As managers, we make decisions every day. We even have a mental manual (some of us a written one) of what counts as a right or wrong decision. A person who respects themselves, and who respects themselves as a professional, should have honour and keep their word, as well as being loyal and faithful to their own people. In fact, a company’s two greatest assets are its customers and its employees. But can there be a situation in which, whatever we do, we will be making a mistake? The answer is yes. In fact, most managers would not know how to answer this question, because whatever answer they give, they will probably be wrong.
We are talking about a real case that must have come up many times in the business world, and which today is a question that would perfectly reveal the abilities of the person sitting in front of us. It is not a trick question.
A real-life case
“You have a client who trusted you from the very beginning. This client has been with you for more than 10 or 20 years and has been loyal to you all along. There was a time when it was your most important client by revenue, but it stopped growing and has stagnated at 600,000 euros in billing. There was a time when you depended on it; today it is the one that depends on you.
Through the door walks another, bigger client that wants to work with you, on the condition of having exclusivity for your product in its area. In other words, this client would bring in five times as much (about 3 million euros), but on the condition that you stop supplying (show the door to) the client who has been with you all your life and stood by you at every moment.”
The dilemma
We have the chance to bill five times as much if this client comes on board, but to do so we have to abandon a client (and probably a friend) who has been with us for our entire professional life.
Business is just business, and friendship and feelings have to be set aside. Of course, our loyalty, our honour and our word would be dragged through the mud if we abandoned someone for more money, even though in this case the money could give us a major boost in our industry.
A damn tough situation. So what would be the right thing to do, and why would you make that decision? Don’t be afraid of getting it wrong because, as I said at the beginning, any decision is probably wrong if you change the angle. This is business, and these are the hard decisions that sometimes have to be faced.
Update: the right answer to this dilemma
Further reading
- When a leader believes they deserve what they haven’t yet earned
- 10 wise business lessons from the best executive of the 20th century
Featured image: Fork in the road by Eileen Henderson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
