Dorrier Underwood

Spend time with anyone from Dorrier Underwood and you're sure to hear the word integrity come up quickly. We believe integrity is  central  to empowered, inspiring leadership and are constantly on the lookout for where it might be missing, whether individually or collectively, so we can true ourselves up. Dorrier Underwood president Doug McVadon recently had the opportunity to talk about it on The Sage Advice podcast with Ed Kless. Listen in for an inspiring 10-minute conversation about the link between integrity and success:

In·i·ti·a·tive , noun the ability to assess and initiate things independently. the power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do. This week I got to distinguish initiative by observing its absence in myself. The strategy team had a retreat scheduled for Thursday, and I marked my calendar “be available,” because Nancy told me they might want to pull me in sometime during the day. On Tuesday, I had a call scheduled with Doug, but before and after, I was thinking mostly about the big dog client interviews I’d promised to summarize this week, and was starting to worry about how much (or little) of them I’d understand, and thinking that I should have started on them earlier. I had a few marketing and sales calls with people on the team, and between the reorganization of the supply closets and the email transition, working at home seemed like a smart choice. On Thursday morning, my phone rang at 9:00, just as I was settling in front of my computer to s...

We talk  a lot about the definition of integrity, practices for integrity and restoring integrity. One thing became clear for me this week: integrity is nothing more than workability. It doesn’t have to exist in any specialized language. We all know whether something works, or not--a conversation, a meeting, a paragraph--and we all know when, instead, it falls flat, misses the mark, fails to communicate. Fred said he would call me, and we had scheduled the call for 5pm, weeks in advance.  It was in our calendars. I turned down two other requests from people: “Sorry, I have a call right at five.” It was to be an important conversation, so I was trying to get clear in my own mind what I wanted to discuss, what I would listen for in his voice, what I might ask about, or ask to hear more about. What would Nancy and Jane ask me later that I would regret not finding out? My day was organized around this last business appointment, which might take me until 6 pm....

Today I got that the only thing preventing miracles from flooding into my life at every moment is my commitment to being right—right about how sales is hard, or publishing has obstacles, or how this, that or the other thing is impossible. It takes my breath away to realize how much of a controlling interest I have in the corporation “This Can’t Happen.” I also own 51% of the company “That’s Nice for You,” which recently merged with the famous “Never Mind. I’m Fine.” I also got the inextricable link between miracles and integrity, meaning no integrity = no miracles.  I had been trying to get in touch with this woman, Tonya, for two weeks. I sent emails, I phoned (“This party’s voice-message system has not been activated”) —nothing. Today at a break during a meeting, the assignment on the break was to have a miracle. Called Tonya again—again, nothing. And I was committed to doing the assignment and having a miracle anyway, so I didn’t give up and just go have a cup of coffee...

Integrity appears as a corporate value under the “About Us” section of many companies’ web sites. It appears so much, in fact, that I don’t pay attention to it any more unless more detail follows. At Dorrier Underwood, we use integrity in Webster’s second sense: “The quality or state of being complete or undivided: entireness, completeness.” The second definition takes the sting of moral righteousness out of the word, although in some instances I feel a strong pull to put it back in. The Washington Post has a story, for instance, about 200 former Samsung workers, most from one particular plant, who developed rare and sometimes fatal illnesses.   Samsung has Integrity as one of its “core values”: Operating in an ethical way is the foundation of our business. Everything we do is guided by a moral compass that ensures fairness, respect for all stakeholders and complete transparency. All this is now in the news because, after seven years of complaints, Samsung ...

I got goosebumps watching Adam Scott fulfill the hopes of a sporting nation (Australia) by winning the Masters, the world's most prestigious golf tournament, as the rain fell and the light faded across north Georgia this evening. I'm not a golfer, nor do I watch golf tournaments as a matter of course. I'm a student of performance, and a fan of performance art, the art of performing under pressure, in the spotlight, like Bruce or Tiger or P!nk or LeBron or Steven Strasburg. Didn't really know this 32-year old Aussie, but was reminded of his epic failure at last year's British Open, when he let a four-shot lead get away with only four holes to play... he had played hot and cold in this round, but at the end was in the lead going to the 18th hole! But I was really struck by the greatness of his foe, Angel Cabrera of Argentina, touchingly caddied by his son, sharing amazing moments with him. He is a grandfather in his 40's and he was matching this strong tall...