If you’ve been following Stable Kernel, you know we’re deeply focused on weaving our core values into all that we do in the workplace and our personal lives. Our team is trusted and empowered to make important decisions every day on behalf of our business, our clients, and each other. Our values are the cornerstones that help us ensure the decisions we’re making are true to who we want to be.
- Integrity, Always
- R-E-S-P-E-C-T
- We learn & we share
- We stay hungry
Related: We are looking for software engineers to grow our team. If you are like-minded in practicing our values each day, apply here.
And while each of our values is important, the real power comes when we balance them against each other. For example, our “we stay hungry” value encourages our employees to learn and achieve new things, shoot high in their ambition, and find complex challenges for us to solve as an organization. But left unchecked, hunger and ambition can become destructive, machiavellian forces. History (and HBO) gives us plenty of examples to illustrate that truth! And it’s for that very reason that hunger (and all other values) must be anchored by integrity.
Integrity is a Super-Value. It seems to nod its head in fond recognition of all other values while also challenging them to go deeper with its “yes, but” wisdom. It commands us to be honest and true to our word. To do the right thing on behalf of our clients, each other, and our company – even when (especially when) it becomes uncomfortable, inconvenient or messy. And when we accomplish things with integrity, the rewards are so much richer.
Here are a few truths I’ve discovered that help me self-check my own integrity.
- If I’m looking out principally for my own success, I am not acting from a place of integrity
- When I don’t demand bravery and vulnerability of myself, I am not acting from a place of integrity
- When I am persuaded by the judgments of others instead of by facts, I am not acting from a place of integrity
- If I am blaming or judging others, I am not acting from a place of integrity
- If I’m not recognizing and celebrating integrity when I see others practicing it, I am not acting from a place of integrity
I know living with integrity can be hard. Sometimes really hard. It requires practice and commitment every single day. But I know, with every fiber of my being, that it’s worth it. Practicing this value will result in a fulfilling life. If you believe this too, please join me in celebrating it when you see it. And if you have developed some valuable integrity self-checks of your own, please share them!
