the same day over and learn from his mistakes each time.  He is able to wrench every bit of possible material and physical pleasure from each day only to find himself miserable.  When he eventually discovers the only true joy is shedding his selfishness, he is able to escape the cycle.  Plus he becomes a darn good piano player along the way.

3. Defending Your Life – Albert Brooks is a comic, writer and director and this is he at his best. Brooks, a neurotic ad exec, takes a wrong turn in a tunnel on an afternoon bike ride and finds himself in Judgment City along with other recently departed.  Each will spend the next days with counsel, prosecutor and a panel of judges reviewing video of how they dealt with fear in their lives.  This will determine whether they will progress onward or be sent back. All the while the food is great and after hour activities include a memorable scene at the Hall of Previous Lives, a sort of autobiographical peek show arcade. He meets and falls in love with Meryl Streep whose life was full of courage and generosity and completely different from his.  There is Brooks in all of us and some Streep, too. Funny, touching and encouraging.

These are the meaningful movies to me.  How about yours?