A few days ago, talking about how people always get what they deserve, my father said, "Truth and oil will out".
The phrase resounded with me. It sounded very poetic and accurate...and faintly familiar though later I could not find it even on Google. I interpreted the oil part of the analogy as "If you crush oilseeds long enough, the oil will drip out and, yes, it IS hard work".
But as I write this, it strikes me that the oil this refers to may be petroleum, since my father is a petroleum geologist. Perhaps this is an oilman's phrase.
Be that as it may, coming back to the underlying theme - truth is very prone to coming out.
So when you are a company, it is sometimes easier to actually change your products or services or operations to conform to a truth that you can live with rather than convince everyone around you about a non-existent truth. In the long run truth will out. (Although it is, unhappily, true that in the long run we are also all dead.)
I have realized over time that established companies can more easily speak the truth, even if they choose not to. It is easier for an established company to say that it doesn't do something well but it will fix that or that a product has defects but, yes, it will fix them. There is always a cushion - of cash, of goodwill, and so on - that an established company has. If there is a failure, it is easier for an established company to say "mea culpa" and make the right noises and get away with it.
It is far more difficult to speak the truth when you are a small company angling for new business, or an aspiring company shooting for the stars. Speaking the truth is mostly about admitting weakness, and any sign of weakness may become a deal-breaker if you are not fully established.
I have lived this dilemma some years ago at our software product company, SupplyChainge. Each time a customer would ask, "Does your software do xyz?" I would honestly answer "No, but it could in 2 weeks!" This was in the US and mostly the customer was unimpressed. Finally, a very senior and experienced sales colleague gave me this tongue-in-cheek advice, "If you are 100% confident that you can have that feature up and running within six months - the very minimum time it will take for the customer to buy your product - then in this software industry at least you are not lying if you say you already have that feature!"
Anecdotally, this tradition dates back at least to Bill Gates and MSDOS. I later learnt through observation that many software product customers *expect* it and if you are being very factual what you say gets discounted anyway.
(In balance, I must also say that I also have some friends who think that all software product salespeople are cheap liars.)
Incidentally, most people with international experience will agree that it is most difficult to admit weakness in US and UK sales situations. In Europe, the Nordics are perhaps more forgiving than, say, Germany, although I am not so sure about this. And Asia is even more forgiving but if and only if you belong to some inner circle.
Some of the things I said today during a sales meeting in Copenhagen would have completely destroyed a typical meeting in the US. It took me several years to realize that disarming honesty doesn't really disarm in typical US sales situations. Gandhiji, with his mixed and changing messages and periods of self-doubt, would have been labeled a crank. Similarly, I could not have said these things had Nagarro not been more or less an established company by now.
Changing contexts, in non-business life too, I find it simpler to tell the truth as much as possible. If the truth cannot be told for any overriding reason (e.g. adhering to the dictum that "satyam bruyaat, priyam bruyaat, maa bruyaat satyam apriyam") it is best to tell a story that is as close to the truth as possible. The great thing about a true story is that it HAPPENED, so every bit of evidence taken in or out of context from what actually happened, every sampling of the multitudinous ripples of effects that the event sent out, will all be completely CONSISTENT. No matter how odd any fact may seem, if the WHOLE truth surrounding the fact is considered its various aspects will be completely consistent, by definition.
I love this simple quality of truth. "Truth and oil will out". I likes.
The phrase resounded with me. It sounded very poetic and accurate...and faintly familiar though later I could not find it even on Google. I interpreted the oil part of the analogy as "If you crush oilseeds long enough, the oil will drip out and, yes, it IS hard work".
But as I write this, it strikes me that the oil this refers to may be petroleum, since my father is a petroleum geologist. Perhaps this is an oilman's phrase.
Be that as it may, coming back to the underlying theme - truth is very prone to coming out.
So when you are a company, it is sometimes easier to actually change your products or services or operations to conform to a truth that you can live with rather than convince everyone around you about a non-existent truth. In the long run truth will out. (Although it is, unhappily, true that in the long run we are also all dead.)
I have realized over time that established companies can more easily speak the truth, even if they choose not to. It is easier for an established company to say that it doesn't do something well but it will fix that or that a product has defects but, yes, it will fix them. There is always a cushion - of cash, of goodwill, and so on - that an established company has. If there is a failure, it is easier for an established company to say "mea culpa" and make the right noises and get away with it.
It is far more difficult to speak the truth when you are a small company angling for new business, or an aspiring company shooting for the stars. Speaking the truth is mostly about admitting weakness, and any sign of weakness may become a deal-breaker if you are not fully established.
I have lived this dilemma some years ago at our software product company, SupplyChainge. Each time a customer would ask, "Does your software do xyz?" I would honestly answer "No, but it could in 2 weeks!" This was in the US and mostly the customer was unimpressed. Finally, a very senior and experienced sales colleague gave me this tongue-in-cheek advice, "If you are 100% confident that you can have that feature up and running within six months - the very minimum time it will take for the customer to buy your product - then in this software industry at least you are not lying if you say you already have that feature!"
Anecdotally, this tradition dates back at least to Bill Gates and MSDOS. I later learnt through observation that many software product customers *expect* it and if you are being very factual what you say gets discounted anyway.
(In balance, I must also say that I also have some friends who think that all software product salespeople are cheap liars.)
Incidentally, most people with international experience will agree that it is most difficult to admit weakness in US and UK sales situations. In Europe, the Nordics are perhaps more forgiving than, say, Germany, although I am not so sure about this. And Asia is even more forgiving but if and only if you belong to some inner circle.
Some of the things I said today during a sales meeting in Copenhagen would have completely destroyed a typical meeting in the US. It took me several years to realize that disarming honesty doesn't really disarm in typical US sales situations. Gandhiji, with his mixed and changing messages and periods of self-doubt, would have been labeled a crank. Similarly, I could not have said these things had Nagarro not been more or less an established company by now.
Changing contexts, in non-business life too, I find it simpler to tell the truth as much as possible. If the truth cannot be told for any overriding reason (e.g. adhering to the dictum that "satyam bruyaat, priyam bruyaat, maa bruyaat satyam apriyam") it is best to tell a story that is as close to the truth as possible. The great thing about a true story is that it HAPPENED, so every bit of evidence taken in or out of context from what actually happened, every sampling of the multitudinous ripples of effects that the event sent out, will all be completely CONSISTENT. No matter how odd any fact may seem, if the WHOLE truth surrounding the fact is considered its various aspects will be completely consistent, by definition.
I love this simple quality of truth. "Truth and oil will out". I likes.
4 comments:
I like the last part of the movie "AI" where the aliens say "The fabric of space time is such that we can reconstruct reality only for once for 24 hours and then it just melts away".
Truth, truly, is for once, and cannot be artificially reconstructed!
Respected Sir,
The truth is painful and that's unfortunate. Moreover, our hard earned reputation depends upon the conduct of a single moment. Thus, it is better to speak out what is real and we may change our products or operations to meet the expectations of people.
Thanks for the beautiful thoughts on “Truth and oil will leak out”. These insights will definitely help me in professional and non-professional life.
Regards,
Richa Rai
Fall 2008 batch
Sir,
I comply with your thoughts - the power of truth is unchallengeable. I thank you to share this simple, known but most overlooked fact. Thank you sir. Sir, you have used - "mea culpa" in one of the paragraph, what does that mean.
Regards,
Robin Singh Vasu
(Fall 2009)
http://www.google.co.in/search?q=mea+culpa
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