Here at Ultradent, our first leading core value is Integrity. We chose it very carefully. However, what many of you may not know is that before it was Integrity, it was Honesty.

We changed that original core value from honesty to integrity because over the years at Ultradent, we’d seen many lovely, honest people that sadly, too often, didn’t also have courage to accompany that honesty. I believe that honesty plus courage equals human integrity. That’s where the two come together, and that’s why ultimately we chose Integrity over Honesty.

Just recently, I heard about a situation where an employee had the courage to stand up to her manager, who was operating well outside of the core values. Now, that took a lot of integrity for her to do that, but because of her honesty and courage, it enabled us to make a correction that improved the lives of many other employees, and that got us back on better footing toward guiding the ship to where it needed to be.

It takes integrity to maintain the quality of our products, and it takes integrity to maintain the quality of life in the workplace. I certainly harp a lot on the importance of happiness in the workplace, but it takes everyone working together and having the integrity (honesty and courage) to stand up to anyone who may be overstepping their bounds to hurt that quality of life—be it through bullying, sexual harassment, gossip, etc.

Also, for all employees, it’s incredibly important that people feel supported when they stand up to someone who may be operating outside the bounds of integrity . Providing that support to your coworkers takes integrity, too.

I can’t say it enough: integrity in the workplace is major. It affects the type of product we’re able to produce, and it greatly impacts our corporate identity.

Even out in the field, we’ve had a few experiences where we had to stop doing business with offices who treated our reps unkindly or disrespectfully. There are some things that are more important in life than money. This is one of them. Integrity is paramount.