Have we become so impressed by a clever shortcut that we have stopped asking who pays for it?
I recently came across an article about questionable life hacks, the sort of collection that promises clever ways to save time, money, or effort. I enjoy a resourceful idea as much as anyone, but as I read through the examples, I found myself becoming uncomfortable with what was being presented as ingenuity.
One example praised someone for abusing a restaurant’s refill policy, while another celebrated obtaining more expensive food for the price of oats. The article included a disclaimer saying it did not condone most of the suggestions, yet the commentary still expressed admiration for the creativity and nerve involved.
That combination gave me pause. We were being invited to disapprove of the behaviour while admiring the person who got away with it. Somewhere in that exchange, the question of whether the conduct was fair seemed to have become less important than whether it worked.
I do not want to draw sweeping conclusions about society from a collection of internet stories. However, I think these examples give us a useful starting point for a conversation about how we judge our own choices, particularly when there is something to be gained.
When we decide whether something is acceptable, how much attention do we give to the people affected by our choice?
The explanations we give ourselves
If we were discussing this around a board table, I suspect most of us would agree quite readily on the importance of honesty, fairness, and consideration for others. The more interesting conversation would begin when we moved from those principles to situations in which applying them might cost us something.
That is often where the explanations appear. We tell ourselves that the business can afford the loss, that everyone does it, that the amount is insignificant, or that nobody is really being hurt. Each explanation allows us to keep thinking of ourselves as fair-minded people while making an exception that happens to work in our favour.
Of course, there are legitimate ways to save money, negotiate better terms, and challenge an unfair practice. I would encourage anyone to pursue those opportunities. But when saving money depends on misleading someone or taking something without permission, we need to examine more than the size of the benefit or the likelihood of being caught.
A large business may barely notice a small loss, but that does not establish our right to impose it. The question I would put to the table is whether our explanation demonstrates that the choice is fair or simply makes us more comfortable with a choice we already want to make.
That can be an uncomfortable distinction, especially when we recognize ourselves in it.
Our rights matter. So do the rights of others.
I place a great deal of importance on individual rights. Each of us deserves dignity, freedom, personal safety, and the opportunity to make choices about our own life. We should be able to establish boundaries, disagree with others, and challenge treatment that is unfair.
At the same time, those rights exist within relationships. We live and work alongside people who have their own needs, interests, and expectations and who deserve the same consideration we expect for ourselves. My desire for convenience must take account of your safety, just as my wish to save money must take account of someone else’s right to be paid fairly.
We work through these competing interests every day, usually without giving them much thought. Within a family, we adjust our plans because someone needs help. In a workplace, we honour a commitment even when another priority makes it inconvenient. In a neighbourhood, we accept reasonable limits on what we do because other people share the space.
These ordinary choices help make life together possible. They also remind us that responsibility to others does not require us to surrender our rights or accept injustice. We can challenge something that is wrong while still considering how our actions affect people around us.
The balance becomes difficult when our own preference begins to feel like an entitlement, and everyone else’s needs become an obstacle to getting what we want.
When inconvenience becomes a personal offense
An everyday traffic incident offers a familiar example. Someone merges ahead of us, perhaps because they have misjudged the distance or perhaps because they are being inconsiderate. We feel irritated, which is understandable enough, but we may then begin to interpret the incident as something more personal.
We tell ourselves that the other driver has disrespected us, taken our space, or decided that their time matters more than ours. Once we have framed the incident that way, it becomes easier to justify a response intended to teach them a lesson. A brief inconvenience can turn into a confrontation that puts several people at risk.
I am not suggesting that every incident of road rage has the same cause. What interests me is the moment when feeling wronged becomes permission to retaliate, because that is a moment worth recognizing in many areas of our lives.
We all carry pressures that others cannot see. Financial concerns, exhaustion, uncertainty, and personal difficulties can leave us with less patience than we would normally have. Understanding those pressures is important, both in ourselves and in others, but we still have to accept responsibility for how we respond.
The person who has just entered our lane cannot reasonably be held responsible for everything that was weighing on us before they arrived. Yet in the heat of the moment, we can behave as though they should answer for all of it.
Who pays for my advantage?
When I am trying to understand the ethics of a choice, I find it helpful to ask where the cost goes.
If I save myself some effort, does someone else have to do more work? If I avoid paying, who absorbs the loss? If I insist on having my way, whose needs are being pushed out of the conversation?
Sometimes the answer is obvious, but often the consequences are spread across several people or removed from our immediate view. The person affected might be a family member, an employee, another customer, or someone we will never meet. They may have no opportunity to object, which makes it especially important that we consider their interests ourselves.
We depend on this consideration from others. We expect people to honour agreements, respect shared spaces, tell us the truth, and take reasonable care for our safety. Much of daily life would become difficult if we had to verify every promise or protect ourselves against every possible attempt to take advantage of us.
It seems reasonable, then, to ask whether we are willing to uphold the same standards when doing so costs us money, time, or convenience. Our responsibilities extend through our families and workplaces into our communities, our country, and the wider world. We cannot anticipate every consequence of every decision, but we can make an effort to look beyond the immediate benefit to ourselves.
A community becomes harder to sustain when we expect everyone else to uphold its standards while reserving exceptions for our own circumstances.
What are we teaching people to admire?
There is another aspect of the life hacks article that I think deserves attention: the effect of applauding someone for getting away with something. Humour can help us recognize an ethical problem, but it can also make the problem easier to dismiss, particularly when the cleverness of the scheme becomes the main attraction.
If our discussion centres on whether the person was caught, we may never get around to whether the action was fair. We end up treating the avoidance of consequences as the measure of success, and that sends a message to the people watching.
Children notice what adults admire and excuse. Colleagues notice when someone benefits from bending the rules. Employees notice when a leader’s stated principles become negotiable because there is a desirable result within reach.
As leaders, we need to pay attention to what those observations teach. We may speak sincerely about honesty and respect, but people also learn from the decisions we reward and the exceptions we allow. When there is a gap between the two, our behaviour gives them a practical guide to what is acceptable.
That is a useful reason to examine our own reactions. When we call something clever, are we admiring resourcefulness, or are we overlooking the cost to someone else because the outcome appeals to us?
A Final Thought
It would be easy to finish this conversation with a list of things other people should change. I think we would get further by beginning with ourselves, because all of us are capable of finding a persuasive explanation for a choice that serves our interests.
We might ask when we have expected consideration that we were unwilling to extend, or when we have dismissed a consequence because the person carrying it was out of sight. We might also reflect on whether we have excused behaviour in ourselves that we would readily criticize in someone else.
The purpose is to become more honest about how we make decisions. Our individual dignity matters, and so does our contribution to the families, organizations, and communities that make our lives possible. Ethical judgment asks us to keep both in view, particularly when our immediate interests make that difficult.
Where have you accepted an advantage for yourself that you would consider unfair if someone else took it at your expense?
If you would value that kind of conversation as part of your leadership, a Vistage peer advisory group may be worth exploring. You can learn more here or arrange a complimentary 30-minute virtual coffee with me to discuss the decisions you are working through and the support a peer group could provide.
In the follow-up article, I will explore what we can do about this, beginning with our own decisions and the example we set as leaders. I will also look at how professional ethical obligations can guide us, and how conversations with trusted peers can help us examine reasoning that seems convincing when we are considering it alone.
