Is Honesty Bad For Business?

Posted by Edwin on Jun 5, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

Telling the bare truth may not be that great for the bottom line. Have you ever been truly honest? Can you say that you’ve never said yes when you’ve meant no. Or said that you’d call someone after a date without intending to, or give someone else a wrong phone number because you didn’t like them? Or have you told someone they look nice when really they don’t? What about your product? No product is perfect. Have you hidden an imperfection with the intention to sell? Or are you completely and entirely 100% honest about everything?

I recently had a go at some people on two separate Blogs. Both authors felt they’d been done wrong by large companies. One an airline, the other an ISP. They were angry enough to write articles about the unfair events, but they didn’t name the companies. They self-censored. If I were being paid to host an ad for Telstra on this website, and I had a run in with Telstra – say somthing to do with the way they service my landline – I might think twice about reporting the story. Or if I wasn’t sure about the facts of my story, I might . . . self-censor. Some things are better left unsaid. Some things are good for business.

But what this attitude breeds is a world in which people live their lives within the hum of fear. We don”t speak our minds because we fear the consequences. We don’t want to rattle the boat in case we’re taken to court. At the very least, we could lose money in a lawsuit.

I had a go at Telstra the other week. Weirdly, I’ve since won a holiday by converting my Telstra paper bill to an online version. I won the prize moments after moving to a differnt service provider. And now I have to sign a contract. This is the winners contract (77Kb PDF). Perhaps I should retract my statements.