A Debt Of Honor Is Not Settled By Playing Games

We once made a million-dollar mistake.

A consultant sent a vague request to raise cash for a client, which our office manager swept into the wrong email folder. The consultant didn’t follow up until after a mini-market meltdown a couple of days later. The delay meant selling more stock than we would have had to earlier. (Had the market gone up instead, no problem.) 

Our lawyer felt we could legit argue our way out of paying. 

We had contractual discretion to wait until we did to sell some positions. The consultant didn’t follow the standard confirmation, communication, and follow-up protocols in our industry. They had a role in creating the mess. 

I disagreed.

It may not have been 100% our fault, but I felt it was our responsibility. Our insurance company agreed to pay our claim, and we contributed our deductible and then some. The consultant asked us to push back on the insurance company, so we got a bit more. 

Then they tried to shake us down for another six figures on top of our best and final settlement offer. But we’d done the math, and our conscience was clear. We owed nothing more. We weren’t holding back as a warped negotiating tactic.

That’s not how debts of honor work. 

The consultant dropped the extortion attempt as soon as I offered to explain our math and the timeline of events to the client. How naive I was! The client had no idea how sloppy the consultant had been too.

Photo credit: Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash