The Hindu Business Line : Lest you get gutsy on the `first'

A COUPLE of weeks ago we came to know about the candid disclosure Ratan made about "finding his love" in the US. For him, "the inevitable did not happen, and so that ended there," but for many corporate chiefs, the matter has not ended there. So, the inevitable has been happening in my mailbox, with honchos vying with one another in the "me first" game; and they have been thinking aloud about their ideas. Here's a sampler.

Can I talk about my first puppy?

I know you would invent a good story about a lovable Dalmatian. Somebody else may opt to talk about his first kitten, yet another, about the first Barbie doll. Nobody wants to hear such stuff. Remember, puppy talk is different from talking about puppy love.

When I was six, I gave my lunch to a poor student!

No, don't play this line for the media. It's good you did some sacrifice, but nobody expects to remember such small acts of generosity over these many decades as you have been doing.

I want to tell CNN about my first day as CEO. Right?

Spare them from any boring account of how everybody felicitated you and the expensive paintings you chose for decorating your room; these are just as drab as dog-bites-man stuff.

Tell them, instead, about bold policy decisions that rolled out of your table in the first few hours, such as sacking 2,000 employees and shutting down whole plants.

My first job was as accountant. Wouldn't that be interesting?

Nope, that's too bland to inspire, unless you saw firsthand a big scam that broke out then. It would be dramatic to narrate if you'd started off as a drain inspector, or a bus driver, because we can then connect other pieces of your biography to what you could have plausibly thought of in the first place in the first job.

You know, my first shoplifting experience was thrilling!

Oh, I know, you were lucky enough then not to get thrashed or be put in jail. But, you say that now, your company's scrip would get a real thrashing. And henceforth, people would see you only as a shoplifter who was not caught. Is that thrilling or chilling?

Let me share with everybody my first tax plan. It was so ingenious.

Cease and desist. The line between tax planning and tax evasion is thin. Again, what one may think as an out-of-the-box scheme may well be part of tax law as a permissible one, in which case your presumed smartness would lose sheen.

Isn't truth important, however unpleasant?

Truth is the greatest virtue, says Thiruvalluvar. However, there is some practical advice he would offer, such as that even falsehood has the nature of truth if it confers a benefit that is free from fault.

Also, that truth is the speaking of such words as are free from the least degree of evil to others.

By these yardsticks, you may keep to yourself the stories of the first bribe you paid, the first audit report you signed without checking the books, the first profit you made with insider tips, the first train journey when you didn't buy a ticket, and the first time you pirated software. Unless you want your investors to lose out. To wrap, here's a quote of Abraham Lincoln: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

That's a first principle to remember when you're thirsting to answer the `first' questions from the media, and getting gutsy.

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in