On the day we launched Hospira, we began educating our employees by giving them all a book—The Integrity Advantage by Adrian Gostick and Dana Telford—that explains integrity in a corporate setting. It boils integrity down to 10 characteristics, which it then defines. Among my favorites:
You know the little things count.
You mess up, you ’fess up.
You keep your word.
You care about the greater good.
You act like you’re being watched.
You hire integrity.
We also used this book as the inspiration for an employee Code of Business Conduct, which we distributed to all 14,000-plus employees. We followed up with live training sessions, and we asked everyone to sign a “Statement of Ethics and Compliance.” Finally, we set up a worldwide Ethics and Compliance Hotline. As 2004 ended, we conducted an employee benchmark survey. It found that just 24 percent of respondents would “strongly agree” that they were encouraged to act with integrity. Just 22 percent felt their managers set an example of integrity.
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