The Golden Rule

Having lulled you through the heading and the picture on this post let me tell you the modern world interpretation of the Golden Rule -->

The Man who has the Gold makes the Rules!! :-)

This my dear friends is the unfortunate truth by which individuals deal with one another or for that matter organisations or even countries. Why, at the very basic individual level, the boy bringing the bat and ball to the cricket game can fairly decide whether he was out LBW or Run Out - if others want the game to continue that is. Clean bowled or Catch he cannot do much about.

In the IT world we have the services firms and the OEMs who supply software licenses and the hardware. At the beginning of time when the OEMs are establishing themselves they are eager to build partnerships with IT firms so that their licenses and hardware gets sold through them. But once the brand is established and they become market leaders, the power equation changes and they start to dictate. The operative phrase then becomes Balance of Trade.

"Are you using our products in house?" A euphemism for this could be "Are you a best run company?" implying that using our product/s automatically makes you a best run company. The hapless IT services firm then has to juggle with several of these OEMs as it strives to be the best run company as each one sees them as. Now to then artfully navigate this minefield and ensure that we make progress without bringing in the balance of trade discussion in, is the trick, business leaders have to learn.

We see this between countries isn't it? Developed vs Developing vs Underdeveloped. If a country needs funds or protection from another then the Golden Rule kicks in and the receiver needs to make adjustments and compromises. Nothing new, its an age old phenomenon. We just wish to assume that there is fair play happening.

Why, even in cricket as long as India was just another nation, the balance of power was elsewhere but once television rights and consumerism set in, the Golden Rule started to kick in favor of India given its huge fan following base.

So friends, expecting fair play and only merit based discussions and decisions at many times may be unrealistic. The Golden Rule is at work and the dealings and therefore the decisions will likely be governed by that rule.