Integrity: Without It, Nothing Works

I read Michael C. Jensen‘s work for years before I had the chance to meet him. That happened at a Being a Leader conference, the same conference where I met Kari Granger, who worked with Jensen on that leadership program. Both of them have shaped how we think about our work ever since.

Long before Jensen wrote about integrity, he helped change how the world thinks about investing. He earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago, in the school now known as Chicago Booth. His 1968 study of mutual funds, one of the first of its kind, found that professional managers typically did not beat a simple approach of owning the whole market. That work helped build the case for index investing. The same school produced David Booth and Rex Sinquefield, who went on to found Dimensional Fund Advisors and who worked on some of the earliest index portfolios.

Jensen later became a professor at Harvard Business School. Later in his career he turned much of his attention to leadership and integrity. He passed away in 2024, and his short interview on integrity has stayed with me ever since.

Most people treat integrity as a virtue. Something nice to have. Jensen saw it differently. He defined integrity as being “whole and complete,” and he said it comes down to one thing: a person’s word.

“Integrity is a matter of a person’s word, nothing more and nothing less.” Michael C. Jensen

Why integrity matters so much in our world

Financial advice is a business of promises. A family hands us their income, their savings and their hopes for their children, and trusts that the advice they receive is about their life and not about someone’s sales goals.

Too often, our industry gets that backwards. Advice is delivered inside a sales structure, and the plan quietly bends toward the product. Even well-meaning advisors find it hard to stay whole and complete when what they recommend affects how they are paid.

We built Sound Financial Group to remove that tension wherever we could:

• Our advisors are salaried. Their recommendations are built around your household, not their paycheck.
• We put our word in writing. Our six-month refund guarantee means that if the work isn’t right for you, you can have your fee back.
• We are built for the long run. Sound Financial Group is not for sale. We aim for relationships that last 40 to 60 years, across careers, children and generations.

Promises like these only mean something if they are honored. That is why integrity sits at the foundation of everything we do.

How this shapes the way we work

Honoring your word is different from keeping it. None of us keeps every promise. Jensen’s point is that integrity means keeping your word on time, or, when you can’t, telling everyone who is counting on you as soon as you know and cleaning up what it costs them. That is the standard we hold ourselves to with every household we serve.

Integrity creates workability. When something is whole and complete, it works. When a piece is missing, things break down in ways that are easy to miss. A financial plan is no different. Gaps in protection, a plan that was never put in place, or a strategy that doesn’t fit how a family actually lives all quietly reduce what is possible.

Design, implementation and use. Jensen describes three places where integrity can break: the design, how the design is built, and how it is used. That idea sits at the heart of how we help families Design and Build a Good Life™. We work like an architect, not a salesperson. A good design matters. So does building it completely, and living it well over time. No one has a Good Life by default, only by design.

Your word to yourself counts too. The commitments you make to yourself, your family and your future are part of your word. Planning is one way of honoring them.

Integrity and our values

Integrity is what holds our values together:

• Truth Over Trend. We tell you what we believe is true for your household, even when it isn’t what’s popular.
• Stewardship Over Status. What you’ve been given is meant to be cared for well, not displayed.
• Conviction Over Chaos. A clear design, honored over time, keeps you steady when markets and headlines aren’t.

None of this happens in one meeting. Like integrity itself, a Good Life is Built Over Time.

Read the full interview

Jensen’s interview with Karen Christensen first appeared in Rotman Magazine (Fall 2009) and was updated in 2014. It’s short, practical and worth your time.

Read “Integrity: Without It Nothing Works” (free, on SSRN)

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