“It’s just business, Alan. Don’t take it personally.”
It was twenty years ago. My client, a founding CEO, was informing me that he had rejected my advice on a merger he was contemplating. He was prepared to ignore the people issues I had uncovered in due diligence and follow the investment banker’s counsel: “You can deal with the soft stuff later. Let’s get this deal done!”
I never had a clear bright line between my business and personal point of view. I followed my passion, and my work reflected who I was. I once explained as much to this client and he said, “Wow. You must be miserable a lot of the time. I keep my beliefs, likes and dislikes completely separate from what I do to make money.”
I was privately horrified, but held my peace. I find this sentiment to be quite common in business.
Peter Block, a teacher and colleague in the field of organizational development, once said in a training session that I attended:
Business. It’s such an interesting word. As a noun, there is a lot to like about it –“we do business together” – something a bit more than a transaction, a relationship, or ”getting down to business” – taking action on what’s really important.
But when business is used as an adjective something unfortunate happens. Take ”it’s a business decision” – that means “we know we’re screwing you, but the money made us do it.”
“It’s just business” is all too frequently used to justify taking short-term profit-focused action in the face of known long-term damage to the firm, its customers, employees, or the community at large. It can be a license to ignore possible unintended consequences. “It’s just business” also can rationalize not seeking a solution when that solution is inconvenient in terms of time or money.
Selling Business
I once sold off-the-shelf training programs in Pittsburgh. A large bank, our client, had acquired a large Philadelphia bank. Integration wasn’t going well because the Philadelphia bank had been told that this was a “merger of equals” while the acquiring CEO truly believed it was an acquisition or, more precisely, a conquest. I observed him explode in a meeting of the two firms’ leaders: “When I said that we’d pick the best IT systems, I meant OUR SYSTEMS!”
The training manager called my boss and me in to discuss using one of our training programs with the integration team. The program taught how to get things done when you don’t have direct authority. The training manager was interested, but I kept asking questions when I should have been closing the sale. The training manager began to see that this training program would be window dressing at best and might throw gasoline on a smoldering fire.
We left the meeting. My boss was livid. “You actually talked yourself out of a sale!” she said.
“It wouldn’t solve the problem,” I responded just a tad too defensively.
“Alan, this is business. Not everything works. It probably wouldn’t hurt.”
“But what if it did?”
“That isn’t your problem. And we would have had a $15,000 sale.”
At the time, the steel industry in Pittsburgh was dying (though we didn’t know it) and my training sales were declining. I later left that firm and went to work for a consulting firm that actually wanted to find true solutions to problems. It turned out to be a good move.
I continued over the next thirty years to do business according to what I believed was right. When I worked for large consulting firms this sometimes created conflict. However, working for myself and with colleagues, those conflicts were substantially less.
An Unusual Business
Recently I read Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography Born to Run. Bruce’s first manager, Mike Appel, signed him to an onerous contract that (according to Bruce) essentially made him Mike’s employee. After Bruce’s first hit album began to earn money, the contract came up for renewal. There was a lot of money on the table, but Bruce was, according to the terms of the contract, entitled to very little of it. Bruce objected. Mike made re-signing with him for five years a condition of paying Bruce more money, saying Bruce might be a one-hit wonder.
Bruce left Mike Appel because Mike made the “business decision” of taking most of the money today rather than demonstrate his belief in Bruce for the long term. Bruce then signed with Jon Landau because of his “passion” and “heart.” To date Bruce has made over twenty more albums plus boxed sets.
Leadership Lessons
Most of my work was with large publicly held companies. Some were often driven to do the wrong things for employees, customers, or the community in order to maximize shareholder value. Other executives I knew kept these constituencies in mind. My best projects were working for those kinds of leaders.
Along the way, I became interested in B-corporations and Benefit Corporations, which define their business concept as a force for good. Some give a portion of profits away to charity; others have a long track record providing employee benefits like onsite child care. They structure business to provide real value to customers, employees and the community. Shareholders “do well by doing good.”
I suspect that the leaders of B-corporations see no virtue in a separation between their business and personal values. Certainly, treating business as an arena where amoral behavior is justified – “It’s just business” – is a non-starter.
Like B-corporations, my point of view about business leadership includes not just attracting followers and making change, but delivering value as perceived by customers, staff, and the community as well as shareholders.
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