June 26, 2008
‘I see the careers of selfish people advance faster’
I have worked in the City for 20 years, and am increasingly plagued with the idea that I’ve been held back by my integrity. I know this sounds stupid: our bank talks a lot about the importance of integrity, and has even sent all of us on integrity courses. But these are a waste of time – integrity is something you either have or don’t have. What troubles me is that looking around my colleagues I see that it is the selfish people with no backbone who have advanced faster on the career ladder. They appear to feel no guilt about their actions, which translates into them being happier and much better suited to professional life. Please let me know if you think I am going mad. Or is it time for me to get out?
Lucy’s Answer
No, I don’t think you are going mad, though I do think you may be engaging in some perfectly natural post hoc rationalisation. We all tell ourselves comforting stories to explain why we aren’t doing better. The most common story goes: “I’m no good at playing office politics.” Your story is an extreme version of this: “I’m no good at playing the bastard.”
If this is all, there is no reason why you shouldn’t stay in your current job and continue to congratulate yourself on your moral superiority to compensate for your lack of advancement.
However, if instead you are genuinely concerned about the morals of those above you, the problem is more difficult.
For a start you need to be clear about what you mean by a lack of integrity. If your bosses are stealing shareholders’ money, you must either blow the whistle or leave or both. But if they are simply more motivated by self-advancement than by bettering the lot of all mankind, then I’m surprised it has taken you 20 years to work this out. To succeed in the City – or in any business – one needs to want to succeed desperately. And that generally means being more self-regarding than, say, Mother Teresa.
Beyond that, I don’t accept that everyone who does well in the City is particularly horrid. In fact, there is something rather good about having all that competitiveness so explicit, as it means that if people are going to be nasty then they are nasty in a fairly direct way. In my experience a higher percentage of selfish people are to be found in academe, where they fight hard and dirty because the stakes are so low.
Perhaps all you are really saying is that you despise your colleagues or that you are sick of banking. In that case you have reached the end and must go.
It is at the end of the day your personal values - if being unscrupulous suits you-and you think you can have a peaceful nights sleep-then you go ahead.. but history has shown time and again that it does not work- Enron?
Posted by: dee | June 26th, 2008 at 5:40 am | Report this commentThis realisation has taken you 20 years??
You’ve only just realised that sociopaths, borderline personalities, and psycopaths are the trustees of our established corporate hierarchies?
Better late than never, I suppose. Integrity COURSES? Start running, mate. Right now, this minute, and don’t look back. Otherwise your life will end, and while your bank balance may end up fat, it’ll be no thinner than the regrets column in the ledger of your soul.
Posted by: S. | June 26th, 2008 at 6:30 am | Report this commentIf that’s how it is then your firm is headed for the buffers.
Posted by: Samec | June 26th, 2008 at 6:52 am | Report this commentThere is always a larger office, a better wage just over the horizon. You should focus on finding value in the life you lead outside the office and in making your working hours as pleasant as possible and not waste energy on jealousy. If you are sure that you are unfairly being passed over or if you can find a job that makes you happier then you should consider your options.
Posted by: Jonathan L | June 26th, 2008 at 8:33 am | Report this comment‘Held back by my integrity’…I’ve heard it all now.
You talk about work and careers as if they were a question of life and death! The old cliche about people either ‘working to live, or living to work’ springs to mind. At the very least, we all work to pay the bills and take care of the people who depend on us. Some of us take it further and make efforts to climb the greasy pole…that’s a matter of personal choice. Mock people for it if you will. Comfort yourself, if you must, with the thought that the ’selfish people without backbones or integrity’ may be considerably richer than you materially, but actually miserable inside. They may disagree!
But if the capitalist mantra ‘bigger, better, faster, more’ doesn’t make your heart pound (in a good way) then yes you do need to find some other way to pay the bills where you feel your integrity is less threatened.
