On Integrity

For the last twenty years I have worked in the real estate business.  It is a business with a well deserved reputation for low integrity.  The way I have dealt with this is that, from the beginning, I set a zero tolerance policy for dishonesty or any type of low integrity behavior.  I could not and cannot control what other brokers do.  And I certainly have no control over Realtor organizational policy.  But I can control my behavior and of the conduct of the brokers working for me.  That's not quite right.  I do not control their conduct.  Rather, I am very choosy about who works with me.  This policy has served us well.

When Covid struck in early 2020, I spent the first months of the crisis completing a long-planned book on competence and integrity in the real estate business.  And why these qualities are so rare in this business.  Clearly, this is a subject dear to my heart.  But as the pandemic stretched on through 2020, I had to find something other than real estate to pay the bills.

The path of least resistance led me to Amazon.  I have long admired the company as a customer and more recently as a writer.  It seemed like an ideal solution for me.  And I talked about their hiring process here; it is ridiculously easy to get a job there.  So off I went, hoping to ride out the storm.

But after working at Amazon for only a few weeks, imagine my surprise when I discover that the company's managers have no more integrity than your typical real estate broker.  My surprise and my disappointment.  Because while I can choose who surrounds me in the real estate business, there was very little I could do about it at Amazon.

Perhaps if I had come from some other field, I would have been more accepting of the managerial deficiencies.  I know you find this everywhere.  But I have spent twenty years making damn sure that our firm operates with the highest possible level of integrity.

At this point, I just cannot tolerate anything less.

I couldn't do it.

One final point.  We encounter low integrity brokers all the time.  I have learned that it is a waste of time to try to reason with them.  You are certainly not going to change them.  And it is not your job to do so.  You can't and won't make them better people.  Also, don't explain yourself.  Explaining high integrity decisions and actions to a low integrity individual is a complete waste of time.  But there is good news:  I assure you, high integrity plus smart always trumps low integrity.  Always.  Because low integrity is never smart.  I have never run across a low integrity individual who is especially clever.  They are never as smart as they think they are.  The best you can do is first act how you think best, and then remove yourself from their environment.

There you have it:  Life lessons from a low integrity business.

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