Crossing the IC Divide

From the Pastor’s Story File comes this beautiful story.

There was the time Donald Douglas was competing with Boeing to sell Eastern Air Lines its first big jets. Eddie Rickenbacker, who headed Eastern, is said to have told Douglas that his specifications and claims for the DC-8 were close to his competition on everything but noise suppression.

He then gave Douglas one last chance to out-promise Boeing on this feature. After consulting his engineers. Douglas reported back that he did not feel he could make that promise.

Rickenbacker replied, “I know you can’t. I wanted to see if you were still honest. You just got yourself an order for $135,000,000?

Donald Douglas got the order because he did not cross the IC Divide.

Now what is the IC Divide? Author Peggy Klaus says the IC stands for Integrity and Character.

If you find yourself having to defend yourself and make an argument for why your behavior really is okay, then you’ve probably crossed what I call the IC Divide. And once you’ve crossed it, it’s extremely hard to backpedal into the realm of good grace again.

Here are some thoughts to consider:

• How many of our college graduates lie on their resumes?

• How many of our students cheat during their exams?

• How many people practice creative accounting?

• How many people cheat on their spouse? And by the way, spice is not the plural form of spouse.

You cross the IC Divide when you’re whispering the following kinds of statements to yourself, think long and hard about what you’re really doing:

• It’s not such a big deal.

• Aren’t rules made to be broken.

• All men are born polygamous aren’t they?

• It won’t matter just this once.

• Well, I didn’t break any laws.

• It’s not their money anyway.

• They’ll never miss it.

Here is a question. When is it okay to lie a little or to bend the rules a little?

Isn’t truth and honesty supposed to be relative? Some people are probably asking.

I don’t know. But I have not known of any employer willing to hire a finance office who is relatively honest. When I travel out of town by myself and when I get home, The Ilocana will never ask me whether I am relatively faithful.

Lying and cheating is never okay even when everybody is doing it anyway.

If only the leaders in our country would know this and practice this then we would have accomplished more both as a people and as a nation.

But some people just get away with it don’t they.

Don’t bet on it. The story is not yet done. Even if you think you can get away with cheating, lying, or stealing, your actions are bound to catch up with you sooner or later. Ever heard of ‘Blogging’ ever heard of ‘Internet’.

The plethora of newspaper articles on corporate scandals underscore that truth. And these days, with the Internet, sources and facts are only a click away.

Your reputation today is not just everything, it is everywhere. Word of mouth travels fast but not as fast as word of mouse.

Where there is no trust there is no leadership.

Stick to your IC (Integrity and Character), it is such a freeing experience. You know you have maintained your IC Stand when your words and your actions match all the time and believe me it is such a freeing experience because you do not have to keep remembering what you said the last time.

Do not compromise your Integrity and Character even when you are all alone. Just remember this, no one really sins alone. The story is not yet over and there is always One who sees what you do.

(Francis Kong will be the lead trainer for the Dr. John Maxwell’s ‘Developing the Leader within You’ leadership program this Sept. 25-26 at Hotel Intercon Makati. For further inquiries contact Inspire Leadership Consultancy Inc. (632-6872614).