Posted by: GLH, female, 30, manager | June 26th, 2008 at 9:23 am | Report this commentBad people,selfish peeople sometimes appears in front of the line. Some Managers or your boss would be a person who likes such people. But corporate culture is very important at this moment. If corporate culture had installed on selfishness instead of team consciousness then indivuduals and indivudual works have been taken into consideration.Whereas, what is important is to work together in order to carry out company goals and objectives which are given to all of the divisions in the company. Integrity is a little bit different than selfishness. It is a personal value as well as a social value.It is related to people behaviors, furthermore integrity is result from the personel values and habits. Companies are consisting of people. If people having honesty comes together in the factory( majority point of view),even if management asks them to do the work illegally so, that people will not intend to do so. Or it is also valid opposite thinking. What we have to do is to work within such an atmosphere. Be sure there is a lot of firms such that. At the same time you will have saved your own respect.
Other issue: Be sure, companies giving importance on the selfishness or demanding such that behavior, they tends to deceive your customer. When the customers realised that they have been deceived by them, at first sells would be dropped and then stopped. Be notice a word that had been told by Robert Bosch:I would prefer to lose my money instead of losing my respectability.
Regards,
Posted by: Cetin Ustaoglu, Executive Manager-Engineer, 43 yo | June 26th, 2008 at 12:38 pm | Report this comment‘Integrity courses’, are you serious?
Apparently the world is divided between dominant, and submissive types.
The nice thing about being part of the former is that you enjoy life more because you don’t have too many scruples about who you crush on your way slithering up the ladder of ’success’. The latter however reflect more over their life and how their actions impact on others, etc. Those who dominate always seem to me more attractive because they are carefree, although usually more stupid. It’s ironic, but also amusing. These are the people who always have fun at parties, because with them the faculty of speech is superfluous, and ideas are optional.
It all depends on how you define success. Maybe you’re not as rich as your slimy colleagues. Perhaps you’re weren’t as successful at networking as they were, smug hyenas feasting off carcasses. But if you take pride in integrity, I am sure you are capable of valuing the things in your life which make you unique, none of which have to do with what you can possess. This might be more difficult to appreciate if your personal life is a disaster, and you have no interests outside work. In which case you have a problem.
I would advise you to hang around your ‘dominant’ colleagues and emulate their behaviour, just for fun. Perhaps you will be promoted, who knows. The painful reality seems to be that to ’succeed’ in life in the way you refer to, you don’t really need ideas, or creativity. Slavish admiration for the top-dog can get you very far. Many young UMP members (Sarkozy’s party) with limited talent have understood how having zero ideals can allow you to do very well for yourself in a very short space of time.
Posted by: Kismet | June 26th, 2008 at 3:57 pm | Report this commentTake heart; you’re more soid approach likely means you won’t be the one fired in the business cycle reversal, or indicted if the regs come in. Yet with those folks at the top, make sure you don’t have too much company stock in your pension plan (ala Bear-Stearns, etal.)
Alan, male, consultant, 59
Posted by: Alan | June 26th, 2008 at 4:10 pm | Report this commentNegotiate an increased notice period.
Posted by: Michael-retired | June 27th, 2008 at 6:34 pm | Report this commentI wonder whether you are analyzing the situation correctly. Is it really the moral superiority you claim or are you using “integrity” as way to excuse some other form of weakness? People who get ahead in these jobs are often better competitors, and that does not necessarily make them moral eunuchs. It does not even mean that they lack integrity. Perhaps you are one of those who just think they are too good for a corporate job. Perhaps success on the job would undermine your benighted view of yourself. Maybe you need to work harder and better and to stop looking down on those who have done better than you.
Posted by: Stuart Schneiderman | June 27th, 2008 at 7:46 pm | Report this commentWell said, sir, well said!
Thus it was also said:
“A person of integrity is endowed with conviction,
conscience, concern; he is learned . . .
This person of integrity,
after death, reappears in
the destination of people of integrity.
And what is the destination? Greatness
among the gods or among human beings.”
Generally, however, you must retire to the root of a banyan tree, not to the City.
Another man of such integrity languishes in a jail in Florida. He was not perfect, but he gave as best as he could. Please help free Martin Lukes!
