Sweet Old Bob

I met with a very senior executive with one of our premiere and very important business partners the other day. This guy was pontificating on the direction that he thought our industry would take and where our respective companies should put their emphasis in order to get in on the action. Coincidentally I too had recognized the opportunity that he was railing about as being an excellent one, and was in fact actively researching and analyzing it. In fact I had assigned my top “right hand” man of eleven years to research it and he had just concluded a 30 day effort and accumulated some fifty pages of competitive analysis data. I called him into my office to give a high level briefing to my executive friend and me of his findings.

During the course of the conversation this executive friend of mine made known to me that he had found an ideal company to acquire and that if he could get the higher ups in his company to agree to acquire it, he felt it would provide an excellent entry vehicle into this market. The company was purportedly the “best of breed” and was ripe for acquisition due to being in dire need of funding. He did say that he was having a very tough time convincing any of his bosses to seriously consider this acquisition.

I then asked him for the name of the company and he told me he was sorry, but that he could not tell me. “Huh” I exclaimed, “I just openly shared with you the results of my month long research and you will not even give me the name of this company?” He explained that he would go back to his boss one more time and if he was unsuccessful this time in convincing them to buy this company, he would give me the name. He promised that he would tell me within two weeks one way or the other. “Two weeks!’ I exclaimed, “I want the name now! What kind of partner are you?”

Now I had no intentions of trying to acquire the company out from under his company. In the first place I did not have that kind of investment capital and had no desire to borrow money to do so, and second I have far too much integrity to do so such a thing to a valued partner under any circumstance; however this is not to say that I did not want to know the name of the entity. I was curious and call it being spoiled on my part or whatever, but I wanted the name and I wanted it right then and not in two weeks.

Hmmm How to obtain it? I privately called my right hand man into my office and told him to take the executive to dinner later that night and buy him a big meal and during the course of the conversation at the perfect time find a way to extract the name. The next morning my man told me that he had done as I asked, but had failed, and that the guy was too smart for him and had even insisted on paying for the meal himself in order to avoid having me use it against him for further leverage in squeezing the name from him. He had anticipated that I would pull something like that and he was not going to fall for it. Hmmm This was going to be tougher than I thought, I had not anticipated that he would be that smart; (I suppose looks are deceiving after all, as he surely did not look very smart).

I thought about it for a day and after obtaining the name of a premier company that my right hand man thought might possibly be the one that he was interested in, I sent him a brief e-mail stating that I had tendered an offer for this company today and was interested in his thoughts about it. A couple of hours later, (after he had gone to a great deal of trouble to check with numerous people throughout his organization to obtain his information), he sent me a detailed high level analysis of the company including its strong and weak points. He went on to say that although this company was indeed a strong candidate and in his opinion was a good buy for our company, he actually preferred another company, and then low and behold he gave up the name! Ahhhh. Sweet success!

I wrote him back and thanked him and told him that my previous e-mail was just a joke and all in good fun and I really was just interested in obtaining the name that he was so adamant that he would not share with me for two weeks. I then thanked him for giving it up. (Checkmate!) Ha Ha Ha

In less than a minute he called me up fuming and cursing me and muttering nasty oaths and five minutes into the conversation was in dire need of having his mouth washed out with soap. After he spewed for a good fifteen minutes, he did admit that, although diabolical, it was a particularly clever plot on my part and we had a good laugh about it.

A few days later he called me late Friday afternoon about another project. We talked for a while and he asked me what I was going to be doing over the weekend. I told him that I had not previously shared it with him, but I was undergoing chemo therapy for skin cancer and I had been having a really rough time with it and in fact had been throwing up all morning and was really weak. I told him that I felt really lousy and thought I would just hang out. He was not aware that I had been undergoing this treatment and his demeanor got very serious and he wished me all the best. This is quite a contrast in this guy’s demeanor as he is usually full of light hearted banter and insulting in every way. I told him that it was not really that big of a deal and it was more preventive maintenance than life-threatening and that I would be fine.

Apparently that was not good enough, because now he sounded as if he was on the verge of tears or something. I allowed him to go on for several minutes in which he related what a great friend I was and how much he enjoyed being in my company etc. (For crying out loud now this was beginning to become more nauseous than the chemo treatment – I was beginning to think I was attending my own funeral). When he finally stopped, I calmly remarked, “You don’t really believe all of that nonsensical stuff I just told you about me having chemo therapy and all do you?”

Talk about going ballistic, I thought he was going to jump through the phone. I have never heard so much cursing. He called me a SOB and it was not intended as an acronym for “Sweet Old Bob” either. I laughed until I literally cried and my side was killing me as he raged on for what seemed like a half of an hour. Finally he started slowing down and I told him that I was just kidding and that indeed I was taking chemo therapy as I had originally told him and to “cool his jets already”. He seemed relieved when he found out I was actually on chemo therapy Huh?

I suppose the lesson that I want to give with this funny story is that my friend is now wary of me. He does not know what to expect from me next, and one thing that is certain is that he hardly believes anything that I tell him, even when I am telling him the truth.

It is not funny when one considers how lying accomplishes that mission. You can lie one time and then tell the truth a hundred times, but folks will always wonder if you are telling the truth “this” time around. In all seriousness I value my word as one of my most prized possessions. Recently I lost a business account worth potentially millions of dollars because I would not break my word and provide them with inside information about some contract negotiations. In my mind it is without question worth far more to me to know that I kept my word, than the millions of dollars in business.

Jousting around with a friend is all in good fun; however “when it really matters” we must always be truthful and that means 100% of the time and not 99.9%. I will not trust or even tolerate being around someone who is a liar, even after just one time. That may sound harsh to you, but look below and ask yourself what “abomination” means to you. For according to God’s Holy Scripture, an “abomination” is exactly what God considers a liar to be.

Proverbs 12:22
Lying lips are an abomination
to the Lord,
But those who deal truthfully
are His delight.