One day a friend casually mentioned \u00a0pirating some software on her job. When I asked her if that wasn\u2019t stealing, she shrugged and said, \u201cEveryone does it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not really news, of course. Years ago, Time<\/em> magazine had an essay that made a huge impression on me. That piece, Larceny in Everyday Life<\/em>, explored a growing trend among folks who considered themselves moral and honest.\u00a0<\/p>\n As the journalist discovered, these upright citizens saw nothing wrong with stealing from their employers. They weren\u2019t embezzling money, for goodness sake. Pens, copy paper, even ground coffee from the employee lunchroom were finding their way into employee homes.<\/p>\n This pervasive, \u201cit will never be missed\u201d attitude was costing companies hundreds of millions of dollars annually.<\/p>\n Now I like to think that integrity goes up when we\u2019re the ones owning the business. For the most part, the folks I deal with are unfailingly honest. That\u2019s why I\u2019m easily shocked when I see someone who is self-employed deviate from the honesty path.<\/p>\n One of the more blatant examples of that happened recently during the gigantic Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There\u2019s a man I follow on Twitter who describes himself as an entrepreneur and marketer who will help us grow our small businesses faster and smarter, who arrived in town in the middle of the event.<\/p>\n The next day, he startled me by posting a message crowing about the fact that he and a companion had crashed CES. Clever fellow or common crook?\u00a0<\/p>\n I commented on his message with a question which was, \u201cAnd this is admirable because…?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n His response? \u201cAdmirable, no. Fun, yes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He might have saved some money, but it could have cost him far more than he saved. Is this someone whose advice I would want to take? Would I want to do business with him? Not likely.<\/p>\n The thing about integrity\u2014or the lack of it\u2014is that it\u2019s sometimes easier to notice when it\u2019s missing in someone else, but it may not be so obvious in ourselves. I\u2019m thinking of a writer I know who frequently passes on eloquent quotes without attribution.<\/p>\n When I questioned him about such things, he said, \u201cWhen I read something I like, I just think I\u2019d like to have said that, so I do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll feel differently,\u201d I suggested, \u201cwhen someone takes something you\u2019ve written and passes it off as their own.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201dOh, I\u2019d be flattered,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n Apparently, he didn\u2019t share the philosophy of another writer who had a clear policy about such matters. \u201cI\u2019d rather be caught holding up a bank than stealing so much as a two-word phrase from another writer,\u201d asserts Jack Smith. Larceny is larceny and size really doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n Every one of these examples have something else in common: the fact that they talk about getting away with these little larcenies suggests that they see nothing wrong with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m naive, but I tend to side with the philosopher who said, \u201cThe person who can\u2019t be trusted in small matters, can\u2019t be trusted at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One day a friend casually mentioned \u00a0pirating some software on her job. When I asked her if that wasn\u2019t stealing, she shrugged and said, \u201cEveryone does it.\u201d That\u2019s not really news, of course. Years ago, Time magazine had an essay that made a huge impression on me. That piece, Larceny in Everyday Life, explored a…<\/p>\n