Posted by: Investor, male, 51 | June 28th, 2008 at 5:06 am | Report this commentYou sound to me a little like all the Old Labour people complaining that Tony Blair had no integrity and wanted nothing more than a leader who would lose elections again - but with integrity, of course! Seriously, if you have not got on in your company as well as your experience and skills suggest, I suspect it’s because you are not seen as a good “team player” - excuse the cliche. This is the way others may well see your “integrity”. Look yourself in the mirror and ask whether you maybe have a slight problem with accepting the authority of your boss or the directors of your company? In any good business, the top managers will welcome the thoughtful, honest and constructive input of their employees, but they may have a different view and although you may well be right (and be proved to be so by subsequent events) they are not obliged to follow it. Learning to accept this and be supportive will surely make you a more sought-after member of a team and thereby improve your career chances. None of this means that you have to do things which you know to be so seriously wrong as to e.g. breach company law or regulations by which you know your employer is bound; if this were the case, you can invoke whistle-blowing procedures, or go to a compliance department. If none of this makes any sense to you, then I suggest maybe you should be thinking of working for yourself, because I doubt if you will find another company environment different.
Posted by: Tom, 51, Male, Managing Director | June 29th, 2008 at 12:11 am | Report this commentThe City is Darwinian. That is why many of us have avoided working there, even if this came with a huge financial penalty. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, as they say.
Posted by: Claire, Consultant educationalist, 40, Mum of 3 | June 29th, 2008 at 3:47 pm | Report this commentThere is that old Irish joke: when a traveller asks a local for directions, he is told: “Well, I wouldn’t start from here.” It is useless advice for the traveller and equally useless for this chap pining for his unrequited love. But, by the by, his situation does hold a salutary lesson for everyone else, women as well as men: don’t allow yourself to get into such a situation in the first place. Far easier said than done, I know, but… As for this chap, I am slightly dubious as to whether he really was being as even-handed when he promoted his would-be lover. He says she deserved it, but just how objective was he? That, I think, is what is at the root of all the ‘tension’. His staff, her colleagues, will take some persuading that she did not, however inadvertently, receive rather preferential treatment. I think the only realistic solution here, however embarrassing it might prove to be, is to get everything out into the open and to clear the air. It might also help if the chap with the problem applied to move to another department. Getting the object of his unrequited love to move would not only be unfair, but could also store up trouble in the future, if, for example, at some point she claimed unfair dismissal. Thus it’s back to my original observation: I really wouldn’t have started from here. Other obvious questions are: is he married? Is she married? I don’t however imagine that in today’s modern, entlightened, post-ironic, forward-looking, committed society that matters very much any more. Oh well.
Posted by: Loukas | June 30th, 2008 at 9:37 am | Report this commentIntegrity courses are merely a box-ticking exercise. “Stuff rolls downhill” not uphill - thus the corporate culture of the organisation is defined from the top & employees will be promoted in its/their own image. 3 options are available: exit, suck it up or get ruthless.
Conor, Consultant, 41
Posted by: Conor | June 30th, 2008 at 11:10 am | Report this commentYou don’t define what you mean by integrity. When you say that the people you work with lack integrity, do mean that the personal values of the people you work with differ from yours, e.g. someone who is a vegetarian might claim that I lack “integrity” because I eat meat.
Or, as has been suggested, are you excusing a lack of natural competitiveness by claiming that you have more “integrity” than those who are more competitive.
Unless they are engaging in illegal activities, such as theft or fraud, in which case I assume you would be posting a question around whistleblowing, it is really not your business if other people do or do not meet your personal definition of integrity. If you feel that the values of the other people you work with are so different that you can’t abide working with them then the issue is that you don’t fit in with the team and the onus is on you to look for work elsewhere.
Posted by: Joy, 43, Analyst | June 30th, 2008 at 12:24 pm | Report this commentI suggest you read “The Selfish Gene.”
Posted by: Johan | June 30th, 2008 at 1:03 pm | Report this commentyour integrity is all you have when things go rough. you can promote youreself without violating your own ethics. don’t be afraid to blow you own horn, nobody else will do it.
Posted by: james | June 30th, 2008 at 1:28 pm | Report this commentI understand your dilemma and I find myself in a similar situation. The only difference is that I am 24, just graduated and I am trying to choose a career that would be successful, fulfilling and not clashing with values and background. Believe me: there’s room for endless philosophical speculation(or should I say intellectual masturbation, in the words of many friends?).
The only way to put a stop to do this and costructively coming out of the dilemma is PRIORITISING!
