Trite But Never More True: Be Kind and Do Right

Love or Fear. Early in my career, an older client of mine took the occasion of a shared meal with me to say,

“Everything we do as humans are borne of either love or fear. All thoughts, emotions, and behaviors break down into one of these two categories. It’s one of the most binary things in life. Love is a path toward life, and fear is a path toward death. You cannot separate business from life in this basic truth. The more you appreciate this, and live it, the better you will do in life and business.”

I did not fully appreciate this at that moment, but I did increasingly over time, and it became my “north star” in understanding and regulating my thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Love, faith, kindness, support, patience, encouragement, generosity, and appreciation are steps toward life. Anger, rage, resentment, greed, manipulation, criticism, and control are toward death.

Be Kind. If you want to march on a path toward life and away from death, be kind. I have always been amazed at the prevalence of old school concepts such as “I am a powerful businessperson, so I have an excuse for being a prick” or “I need to be an asshole at times to get my way and achieve success.” Wrong! Kindness and generosity, given without expectation, is returned with a multiple of what you gave. It's so ironic, but true.

Unfortunately, business leaders as a group seem to not understand this. Arrogance, greed, condescension, even abusiveness are self-excused as necessary for success. I have worked closely with over 20 billionaires, over a hundred centimillionaires, and thousands of multi-millionaires, and the kind ones are the true winners. An asshole leader may achieve greater wealth, but the kind one is the more content when they close their eyes at night. And that is the true definition of success in my own experience and as told to me by hundreds of successful businesspeople.

Do Right. As a young law associate, I was handling litigation for a local bank. They had been sued by a builder who claimed the bank’s lending team had approved him for a loan to build a self-storage facility, and then reneged on the commitment, costing him millions of dollars. The banking team denied repeatedly that they had ever communicated approval. When the bank finally sent over a huge stack of files (pre-digital age), I noticed a Post-It sticking to the outside of one of the files, with a note written by one of the lending team members. It read, “[Borrower] dropped by today and I told him he had a deal, we are committed to funding and look forward to working with him.” I stared at the note and immediately realized this would tank our defense once it ended up in evidence.

I walked it into the senior partner of my firm. He looked at me and said, “David, looks like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s up?” I showed him the note. He stared at it, while I wondered how business is done around moral issues like this. Is it all fair, all part of the game of business, to lie and cheat and try to get away with it? Are there gradations of right? Would he ask me to destroy the note? My senior partner looked at me and said, “Copy this, alert our client of the note, and send it to the plaintiff’s lawyer as part of our required discovery response. Then, start studying the settlement scenarios we should be considering. This is probably a $10 million Post-It.”

I thanked my lucky stars. I had a senior partner who knew right from wrong, had a moral compass in hand at all times, and did the right thing, no matter the consequences. Had he not acted as such, I have often wondered if the lesson to me would have been that there is a large area of gray between right and wrong and we are allowed to play in the gray if we think we can get away with it.

Do the right thing, always. You will sleep better at night, and you will attract people and situations into your life into your life that share your same values.

Don’t Negotiate for the Last Nickel. There is the philosophy in the business world that being a tough negotiator is a good quality. I don’t disagree with the general principle. But I am a huge believer in adhering to the principles of Getting to Yes, the seminal 1983 book on negotiation by Roger Fisher and William Ury. The book is as relevant today as when it was released. The bottom line is every deal must work for both parties. You must meet the needs of the other party, and the other party must meet your needs. Sure, there will be compromise on both sides, but one side can’t be out to destroy the other side, or either a deal will not be struck, or it will end up badly for each party in the long run. 

I used to manage a lot of new investment opportunities for a guy who ran a large family office. This guy missed out on so many good deals because he was so intent on kicking the crap out of the other party. I think he had been a bullied nerd when he was young, and he viewed every business transaction as a chance to bully the other party. He would walk away proudly from a deal that would offer a 25% return, because he couldn’t get the other side to give him a 27% return. I finally quit working with him because I learned he really didn’t want good investments; he wanted unreasonably good investments that no one on the other side would give him. And he wanted the other side to hurt.

My advice: work on negotiating a deal that will put a smile on your own face and the face of the other party. Leave money on the table. Karma says it will come back to you tenfold.

GROW and SELL Advisors, wholly-owned by Traversi & Co., LLC, is a premier sell-side M&A advisory firm – a boutique investment bank – serving the lower middle market.  Visit us here.

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