Business is all about compromise, anywhere in the world, and more so in a developing economy like India. I have seen people I respected highly flounder when it comes to their bottom lines v/s their principles.
Just today, I discovered one more with feet of clay. A hugely successful first-generation entrepreneur with supremely high integrity (and someone I respected and looked up to) just took money (and gave a board seat) to one of the slimiest, compromised, corrupted Unicorn-founders in India (a man with the most slap-worthy face in India, in fact, the Indian Martin Shkreli), and wrote a post talking about his achievements and welcoming him warmly this morning, saying how much of an honour this was for him (the honest entrepreneur) to have him (the slap-worthy face) on board and how there is much to learn from this addition to his board. It was, to put it mildly, nauseating and pathetic at the same time.
However, this post though is not about him/her.
I would be lying if I claim I don’t judge them. But I would also be fooling myself if I claim I’d have done any better than them if I were in their shoes in the exact same situation, all the angles of which are currently unknown to me. It’s fine to be a hero in hypothetical scenarios. It’s perhaps acceptable, though indulgent, to talk of, “I would have done it differently.” But it is naïve to believe that you’d actually do exactly as you claim in a real, practical situation where your business, your stakeholders’ lives and livelihoods, and your future are at stake.
I would be lying if I claim I don’t judge them. But I would also be fooling myself if I claim I’d have done any better than them if I were in their shoes in the exact same situation, all the angles of which are currently unknown to me. It’s fine to be a hero in hypothetical scenarios. It’s perhaps acceptable, though indulgent, to talk of, “I would have done it differently.” But it is naïve to believe that you’d actually do exactly as you claim in a real, practical situation where your business, your stakeholders’ lives and livelihoods, and your future are at stake.
Let us, as far as possible, when it comes to complex situations in real life, give a little leeway to others actually caught in it. That’s not compromising on principles, but just being generous, charitable, and sympathetic humans.
