Why integrity matters; AI doesn't make you competitive; well-compensated ghosts

Newsletter 72. Integrity is a pain in the ass, but the only long-term way to live with yourself. Plus, AI grannybots to annoy spammers, a ghostwriting compensation study, three people to follow, three books to read, and my self-serving holiday gift recommendations.

The price of integrity

A few years ago, I was given the opportunity to work on a book by a CEO and billionaire. I accepted, because the compensation was excellent and the work well within my capabilities. Once I got a look at the content, though, I immediately backed out, because I had serious issues with most of what the author was saying. My reputation took a hit because I'd backed out on a promise and left the agency I was working with scrambling to find an alternative resource for the client. I also was left without a big payday at at time when I really could have used the cash.

When I explained the situation to my wife, she didn't complain about my decision to forgo lots of money; in fact, she backed me up. "That's one thing I like about you," she said. "You have integrity."

While it felt nice to hear that, it made me wonder. What is integrity? After all, you could make an argument that for the sake of integrity, the right thing to do would have been to follow through on my promise to the agency and the client, not to back out. Integrity sounds like a simple concept, but in practice, it's often not so easy to define or apply.

When I think back on my career and all the things I've observed from careful scrutiny of businesspeople and their behavior, I've developed a working definition. This is wholly mine; you might think differently.

Integrity means behaving in such a way that all facets of what you say and do are consistent with each other, and with your values.

The first step to having integrity is to have values. We all have values, but to have integrity, you need to be clear about what they are. In my case, those values include producing only high-quality work that is consistent with my personal beliefs, being clear and honest with the people I work with, following through on commitments, and avoiding lying whenever possible. Of course, I also have values that include supporting my family and keeping them safe, and obeying the law. Like everyone else, I have situations in which values come into conflict -- for example, in the case of the cancelled work, my values of supporting my family and following through on commitments came into conflict with my values of producing work that was consistent with my beliefs.

When these things happen, you have to ask yourself, how would I feel if made the decision one way, and how would I feel if I did the opposite? I knew if I had taken the work, I would have felt terrible about promoting what I believed to be an immoral viewpoint. That terrible feeling is the indicator that I would have severely violated my integrity, so it pointed me in the right direction -- that is, to cancelling my participation in the project.

Financial incentives are nearly always at the core of violations of integrity. I've seen salespeople make promises and threats that were completely false to close deals. I've seen people manipulate rewards systems to make bonuses. If you look at the big financial scandals in the news, someone is always lying about financial results to generate millions in stock awards or other compensation. Obviously, we need goals and financial awards to make business work, but when the goals become the target, we can lose sight of the long-term benefit of being seen as an honest partner, worker, or boss.

The other thing that's always at the center of an integrity violation is individuals telling different and contradictory stories to different audiences. If you have one set of accounting books that reflect the real situation and another than you tell investors, that's a huge integrity violation. If you tell an employee they are doing poor work and don't deserve a raise, and then tell your VP that the employee is doing excellent work, that's a violation of integrity. If you tell customers that you'll deliver a product on time when you and the engineering team know that is impossible, that's a violation of integrity. That nagging, nauseated feeling that you're juggling two conflicting views of reality is your conscience's way to tell you that you're losing your integrity.

Maintaining your integrity always has a cost. You could lose money. You could get fired. You could miss out on an opportunity that's only available if you fool somebody. In the short term, integrity often has a price tag attached to it.

But integrity tends to pay off in the long term. People notice that you are the kind of person they can trust. They accept the disappointing news and think, "Well, at least I know who that person is." That agency I backed out on not only didn't drop me, they've sent plenty of other business my way since that incident where I backed out. They saw something in me that transcended the immediate loss of business.

But the most important way that integrity pays off is in your soul. It allows you to live with yourself without corrosive guilt. It make the eventual victories from your long-term reputation sweeter and more rewarding.

It's never too late to commit to integrity. Why not start today?

News for writers and others who think

Gotham Ghostwriters published results of its survey of 269 ghostwriters attending the Gathering of the Ghosts earlier this year. Top-line results: one in three ghostwriters made more than $100K last year, and 25% charge more than $100K for a ghostwritten manuscript. (For more about the ROI of ghostwritten books, tune in to my LinkedIn Live with Gotham Ghostwriters CEO Dan Gerstein today at 1pm ET, where I'll be sharing data about ghostwritten books from our recent business author survey.)

Are the deals now being cut between big AI companies and media conglomerates a sign of progress for the ethical future of AI? Maybe not. Media watcher Jeff Jarvis describes them as "simply purchasing the silence of these publishers when it comes to litigation and legislation," and describes the deals as "pure lobbying."

Spines, a publishing services organization, got wide coverage by claiming that it would use AI to speed the editorial process and spew out 8,000 titles next year. But at least they're paying lip-service to using AI as a tool, not a substitute for writers. CEO Yehuda Niv said, "We want AI to do the washing up for us, not to paint the Sistine Chapel. We need humans and human skills for nuance, and there’s a huge amount that goes into the developmental editing process that simply can’t be replicated with AI."

UK telecom company O2 developed an annoying audio chatbot that simulates a chatty elderly lady. It's purported purpose is to waste the time of phone scammers.

In HBR, a provocative thesis: AI will not enable companies to establish a competitive advantage, unless they already have one. "Although [Generative AI] will have unlocked tremendous value, the very nature of a general technological innovation will make it an equal-opportunity disrupter."

Three people to follow

Mikko Leskelä , CEO of Thinkers 50, a resource for the world's most influential management thinkers.

Martin Gill , CX expert for Forrester's European Research team.

Andrew McAfee , deep thinker at MIT who is analyzing why tech companies excel at creating value in bigger and faster ways.

Three books to read

The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation by Duncan Wardle (Amplify, 2024). Disney's former leader of innovation reveals how to think imaginatively.

Marketing with AI for Dummies by Shiv Singh (Wiley, 2024). Yeah, it's a Dummies book. But Shiv is the real deal, so consider it a great way to start your embrace of AI marketing strategies.

Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel C. Dennett (W.W. Norton, 2014). A philosopher challenges how you think.

A programming note

I apologize for the lack of a newsletter last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. The entire team just made a mistake and forgot. I'm withholding their holiday bonuses until the newsletter gets back on schedule.

Holiday gifts for writers and thinkers

Be a better writer in 2025. Here are two of my books that will get you started.

For those in the corporate world, my guide to better writing is Writing Without Bullshit (Harper Business, 2016). Send a copy to your colleague who really needs to learn to get to the point more quickly and stop filling your inbox with overwritten drivel. Just 20 bucks, and still as relevant as ever.

And if you're on the fence about whether to get started on writing that business book, here's the guide that covers everything you need to know: Build a Better Business Book (Amplify, 2023). Send it to your friend who keeps promising to write a book -- it's the perfect kick in the pants.

Or, if you fancy listening to my voice for hours on end, get the audiobooks!