Does integrity and morally correct behaviour correlate with profitability?
As I add up my years in business, I cannot give as simple an answer as someone who wishes to assert a righteous attitude might wish to claim. Honesty, after all, is often in the eyes of the beholder. (Just ask a seriously committed Palestinian or Israeli nationalist the same question if you want to prove the point.)
The fact remains that intelligent psychopaths have a real advantage in business. They can, if they wish, put on a front of trustworthiness and integrity and play around with all of the human emotions and relationship-development techniques to perpetuate extensive and effective scams. I know that sometimes the crooks such as Bernie Madoff are caught and punished, but many get away or (worse) serve their time, learn their “lesson” and return to business, with just enough additional knowledge of the law to skirt the rules and continue scheming.
Of course, generally a reasonably intelligent businessperson will be able to outfox a less-than-brilliant crook. The sort of intelligence I’m writing about is less academic brains than street smarts — I know some honorable people who are successful in long-established businesses who aren’t rocket scientists (and at least one, Bil Caswell, who really has been a rocket scientist) who do quite well in their specialities.
These matters come to mind as the problems reported with “cashontree” in California continue to challenge my business. My Internet Service Provider just levied a fee of a couple of hundred dollars for fixing a problem caused on my website when my defensive efforts caused things to go awry. The criminal won’t pay for this mix-up, and I certainly learned my lesson, but in this case, crime pays: To an innocent third party delivering a valid service — my ISP. And of course, I won’t be able to bill anyone for the time and stress caused by my initiative to be helpful and frank on a Google-operated discussion forum.
Fortunately, there are good sides to this story as well. Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from a Google employee offering assistance, co-operation and a personal level of contact to help resolve the matter. I also appreciate the depth and scope of the voluntary support network who have helped out in the background. And I’ve learned some useful lessons which will toughen me up a little and allow me to have just a bit more knowledge about what to do and what not to do in the future.