An honest man

This week, a man talked himself out of $1m by owning up to breaking a rule that no one saw him break and which most observers would feel was a rather nonsensical one. In doing so, golfer Brian Davis has become a bit of a hero to me although there is something about this story that troubles me greatly.

In case you missed the story, last weekend Mr Davis made the playoffs of the Verizon Heritage tournament in America. Whilst playing a shot, his club hit a reed. No one saw him doing it and it made no difference to the quality of his shot. It gave him no advantage. Nevertheless, Mr Davis immediately called over a rules official and incurred a two-stroke penalty, losing the playoff and the $1m prize. Speaking about it afterwards, Mr Davis reportedly said, “I could not have lived with myself if I had not called it.”

In his excellent book “The Speed of Trust”, Stephen M R Covey defines trust as the confidence born of the character and competence of a person or organisation. Mr Davis is a great example: the integrity of his character speaks for itself. His decision to draw attention to his mistake was motivated not by the fear of being found out but by his understanding that, even if no one else ever knew what he had done, he would know.

However, as I mentioned that the start of this piece, there is something about this story that bothers me – and that’s the fact that it’s even a story at all because it really shouldn’t be news. It should be what my journalist friends call a “dog bites man” story. A dog biting a man isn’t news because it happens all the time. A “man bites dog” story is news because it’s unusual. The fact that Mr Davis’ honesty was reported so prominently – and not just in the sports headlines – indicates that it doesn’t happen very often. And it should happen often; that kind of behaviour should be the norm, not just in sport but also generally in life.

Amongst the general population, our trust in institutions, in leaders, in management is crumbling. The financial crisis eroded our trust in the competence of banks and bankers; the expenses scandal eroded further our trust in the character of politicians. Often their defence was that even though they might personally have thought it was wrong, the rules allowed it. As we approach the election, I wonder what Mr Davis might think of that excuse.