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Right versus Right
T
HIS CHAPTER INTRODUCES THREE MANAGERS
and the right-
versus-right conflicts they faced. Each is drawn from actual
experience. Taken together, they illustrate the basic types
of right-versus-right dilemma. The three cases also reveal the basic
elements of the problem Rebecca Dennet confronted, and which
other managers often must resolve.
Although the three cases differ in important ways, they all illus-
trate a dramatic statement made by Oliver Wendell Holmes, one
of the most distinguished American Supreme Court justices. Holmes
wrote, ‘‘I do not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complex-
ity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side
of complexity.’’
All three of the managers described here would have understood
what Holmes was saying. All urgently needed practical answers to
difficult problems. All would have preferred simple answers, such
as ‘‘Do the right thing.’’ But Barnard’s warning about the moral
hazards of management life applied in all three cases, and each
manager faced the prospect of dirty hands.
9
10 D
EFINING
M
OMENTS
C
RISES OF
M
ORAL
I
DENTITY
The first case involves a young man, Steve Lewis, who had just
completed his first year of work at a prestigious New York investment
bank. Lewis was an analyst, which meant that he spent his days and
many of his nights dissecting detailed financial data. The rest of his
life he described as ‘‘indoor camping.’’ The refrigerator in his apart-
ment was usually empty, he had hung nothing on the walls, and
his living room furnishings consisted mainly of unpacked boxes.
Nevertheless, Lewis told his friends, with whom he stayed in touch
via email messages sent from the office, that he had the best job in
the world.
Early one Tuesday morning, Lewis found a message on his desk
asking whether he could fly to St. Louis in two days to help with
a presentation to an important prospective client. The message came
as a surprise to him. Lewis’s firm had a clear policy against including
analysts in presentations or client meetings, because they lack both
experience and expertise. Lewis, in fact, knew little about the subject
of the St. Louis meeting, a specialized area of municipal finance. He
was especially surprised that he had been selected over several more
senior people in the public finance group.
Lewis immediately walked down the hall and into the office of
Andrew Webster, a friend and partner at the firm. He showed Web-
ster the note and asked, ‘‘Andy, what’s the deal here? Did you know
I’ve been asked to go to the orals? Are you behind this?’’
Webster interrupted him. ‘‘Let me tell you what’s happening, my
friend. Look at you and me. What similarities are there? Let me tell
you that the new state treasurer of Missouri is also black.’’ Webster
continued, ‘‘Listen, Steve, I hate for you to be introduced to this
side of the business so soon. The state treasurer wants to see at least
one black professional, or the firm has no chance of being named
a manager for this deal. I’m used to these situations, but if you feel
uncomfortable with it, maybe you don’t have to go. I could try to
change my schedule and go instead of you.’’
Lewis quickly replied, ‘‘No, no. Don’t do that. Let me just think
it over. I’ll get back to you.’’ When Webster asked what the issue
was, Lewis said he wasn’t sure there was one. He thanked Webster
and headed back to his desk.
Right versus Right 11
Lewis spent several minutes answering his email, got a cup of
coffee, made a list of things to do during the day, and finally realized
that he was avoiding a decision on the St. Louis trip. He understood
the issue; this was just one of countless occasions when he had tried
to figure out whether he was being included in or excluded from
something because of his race. What Lewis didn’t understand was
what to do. So he took a sheet of paper, drew a line down the
middle, and began listing pros and cons.
The pros came quickly. ‘‘Opportunity’’ was the first thing Lewis
wrote. At the end of his first week on the job, a fourth-year associate
had told him, ‘‘The company is interested in making money. Either
you’re on the team producing, or you’re not. That’s it.’’ By picking
up the phone and saying yes to the trip, Lewis would show he was
a team player.
Opportunity also meant something else to Lewis. Both his parents
had been strong supporters of civil rights, and his mother was a
well-known local activist in Seattle. During the early 1970s, she had
spent two years suing her employer for discriminatory promotion
practices. The lawsuit had been bitter and costly, but she had won.
Lewis wondered if the St. Louis trip wasn’t an opportunity to walk
through the door his mother had helped pry open.
Lewis also wrote ‘‘Andy’’ on the list of pros. This was the heading
for another set of considerations. Although Andy had volunteered
to change his schedule, Lewis knew that he could make Andy’s life
a lot easier by going to St. Louis. Lewis had met Andy two years
earlier—he was part of the recruiting team that had visited Lewis’s
MBA program. Since then, Andy had given Lewis a lot of advice,
and Lewis liked the way he thought about things.
