Honesty and Integrity

Back in the 1930s, a baker suspected that a farmer who was supplying his butter was giving him short weight. Over a period of several weeks, he checked the weight and his suspicions were confirmed. This so angered him that he had the farmer arrested.

"I assume you have weights," said the judge at the farmer’s trial.

"No, sir, I don’t," replied the farmer.

"Then how do you weigh the butter you sell?"

"Well," said the farmer, "when the baker began buying butter from me, I decided to get my bread from him. I just use the one-pound loaf he sells me as a weight for the butter I sell. If the weight of the butter is wrong, he has only himself to blame."

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Measuring Performance

A senior manager briefed his boss on some major personnel changes – brought on by poor performance – that would involve several terminations.

The boss asked the manager how long he had been working with those people.

"Nine years, " came the reply. "If you have been in charge of those people for nine years and their performance is still unsatisfactory, I think the issue is your performance," said the boss.

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