1 post tagged “business”
Some of my friends believe that honest and fair people cannot succeed in business and will always be edged out by the backstabbers. I disagree strongly with this sentiment, believing that success comes through one's skill and gumption, without requiring one to step over corpses. It could be that I am naive or that my friends are prejudiced, but I don't think it's either. More likely, we both reflect on our personal experiences, which happen to differ because we are in different corners of the business world. I see honest and benevolent people succeed through their intelligence, devotion, vision, and sometimes luck; while my friends probably see questionable characters triumph using sharp elbows, deception, and exploitation. We both form our general opinions from what we see, assuming that our partial views are representative of the whole.
But if this is true, it raises several questions:
- If ethics is a liability in some environments, are these the minority or the majority?
- What causes the difference? Why are some environments harsher on good people than others?
- What should an individual do if they find themselves in one of these environments?
I can't form an opinion on 1. from my vantage point, and I doubt many people can. It takes a long time to truly learn any one environment, and even then reasonable people may disagree on how rotten it actually is. To repeat this learning across many environments surely must take decades and an extraordinary flexibility. It will take either divine brilliance or comprehensive surveys to answer this one.
As for what causes the difference, I think it's probably the scarcity or abundance of opportunities. Where there's plenty to go around, people tend to treat each other with kindness and respect. Conversely, if opportunities are limited, people grow nasty. It's like the checkout line in the supermarket: long waits and slow-moving lines make everyone grumpy and opportunistic, but add a few open cashiers and see how the same people instantly turn into a smiling and respectful bunch.
It's possible that high stakes make a difference, though I'm not sure I personally believe that. I think it's rare that someone will lie and cheat to earn a million dollars but restrain themselves to perfect honesty when the payoff is a mere thousand.
Finally, to the question of what one should do in a rotten business environment. First of all, I think it's a false choice between staying ethical but poor and ditching ethics in favor of what the others do anyway. The real options have to be either to leave or to endeavor to improve things. Leaving for a better environment may be easier, since it avoids unpleasantness and makes life generally better. But this isn't always possible, and it doesn't really improve the world at large. The prospect of improving one's community, while unquestionably daunting, is an opportunity to make a real difference. I cannot think of anything more rewarding than succeeding at this task. After all, what if Nelson Mandela just left?