Lewis also realized that Andy was one of many people at the
firm who had helped him out during the past year. The firm had
treated him well, given him worthwhile assignments, and taught him
more about business than he thought anyone could learn in a year.
In addition, the firm paid him a salary that was much more than
either of his parents earned.
Lewis next wrote down ‘‘Capitalism,’’ thinking back on how his
MBA finance professor would have viewed the situation. By attending
the presentation, he would have said, Lewis would serve the interests
of the firm and its shareholders, as its senior managers defined those
12 D
EFINING
M
OMENTS
interests. This obligation ended at the point of illegal or unethical
behavior, but Lewis wasn’t being asked to do anything illegal. At-
tending the presentation did involve dissembling, because Lewis had
contributed nothing to the project, yet Andy seemed to indicate
that this sort of bluffing was within the rules of the game in the
industry. Moreover, by sending Lewis, the firm was trying to serve
the client’s interests, as the client defined them.
As Lewis reviewed the list of pros, he realized that most of his
MBA classmates would have called the problem a ‘‘no-brainer.’’ He
looked at the phone and thought for a moment about calling to say
yes to the trip, but decided to finish his analysis.
The first thing he wrote on the list of negatives was ‘‘Phony.’’
Lewis was raised to tell the truth; one of his mother’s favorite sayings
was ‘‘The truth first.’’ As a devout Christian, he believed that the
Golden Rule demanded honesty in his dealings with others. How,
then, could he go to St. Louis and pretend to be a member of the
deal team? This could be called ‘‘bluffing,’’ but that might be just a
nice word for lying.
The next heading—‘‘Malcolm’’—made Lewis more uneasy. He
was referring to Malcolm X—in particular, to a comment that an
acquaintance had apparently made when he heard that Lewis had
taken a job in investment banking. Lewis hadn’t actually heard the
comment (a friend passed it along), but it referred to Malcolm X’s
condemnation of ‘‘house slaves.’’ They worked comfortably indoors,
in return for telling their owners that they were fine and righteous
masters—unlike the ‘‘field slaves,’’ who had to toil under the hot sun,
but with more of their dignity intact.
Lewis hadn’t forgotten this comment. He believed in changing
the system from within, and he liked Andy’s idea that you had to play
the game before you could make the rules. But he also understood
discrimination. His parents had been its victims for much of their
lives. Although Lewis had for the most part been spared overt dis-
crimination, he vividly remembered being called a ‘‘watermelon
picker’’ by players on an opposing grade school baseball team.
Now his firm was singling him out solely for his skin color, not
for his talent. Lewis believed companies and clients should base
decisions on performance, competence, and character, not on games
of mix and match based on race, gender, and religion. Was including
Right versus Right 13
him as a token black really all that different from excluding him
because he was black? What if a customer indicated that he would
rather not have Jews or Asians working on a project? What if his
firm could close more deals by ornamenting its presentations with
pretty young women?
In the midst of these thoughts, Lewis looked at his watch; 45
minutes had passed. He had forgotten about his list of pros and
cons, he was 10 minutes late for a meeting, and he still hadn’t made
a decision. Lewis quickly pulled out the folders he needed for the
meeting and then slammed his desk drawer shut. Why was the St.
Louis trip such a big deal? Did he have to think about everything
as an African American? Couldn’t he simply do his job, like any
other young manager who wanted a successful career doing work
he liked?
Steve Lewis’s case illustrates the first basic type of right-versus-
right problem: an urgent, complicated, and sometimes painful issue
of personal integrity and moral identity. These are problems that
raise the questions Who am I? and What is my moral center?
Notice that, as Steve Lewis struggled with his problem, he defined
himself in several different ways. At different points in his thinking,
he viewed himself as Andy’s friend and prote
´
ge
´
, as an employee and
agent of his firm’s shareholders, as a loyal and ambitious young
investment banker, and as the son of parents whom he wanted to
emulate. At some points, he was thinking of himself simply as a
person; at others, as a Christian or an African American. None of
these was the right way or the only way for Lewis to think about
himself. But each entailed, in his mind, particular loyalties and obliga-
tions. Each answer to the question Who am I? sketched a particular
way for Lewis to make decisions and live his life. Unfortunately,
some answers suggested that Lewis should say yes to the trip; others
required the answer no.
Lewis found his decision so difficult because he sensed, quite
accurately, that it involved much more than the trip. It touched on
the matter of who he was, what he stood for, and what regrets he
would be willing to live with.
The challenge for Lewis, and for others facing questions like this,
is not summoning the courage to do the right thing. The challenge
is deciding which right thing to do. Lewis has to choose between right
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