Business is never just business
It sometimes happens in the professional world that we find ourselves in moral or ethical conundrums. It won’t necessarily come out in the office or in the marketing or in the quality of the work that is done. Sometimes it happens in the coffee room, or when you’re out to lunch with a client.
What do you do when, say, a potential client is racist? In the name of what is right and good, do you challenge their bigotry, call them out on their meanness, and refuse to do business with them? Or in the name of enterprise, do you sweep it under the rug and let them hold their private beliefs.
It’s true: if every business transaction and partnership came with a list of provisos about what our personal beliefs can or should be, it would be very difficult to get much of anything done. In general, what a client or coworker believes is their own business, and doesn’t effect the quality of the work.
But sometimes a line must be drawn in the sand. If you cannot work with him/her because of, say, their blatant racism, and no manner of dialogue seems to amend the situation, it may be time to call it quits.
It takes careful discernment to know when someone’s prejudices and meanness are so offensive or contrary to what you believe that you simply cannot work with them. But you have options. You can keep the business relationship as formal as possible, for example. Or limit your contact with this person. Or perhaps not associate with them too closely, and avoid binding contracts you might later regret.
In the end, however, you have to follow your heart and do what you believe is right. And that’s because business is never “just” business.
Tyler Blanski & Sherri Rosen, Sherri Rosen Publicity, NYC
Tags: authors, book publicity nyc, publicist nyc, publicity nyc, racism, sherri rosen publicity nyc
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2011 at 8:23 am and is filed under Clients, Friends and Colleagues, Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