Yes, we all would like the fat bank account, the admirable life, the fast-track career, the show-stopping yet lovable partner AND the clean conscience. And wait! All of it RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW. But you simply can’t have it all!
You can try pulling a Victorian double standard or accepting a longer route(more time/sweat!) but you can’t escape one fact. Everything inevitably has a cost. Evident or hidden, nonetheless a cost. What do you want your cost to be? A Dorian Gray soul hidden up in the attic? A slower climb to the success ladder? A relationship that is more work and less enticing than its initial, charming sparks?
“Each choice is a refusal”(Spinoza).
Write your old-fashioned list on a piece of paper and start ranking. I’ll be doing mine. Lets wish each other good luck!
Regards
Posted by: ES, 24, graduate entering the job market | June 30th, 2008 at 3:16 pm | Report this commentTo ES:
Very well put. You write well, have intelligent (or at least well-humored) friends, and a pleasant disposition; you don’t need luck. Just make sure you don’t overthink everything and become a genator… in case that is what you really want, I appologize.
Posted by: Johan | June 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm | Report this commentI understand how you feel.
Posted by: Katherine, 32, Program Management Associate Manager | June 30th, 2008 at 5:16 pm | Report this commentYou’re not going mad.
You have determined that you exist in a system that values “yes men” more than doing the right thing. This leaves you with three possible outcomes: continue to exist in this system until it wears away at you as water on a rock, fight the system and fling yourself on your sword in a glorious career-killing public display, or simply decide to move on.
You have already made your decision. The hard part is over. Now you move forward and have a happy life.
For the record, I have experienced all three. I kicked the bad guys in the shins hard enough to feel it and to receive threats in my office about “wanting my head on a platter”. I have suffered silently as well. Every time the only person who was hurt was me and the system remained in place. So I chose to move on and am much happier for it.
The people I tangled with have earned their just rewards, not because of my doing but because of their own screw ups. If someone is doing something illegal they will eventually get caught. Your question is whether or not to stand at the edge of a cliff to push the lemming off or to wait with a bowl of popcorn and allow themselves to do the jumping on their own. The popcorn route is FAR more entertaining, I assure you:)
Can I suggest that the way to maintain your integrity is to practice thrift? If you make your own sandwiches, take your own coffee to work, give up the car for a bicycle and holiday at home then you won’t need that promotion. Let the others claw their way up the greasy pole and exhaust themselves. They will probably wonder in the end how you can afford to retire early when they haven’t a bean.
Posted by: sheila | June 30th, 2008 at 5:29 pm | Report this commentLet me respond to this as Lucy will.
“Dear reader. I detect from your question a superiority complex that is driving you to denigrate those you work with. It is clear from your choice of words that you are using the guise of integrity to mask your true motives - which are clearly a fear that you are homosexual and a fraud.”
Give Lucy free content for her “column,” get insulted in return.
Posted by: Trish | June 30th, 2008 at 5:56 pm | Report this commentHang on in there Lucy, firstly integrity isn’t an absolute and secondly business needs the carers just as much as the SAS; dynamic markets require robust companies and robust companies need broad skills and personalities.
Posted by: Michael | June 30th, 2008 at 6:53 pm | Report this commentMichael,62
Chairman
Integrity and personal honor have no place in the business environment and anyone who says otherwise has never worked in a corporation.
Corporations are predatory entities built by the ruthless and the greedy all of which eventually self-destruct, as do nations and empires, from their own inherent weaknesses such as a lack of morality.
Anyone who presupposes that they can exist successfully in such an environment while maintaining a sense of honor while at the same time advancing up the career ladder is not perceiving their surroundings realistically.
I have done just that which is noted in the writer’s query for close to 35 years and it has been a brutal struggle to maintain my career while growing at the same time. However, my growth has been personal and I am quite satisfied to stay where I have succeeded in reaching as anymore would force me to give up my convictions and how I believe people should be treated among each other.
For those that simply don’t care, the results in the business environment are quite obvious.
There is little chance that such environments will change since the very same people that advance are being advanced by people who control such advancement and also have little concern for any honor they espouse.
