Thus wrote Bromley Boy – aka Simon Jones, In a recent blog
Well I agree it shouldn’t be acceptable and yet in my
personal experience it has always been thinkable to some people. What about
you? My current employer is very good about openness and integrity; but in the
past I have worked with organisations that took a pragmatic approach to the
truth, - am I likely to get caught? If not well then…….. And this attitude is
not just confined to the commercial sector – just look at the recent
accusations of hospitals and the police falsifying various statistics to
“enhance” their performance.
Issues of integrity and truth telling are often pinch points
for Christians in employment – how to deal with it you might ask? One sales
colleague I worked with would announce, typically at the start of meetings with
other departments, that he wouldn’t tell a lie (There was an assumption that
because we were in sales we would be willing to be dis-honest) – sort of
heading them off at the pass. In the Bible, when Daniel was told to do something
that compromised his principles, he asked permission to be excused.
The Banking sector is big into programmes for reforming
cultures and behaviours right now. James Featherby wrote a fascinating article
on this in Faith in Business Quarterly
magazine. All sorts of approaches are being tried
·
Offering financial incentives for good behaviour
·
Emphasising professional standards
·
Enhancing personal integrity
·
A great deal of focus on accountability through
ever more rigorous controls and monitoring
These all have their place, but James argues that they also
need to
set these in the context of some greater purpose. In the
case of the City, the aim is to connect savers and borrowers and to do this in
a way that benefits all the parties, rather than seeking to serve only
themselves and their shareholders.
This is a paraphrase of his wider argument, but one worth
keeping up your sleeve if you think truth telling may become an issue. How will
this fib advance our excellent reputation for customer service sort of thing.
Finally back to Simon Jones; he takes truth telling off in a
completely different direction, seeing truth telling as part of mission “Mission is defending the
truth that the stranger should be welcomed, the weak should be supported, the
poor should be defended. These no-brainer, biblical statements are not
self-evident to so many of our neighbours.” It’s
worth reading his full blog, let me know what you think.
Bromley Boy's Blog
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