It might seem kitschy, the Integrity Tiger. But it’s a tangible way to spread a concept that America wants and needs.
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It started with a stuffed tiger doll, something so cuddly it would make Hobbes or even Garfield look ferocious.
Today, it’s evolved into a transformative corporate ideal that could restore the middle class if enough people pay attention. Pebbles make ripples and ripples make waves.
“Integrity, to me, is really everything,” said Gregg Ostro, a driving force behind Integrity Summit 13 on Oct. 13 at Chateau Luxe in northwest Phoenix.
It’s a business conference based around a radical concept for anyone schooled on Milton Friedman.
Friedman says business’s only goal is profit
The short version of Friedman’s theory is that businesses don’t have any responsibilities other than profit. Taken to its extreme conclusion, this thinking justifies everything from mass layoffs and low wages to rampant inflation and high prices.
Is it wrong to suggest that widespread acceptance of Friedman economics has encouraged CEOs to boost profits by any means — even at the expense of the American middle class?
Maybe it started with Friedman, who wrote in The New York Times in 1970 that businesses leaders who focus on social responsibilities such as “providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else … are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society”?
Or maybe it started with Hollywood’s Gordon Gekko and his infamous “greed is good” speech in 1987?
Or maybe too many silver spoon tycoons got the wrong message from “Mad Men” and “Wolf of Wall Street”?
Who knows?
Ostro says integrity is much more than that
But Ostro, a marketing lifer, doesn’t seem to buy into any of that, and his personal reputation is such that he’s been able to influence Phoenix in countless ways from a position adjacent to the spotlight.
“If I’m not who I am, if I’m not showing the essence of me in how I think and how I treat people, then I’m a fake,” Ostro said. “I’m a façade. And I don’t want to be a façade.”
Ostro has spent recent years connecting people and creating opportunities. He’s the kind of guy who’ll call up a younger Black newspaper columnist to simply talk about ideas, rather than shut such a guy out because he’s not in the “in” club.
Ostro’s business summit is an extension of that.
“With integrity you make choices where you don’t hurt people, you don’t cheat people, where you’re fair to people,” Ostro said. “If you do that then you’re going to find good things coming your way.”
He wants to expand that message, and this year’s conference has a long list of sponsors and speakers prepared to tell stories of doing the right thing, even if it wasn’t profitable.
This also should be a networking opportunity for business leaders who want to bring talented minorities into the room, and for talented minorities to make sure they’re included in discussions that go beyond their base communities.
It’s about doing the right thing, no matter what
This year’s presenters include Jerry Colangelo, basketball Hall of Famer Ann Meyers Drysdale and Arizona Supreme Court Justice Bill Montgomery.
Sponsors include USAA, the Phoenix Suns, Bonneville International, Gatorade, Chicanos Por La Cause, the Arizona Commerce Authority and Grand Canyon University.
GCU recently has adopted the concept of integrity into a high-profile mission statement: “The Honors College at GCU is dedicated to cultivating a learner-centric environment that promotes character and integrity, intellectual growth and practical application … Honors graduates emerge as adept communicators, evidence-based decision-makers and deliberate global contributors while becoming good stewards of their faith and purpose.”
Breanna Naegeli, dean of GCU’s honors college, is an Integrity Summit presenter this year.
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For her, integrity is “who you are and how you act whether anyone is looking at you or not.”
“It’s not going to be circumstantial based on whether there’s money involved or how it might benefit you. It’s how you’re going to act and behave based on your character and doing the right thing, whether it’s a ‘fan favorite’ decision or not.”
Naegeli said there’s a focus in higher education on intellectual development. “But,” she said, “I feel like not every institution prioritizes the development of the human being … who we are as people. That’s a huge component that I think is often overlooked.”
She said we can’t assume that young people are going to learn to behave with integrity as a default.
People want integrity. This can show them the way
This is where the plush tigers come in.
Naegeli has one, as do plenty of other Phoenix-area leaders. It’s like a big-game trophy, having an Integrity Tiger stuffed and mounted in the office.
It’s just Ostro’s way of creating a tangible and obvious reminder of the intangible and sometimes nebulous product he’s selling. It’s intentionally kitschy.
People “like having a fluffy animal,” he said. “And if you look at the word ‘integrity,’ the word ‘tiger’ is in there.”
It’s a lighthearted reminder of a sober mission.
“If we want to save America, save our children, save the next generation, have some semblance of what made us one of the great countries of the world, there has to be trust,” Ostro said.
“What we’ve found is there are people who are hungry to be people of integrity in the workplace and in their lives. Somebody needs to light the bulb and show them the way, so they can see that it can be done.”
Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.
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Publish date : 2024-09-27 01:23:00
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