I’ve just spent the last few days fulfilling my obligation to serve as a juror in the New York County Criminal Court. While most of people in my jury pool just wanted to do their duty with the least disruption of their normal lives, there were two other large groups. One desperately wanted to be chosen to serve on a jury, and the other desperately wanted not to be. Even though their goals were opposite, members of both groups exhibited remarkably similar behavior. They spent the entire time trying to figure out what the judge, prosecutor and defense attorneys wanted in a juror. They did this so that when it was their turn to be questioned, they would be prepared with all the right answers. Not answers they really believed, but ones they thought would either get them on the jury or get them dismissed outright.
What fascinated me was how good the judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys were at seeing through the roles that these folks were playing. The more questions the prospective jurors were asked, the harder it was for them to maintain an assumed role and, as a result, many of them failed to achieve their objective.
This dynamic is so similar to what goes on in business when companies are seeking to enter into partnerships of all kinds — from raising capital, to hiring employees, to forging a strategic alliance. Time and again, I’ve seen company management lie (or stretch the truth) by pretending that they cared little (or greatly) about a business deal point, when in fact the opposite was true. Or that they had expertise in an area that they didn’t (at least not yet.) Their intentions were good — they wanted to close a deal that they believed would be good for their company. And I can’t tell you how often I’ve been asked by entrepreneurs how they should answer certain questions from venture capitalists. The thing is, they weren’t really asking me for help in framing an honest answer. What they wanted to know was what the venture capitalist wanted to hear so they’d invest in the company.
The problem, of course, is that companies (and their senior management teams) can’t pretend for long to be what they’re not, any more than my fellow prospective jurors could. Eventually, management will be asked enough questions and enough due diligence will be performed to expose the truth, and the deal won’t happen. The sad part is it might fall apart largely because of the management team’s lack of transparency and their resulting loss of credibility. Or, worse, the company will enter into the deal and then be unable to fulfill on their obligations or find themselves in trouble because that business deal point they said didn’t matter really did.
The moral of the story is no matter where you are or what you’re doing , you can’t be who you’re not.