Corporate attempts at instilling some level of integrity in their personnel are meaningless exercises in futility which are done basically to make corporations feel they have met some ambiguous level of integrity that is expected out them. However, this simply cannot be done as management will simply continue to do what they and not not lead by example… and thus, resentment sets in.
For an in-depth understanding of the sociology of corporations, I highly recommend reading Joel Bakan’s treatise on the subject, “The Corporation”. Bakan, a noted Canadian jurist, shows just how misperceived these entities really are…
Posted by: Steve Naidamast | June 30th, 2008 at 7:19 pm | Report this commentStop labeling people, be more pragmatic and less dogmatic, keep straight with your principles, work as hard as you think is right for you, set goals to you life (not only carrer related), open your eyes to opportunities in every aspect of your life. Soon you’ll start noticing some important changes on your perception towards life, among which I would cite:
1 - people you saw as selfish begin to look not as bad as you first thought (although some may be classified even worse than you thought, but for those there is no remedy in life, try to put them aside.);
2 - You’ll start to realize that there is happiness outside the office and you’ll be amazed how this can make a huge difference in your life;
3 - Competing, working hard, fighting for your space and for principles can be a lot fun;
Oh, I almost forgot! Always keep in mind that you can push the f… off button at any time.
Best luck!
Humberto Prazeres, 35, Partner-Director
Posted by: Humberto Prazeres Filho | July 1st, 2008 at 2:42 am | Report this commentage 50, female,unemployed
Posted by: Ľudmila Krajčovičová | July 1st, 2008 at 11:39 am | Report this commentArogance and selfishness leads to the disaster not to the luck.
Integrity is a noble and romantic concept which we all should have been taught by our (grand) parents and our teachers. It is glorified in songs, books and Hollywood movies. Unfortunately, few individuals have it and in a highly competitive professional and social environment it is a significant liability when measuring personal advancement in monetary terms or from a social prestige point of view. It is self-explanatory that the choices in any decision making tree are limited if one is held hostage by specific values. This is a substantial disadvantage especially when competing with Machiavellian peers. Therefore it does not matter if you work for one of the grand investment banks or if you decide to become an entrepreneur, but as long as you compete in an environment were “greed is good” you will always be disadvantaged for the reason described above. You should have picked a different career path earlier in your life or you can blame your parents/school to have given you these values. You can not change your values since they are too deeply rooted in yourself, but you can change your career and become a scholar musing about the degenration of values in the absence of catastrophe.
Rafael, male 44, Hedge Fund Manager (retired)
Posted by: Ralf Laier | July 1st, 2008 at 4:37 pm | Report this commentI don’t agree. At least when running your own business, integrity is an advantage.
The alternative option is that workers and cusotmers see you as a temporary stop off point at best.
Posted by: Samec, 30 | July 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 am | Report this comment‘Michael-retired’ is far off the mark. For someone who is, implicitly, ‘retired’, it seems you didnt learn much in your career. Or maybe you were in a field of angels? “Work harder and better” is not the answer. It helps but is not the answer. I cant count how many people Ive seen work harder and better, and be more liked, and get completely shafted by their employers. One was told “you’ve lost your mojo” after just bringing in a bigger deal than anyone else. And he was brilliant at his job. It was code for “you are 5 years older than we are, and we are your bosses, and we think that is weird, so get another job”.
The City, in which I work is full of charming, intelligent people. But oh my goodness the (thinly disguised) selfishness is 100% and unsurpassed.
Posted by: Dave | July 2nd, 2008 at 9:17 am | Report this commentYou may not have advanced, but you are still there. Is that true of many of those who at some point leapfrogged you? Be true to yourself at all times without preaching (ie keep your own counsel) and you will enjoy peace of mind and be appreciated by your colleagues as someone they can trust and rely on.
I knew the world was going to pot when people had to be taught ethics, but courses on integrity says legions about the work-place environment at your bank……
Neil, male, 58
Posted by: Neil Woodcock | July 2nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm | Report this commentJust remember, Enron management landed in court because they had no integrity. Follow your instincts and leave the company. I’ve worked for dubious companies and honest ones - and it was a no-brainer what culture I wanted when I set up my own business. Honesty makes business simple, you sleep at night and it creates its own following of first-rate clients.
