In these uncertain times of a network economy and toppling organizational pyramids, any designs on building or maintaining a sustainable business must hinge on looking at the big picture.

Human Capital is not limited to the workforce - be it a unit of one or many. Human Capital includes your customers, given that they can control your success as much as any P.R. rep you may have on the payroll. Dependent upon the nature of your business and workforce, some of your customers are already on payroll. 

Here I am referring to your workforce. Like your customers, they too can make you or break you.

This would still hold true even if you were a unit of one, outsourcing everything else. So, what does integrity have to do with all of this? Plenty!

Big picture views begin with you! Since "all answers lie within," you can start piecing the big picture puzzle together by probing there…within yourself!

Keep in mind that if you don't ask any questions, you can't expect to receive any answers. Here are a few of mine you can borrow for the price of knowing your answers.

• Ever receive a service or buy a product from someone you thought was screwing you over? Did/would you repeat your business with them, or look elsewhere? Did/would you keep your experience to yourself, or tell the tale?
  
  
• Ever work for a company/person whose sole objective seemed to be on making a profit, with little regard for customers or workforce? Would you say that your feelings towards this attitude hindered the quality of your work? Is/was your mind occupied with leaving? Can/could you speak with sincere pride in the company/person for which you work/ed?

The more the organizational pyramid turns, the more exposed your workforce. If you don't lead integrity by example, don't expect your workforce to save you. As you build/change your business or organization, it would serve your purpose well to gain invaluable insight from some the changing economy's defining trends.

The best-selling author of The Popcorn Report and CLICKING, noted Futurist Faith Popcorn claims that businesses/organizations embracing at least 3 of seventeen consumer trends tracked by her Brain Reserve non-academic think-tank are well positioned for success. The following 4 examples are connected to Integrity - or the lack of it:

1. Icon Toppling - "A new socioquake transforms mainstream [North] America and the world as the pillars of society are questioned and rejected."
   
   
2. Anchoring - "A reaching back to our spiritual roots, taking what was secure from the past in order to be ready for the future."
   
   
3. SOS (Save Our Society) - "The country rediscovers a social conscience of ethics, passion and compassion."
   
   
4. Vigilante Consumers - "frustrated, often angry consumers are manipulating the marketplace through pressure, protest and politics."

These trends are fast taking root. Even the slightest hint of dishonesty, unethical policies and/or self-serving practices will send your profits directly into damage control bottom-lines.

Trends seeping into the area of the Human Capital workforce contribute additional pieces to the puzzle. Mindless widespread down/rightsizing has spawned a movement towards the re-establishment of our humanity. The most ironic twist of fate now befalling corporations having contributed to drastically reducing North American middle-classes is that collectively they have inadvertently wiped out a large percentage of their consumer base and our tax-bases. They have also unleashed unrestrained forces of creativity, social innovation and passion ready to bury the dinosaurs for their past arrogance.

If you have been paying attention to what I have written this far, then I expect you can see a direct relationship to all of this with the previous list of four. It follows that anyone not looking to survive the imminent storms of social and economic upheavals of the next 50 years by creating their own vision intensive businesses/organizations, are looking for opportunities wherein their aspirations for personal and professional growth will most likely find meaningful fulfilment.

Your answers to the questions first asked should be an indication of what can be expected to happen within environments that lack integrity.

Besides which, ask yourself one very simple compound question. If you don't have your integrity what do you have? And if not now, when?

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