Mastering Expectations: How to Build a Culture of Integrity

In all my conversations with managers and executives, “accountability” is the word that gets the biggest response, especially in the remote-work era we’ve entered. At Pact, we totally agree that accountability is critical to maximizing team performance. However, I personally believe there is a deeper concept that is completely overlooked. Truly great businesses are built on a foundation of integrity. Please allow me to define integrity in the way we use it at our company Pact, and try to convince you of why we believe so deeply in its power.

Integrity is the measure of how well our expectations match what ends up happening.

The counterexample that sticks out in my mind is from ex-Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky’s book One Strategy. Think of a car that has all the clean lines and chrome of a sports car, but when you get inside it has an underpowered engine and the suspension of a truck. Another example from work: many of us can remember a new senior hire who has the suits, haircut and wristwatch of a “killer”, but crumbles when pushed out of their comfort zone. The expectation is established in that first moment, and proven when things get hard.

When we recognize the central importance of integrity within business, we start to see the world through a new lens. We become responsible for what other people expect from us personally, from our product, from our company. We seek to control these expectations, and optimize our rate of meeting expectations.

A good friend described the best members of his team like this, “When they say ‘I got it’, that’s the end of the conversation, I know they will get it done”. It is the predictable nature of high-integrity teams that makes integrity the most important quality. Once we trust that our people and processes are rock solid, we can start to plan truly audacious strategies with confidence.

If that sounds interesting, we’ll dive deeper and look at practical ways companies can establish a culture of integrity by outlining, tracking, and managing expectations.

Successful teams operate with clear goals and expectations, reasonable timelines, and frequent monitoring. The first step to generate integrity is to keep track of all the important things you expect to happen and when you expect them to be done.

The set up

There’s an art to setting expectations well. Just because you have a standup meeting each morning, doesn’t mean you’re on a path to integrity. Here’s the type of weak update that I’ve heard too frequently over the years, whether in a group in front of a white board, or these days on a zoom call with half of the videos off:

“I’m still working on the ticket from last sprint. I don’t have any blockers.”

Alternatively, the highest performing teams I’ve worked with tend to have bold, predictive conversations about the future.

“My goal is to release this feature to production by Wednesday, I’m going to need help during review and deployment.”

Big difference! Communicating and outlining expectations in advance is much more beneficial than doing so after the fact.

Here’s a rule of thumb to distinguish high integrity plans from weak ones: Can this plan actually fail?

Try for yourself with a couple examples:

The first one sounds great, but the second one has integrity. Pact’s goal is to make this type of strong, valuable, proactive update the default within companies.

The follow up

Once we’ve all put our reputations on the line, with real commitments that can actually go wrong, we need to actually check what happens. It’s incredible to see how much work goes into planning and how little goes into retrospectives. The equation for integrity has two halves, setting expectations and seeing what actually happened. You don’t generate integrity in an organization without doing both.

That’s about it. The mechanics of building integrity are pretty simple. The hard part is doing this over and over without fail. We started Pact because we believe that in modern companies, keeping track of all these commitments isn’t possible without technology.

Shifting your team to integrity by setting and meeting expectations will have an immediate impact. But when it becomes a long-term habit, the benefits really start compounding. Here are a few areas where we’ve seen exceptional long-term results:

Coaching and growth

Setting expectations and keeping track is not only the secret to integrity; it also enables you to quickly elevate people with the skills, drive, and determination to deliver on the company’s desired outcomes. And just to be clear, Integrity isn’t just about succeeding every time, it’s about failing too. Companies with integrity can actually find where things aren’t working, and quickly address problems.

Motivation

If you’re following Pact’s recipe for integrity you’re doing the following:

It might sound like micromanagement at first, but I assure you it’s actually the opposite. There are two big shifts to motivation that make the effort worthwhile.

First, recognition is crucial for maintaining employee morale, yet many managers fail to acknowledge their team’s achievements because they lack the proper tracking tools. When hardworking employees go unrecognized, and managers only focus on trivial tasks, it causes a lack of trust and integrity within the team.

Second, please take a quick test. Have you recently found yourself looking at someone’s calendar to see if they’re working hard? If so, you need to make a change. The very best way to manage someone is with a list of all things they’ve committed to delivering, side-by-side with the results.

Trust

Trust is the biggest benefit for cultures with integrity. Each person acting with integrity pushes the culture toward one where trust is the default, leading to long-term, systemic benefits. Trusting teams have fewer meetings, more team autonomy, faster results, improved employee morale, less burnout, and reduced employee turnover.

Integrity requires a conscious process of planning, execution, and measurement. This whole process must be simple enough to become a long-term habit. Although integrity starts with small things, the results show up in big things.

If teams have the discipline to make integrity a requirement, we’ve seen firsthand the incredible impact it has on culture and business results. If you’d like to increase your own team’s integrity, you’re more than welcome to try Pact for free at www.withpact.com.