Posted by: PR, female, 50s | July 3rd, 2008 at 3:41 am | Report this commentMy father taught me to behave with integrity at work and, because the world works as you describe, I’m not going to advance much further than I already have. But I try to make my job as rewarding as possible and enjoy life outside. Remember: we are a special lot.
Posted by: Banker, male, 45 | July 3rd, 2008 at 3:43 am | Report this commentNot sure that LK really got the point here. Integrity isn’t aboutnot being horrid, nasty etc. It’s about taking responsibility for your actions, doing what you’ve said you’ll do, voicing unpopular opinions which secretly everyone knows are right, etc etc. Whereas what works in climbing the greasy pole is cherry-picking work, being somewhere else when the solids hit the fan etc, all of which is entirely compatible with not being nasty or horrid. I suspect the ones who play the game well barely know they’re doing it. And perhaps they are in fact the ones most useful to the organisation up the ladder. Just, it’s a shame noone else gets the chance to try.
Posted by: Civil servant, male, 44 | July 3rd, 2008 at 5:14 pm | Report this commentReading these comments makes me so GLAD I’ve got out of the rat race!
Have you considered doing the same? Surely, that torture you are daily subjected to should be sufficient to motivate you to find a way out of there… Then, in a year or so you’ll be glad he drove you up the wall!
Follow your bliss…
Posted by: FreeAgent | July 4th, 2008 at 12:28 am | Report this commentEverything in life is a balance. The balance between risk and reward. In the city you are rewarded handsomely for the risk taking that pays off for the company. If you have enough backbone to give credit to who deserves the credit for the success and promote yourself at the same time then it goes a long way to getting noticed. At the same time you do have to be ruthless when it is called for. You that you dont get to the top by being “nice”. This is balanced. There are people who make it to the top who have no integrity - but sooner or later it will come back to haunt them - if you are lying and cheating to get ahead then you will screw up one day, I’ll give you that. Look at the roots of the credit crunch - it was people (greedy bankers, greedy homeowners, foolish politicians, unscrupulous entrepeneurs) behind this spectacular occurrence. Before that we had the corporate scandals - again fuelled by people and their greed. Dont be surprised if genuine integrity makes a comeback now that we are going to get what I call “The Great Hangover”.
Think of it as an opportunity for yourself. If you have the stomach to stay - then your integrity may just pay off for you. Just remember its the balance that makes people stars.
In respect of the integrity courses, it could be that the company is genuinely concerned and has recognised that indeed values such as these are being eroded that it needs to be addressed OR it could be that they are just legally covering themselves - who is to say? I have the feeling from these courses that the real message is - if you are going to cheat by all means go ahead - just dont get caught - if you do then when you go to court the company is absolved because you have taken the “integrity training”. Just absorb what is useful from the training.
Posted by: Louise, 33, Female, Engineer | July 14th, 2008 at 11:18 am | Report this commentI worked in a Bank which publicly prided itself on it’s customer care. Actually it would shaft anyone, customer or employee, to make or save a quid short of actual fraud. It was most upset when anyone pointed out that any action was a shaft, never a career enhancing stance !
Dont believe their Marketing hype. And be a little cautious of your own, if you are that hot why are you not higher up the totem pole ?
Posted by: Graham | July 21st, 2008 at 2:35 pm | Report this commentI agree entirely with Civil servant, and would go further by saying that Lucy’s lack of understanding of the essence of ‘integrity’ is a great disappointment to me, as I’d liked her up until now.
Another key point which Lucy misses, which I’ll forgive her for on the assumption that she’s never worked there, is that the City IS in fact all about ’stealing shareholders’ money’. The idea is to buy and sell things that are over-valued, and will go pop one day, in a game of ‘pass the parcel’. Ultimately it’s pension holders, bank creditors and the tax payer that cover the bill. It is in fact a cancer on the economy; remember that capital markets have only really existed for a few hundred years and taken off in the last hundred.
So working in the City is totally incompatible with having integrity; for example as shown above it is inconsistent with ‘being responsible for one’s actions’, to quote Civil servant’s wise words.
Posted by: Stefan, 40, male, self-employed | August 5th, 2008 at 4:40 pm | Report this comment