» Restoring Honor to Public Service Municipal (and Public-sector) Solutions: Innovation solving public sector problems.

Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886) son of President John Quincy Adams and grandson to President John Adams was an American lawyer, politician, diplomat and writer. He once stated:

“Failure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all-redeeming virtue, the acquisition of wealth as the single worthy aim of life. Ten years ago such revelations as these of the Erie Railway would have sent a shudder through the community, and would have placed a stigma on every man who had had to do them. Now they merely incite others to surpass by yet bolder outrages and more corrupt combinations.”

In today’s business and government culture there is an increasingly prevelant (and growing) culture which lacks both TRUST and HONOR. Internationally, unlike the US or UK, relationships are much more about one proving one’s self as trustworthy than looks, dress or how many Zeros are in a personal or corporate bank account. Working as a consultant, I have witnessed some of the worst ethical behavior imaginable. Internationally, the poor (even dispicable) treatment of country nationals by American expats in normal work environments explains (in part) the animosity that foreigners have towards Americans. Bureaucrats and consulting firms (not all of them) are all too often willing to throw the professional reputations of others under the bus because their focus is on a much bigger prize: personal or corporate profit. Domestically, our firm has uncovered $ millions in fraud, graft, waste, corrpution and inefficiencies yet despite the publicity these types of events are getting, we continue to elect people to office with the same values. Personal behavior needs to change. We need to hold ourselves - as well as others - more accountable.

Mr. Adams was referring to the difference between personal trustworthyness versus personal success at the expense of others. He was talking about honor. From Wikipedia we find a description about honor worth reading…

Honour or honor (from the Latin word honor, honoris) is the evaluation of a person’s trustworthiness and social status based on that individual’s espousals and actions. Honour is deemed exactly what determines a person’s character: whether or not the person reflects honesty, respect, integrity, or fairness. Accordingly, individuals are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions, code of honour, and that of the society at large. Honour can be analysed as a relativistic concept, i.e., conflicts between individuals and even cultures arising as a consequence of material circumstance and ambition, rather than fundamental differences in principle. Alternatively, it can be viewed as nativist — that honour is as real to the human condition as love, and likewise derives from the formative personal bonds that establish one’s personal dignity and character.

Take recent events in California and Arizona: “Mayor, ex-city manager among 8 arrested in scandal” (for taking more than $5.5 million of public funds) and “Mayor and father arrested and jailed” by the FBI for corruption and misuse of public funds. Enron. Arthur Anderson. Savings & Loan scandals. Mortgage bubble burst. Mr. Adams got it right. We have all witnessed corruption. From large $ deals go into the wrong hands an untrustworthy suitor, to the destruction of colleagues reputations, self-worth and lives destroyed by self-promoting, self aggrandizing individuals who will lie, cheat and steal to improve their status and line their pockets. Where is Honor ? How can we restore it - particularly in our homes, communities, governments and business?

President John Adams stated:

“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.”

He also stated:

“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.”

As American entertainer and pithy humorist Will Rogers put it:

“There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you”

As you go about your work today…try to restore a little more honor in what you do today than you did yesterday. Let’s do what we can to make sure the term ‘Public Servant’ becomes less of a punchline and more an honorable profession in the mouths of our friends and colleagues.

Municipal Solutions, llc provides Ethics and Customer Service Training for public officials and administrative staff in partnership the James Madison Group.