THE EASIEST WAY TO WIN... IS BY CHEATING

A leader I once worked for used to say: winning isn’t everything — it’s the only thing.

In private, we debated that philosophy more than once. Long conversations, always pleasant, sometimes confronting. In the end, quietly, he came around. But we never spoke of it publicly.

The real question buried inside that famous phrase has nothing to do with winning at all. It has everything to do with this: what are we willing to compromise in pursuit of success? How will we behave? Will we fight the good fight?

THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH ABOUT CHEATING

The main reason people cheat, lie and break the rules is brutally simple. It works. At least in the short term.

Not always. Not forever. But often enough, and for long enough, that the incentive rewards the behaviour. The cheater gets ahead. The rule-follower watches on, confused and sometimes resentful. We comfort ourselves that wrongdoers eventually get caught, that karma corrects, that guilt catches up with people in the end. Sometimes it does. But of…