An Insightful Comment On Cheating
by Miki SaxonI received an email yesterday morning from the CEO of a well-known growth company. He wrote regarding yesterday’s post about cheating.
I asked why he wrote instead of leaving it as a comment.
He replied, I would rather avoid having it associated with me. If you want to write a post and have anonymous attribution, that’s fine.
It’s an important observation and one that is especially applicable now. I’m sharing it with no additional comments from me.
Anything I tried to add would be superfluous and detract from its importance.
When there are strong incentives to cheat and large negative consequences if one avoids cheating (since everyone is doing it), what should be the inducement for not cheating?
Where cheating is rewarded, truth and uprightness has potentially large negative consequences.
An organization or society built on fraud, trickery and deceit will eventually descend into chaos and anarchy.
Without leadership among both common people and the privileged, this is inexorable destiny.
Whenever there is a trend toward something, there are significant costs associated with changing the trajectory.
Who can or should be willing to bear these costs?
Image credit: Abi Skipp
