Baby, you can drive my car if the timing works out

Is a conditional offer binding?

A regular reader we’re calling Lennon and his spouse we’re calling Paula had a 19-year-old car with 109,000 miles on it. After the car began to experience issues, they decided it was time to consider a new vehicle.

When their son learned they might be shopping around, he asked if he could buy Lennon’s car for his teenage daughter who had recently wrecked her car. “We quickly agreed,” wrote Lennon. “In fact, we agreed to just give it to her.”

But Lennon’s granddaughter’s need for a car became more immediate after she got a new job.

Lennon and Paula had started looking, but it wasn’t going as quickly as they had hoped. That Lennon needed hand controls to drive slowed the search process down even more.

“We felt a lot of pressure to buy a car before we were ready to make a decision,” wrote Lennon. Paula felt they had made a commitment to their son, but Lennon felt that circumstances had changed when their granddaughter needed a car sooner than theirs would be available. Since their son had texted Paula that he was prepared to buy a car for his daughter if his parents weren’t ready to turn theirs over to him yet, Lennon thought it was “painfully OK” to renege on the initial offer. “My wife thought differently.”

After some serious thrashing through, Lennon and Paula agreed to “soften the blow” by offering their son a considerable sum of money toward another car.

Now that their granddaughter has a safe vehicle to use, Lennon believes they are “over the hump.” But he wrote that “my wife doesn’t think I/we honored our word or did the right thing, because she saw our verbal agreement to give our son a car as a commitment.”

Lennon asked my opinion, observing that even if he’s “vindicated” by my opinion, “that doesn’t mean I’m right in hers, of course (lovable as she is).” He also wrote that this has been probably the worst controversy in their 51-year marriage.

Paula is right that they made a verbal commitment to give their granddaughter their car once they bought a new one. Lennon pointed out, however, that they hadn’t agreed to hand over the car before they were able to purchase a new one. Once it became clear that their granddaughter needed a car before Lennon and Paula had been able to purchase a new one, they faced a conundrum. Should they have handed over their car and be left figuring out how to get around without a vehicle? Not an ideal solution.

Ideally, Lennon and Paula would have honored their commitment, but they did the right thing by being forthright with their son when circumstances changed. If their granddaughter could have waited, that might have been the best outcome. Once it became clear she couldn’t, Lennon and Paula’s offer to help fund the purchase of a car for her was generous and honorable.

Neither Lennon nor Paula were wrong in their assessment of the situation. Each of them was trying to do something kind for their granddaughter. Ultimately, they simply came down differently on a solution to this particular challenge. Even if they never resolve their differences on this one, if this is the worst controversy in 51 years of marriage, their track record seems on solid ground.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

What should a conscientious voter do to become informed?

What should someone do to research candidates or issues before an election?

A reader we’re calling Harris recently emailed observing that it is a presidential election year and he wants to cast an informed vote. He mentioned that in addition to the presidential and gubernatorial candidates who will appear on his ballot where he lives in North Carolina, there are likely to be “a total of 56 candidates running for 13 offices.”

In spite of all the promotional flyers sent out, Harris contended that the average person, including him, has no clue as to who the best candidates are – “especially the non-political ones, like state auditor or commissioner of insurance.” Harris asked a town council member for his recommendations, but he suspects the guy doesn’t really know any more about the more “obscure” offices than Harris does.

“My local McClatchy newspaper has probably dug deeper into those candidates than my town councilman has had time to do,” wrote Harris. “It has made some recommendations that conflict with his, probably reflecting opposing political points of view.

“What should a conscientious person do when he/she can’t invest a lot of time researching candidates, especially when the ‘mainstream media’ or other resources aren’t neutral?” asked Harris. “Rely on an equally uninformed friend?”

Harris believes we are all victims of too much information and is concerned information overload will get even worse “now that artificial intelligence looms large.”

I applaud Harris and others who are committed to voting in local and national elections. That Harris wants to become as informed as possible about the issues and candidates running before he casts his vote strikes me as a good thing. Anyone who wants to take even a small bit of time to become an informed voter should be able to do so.

Harris has already tried one avenue that I would have suggested and that’s to search the newspaper covering his local area for election information. Where local newspapers don’t exist, this proves a challenge and Harris indicated that what he found in his local newspaper left him wanting more.

The online sites for the various state election agencies that oversee local elections can be a useful resource. Harris can find a link to those agencies here.

I also spoke with Ashley Spillane, the president of Impactual, a consulting firm whose mission is to focus on “creating a healthy democracy.” (Full disclosure: I’ve known Ashley since she was a graduate student in a course I taught.) While Ashley is someone who’s worked vigorously for years to help get people out to vote, I wanted to know what nonpartisan resources she turns to for the type of information Harris seeks.

“There are two resources I use to help fill my ballot out all the way down to the most local races,” she responded: BallotReady and Vote 411, a site run by the League of Women Voters. As an election draws closer, each site will include information on national and local ballots. Users can type in their location to get information on the elections in which they can vote.

Again, I applaud Harris for wanting to become as informed as he can. Making certain that accurate information is available for him and others who want it to use is the right thing to do.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Storytelling still works only if the stories are true

 

How far should you let a good story go to make a point?

A quote widely attributed to Mark Twain with no evidence that he actually said or wrote it is: “Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.” Perhaps it’s a good thing that this particular gem does not seem to be a piece of wisdom imparted by Twain; it remains questionable if lying for the sake of a good story is a good thing, especially when you are trying to use that story to convince others of something.

Almost 25 years ago, I wrote a column titled, “Storytelling Only Works if Tales Are True,” in which I cited several people on how useful being able to tell a good story was in convincing an audience of whatever it was you wanted to convince them of.

Robert Metcalfe, the retired founder of 3Com Corporation, embraced the use of a good story to make a point in business or life, but he was clear on its limitations. ''By telling a story, I don't mean story as in make things up,'' Metcalfe said ''I have told the story of 3Com a thousand different ways. You make it dramatic. You select facts. You add drama. You wink. You smile. You leave out unimportant things that might weaken your point. It's all part of the gentle process of persuasion.

''But,'' he was quick to add, ''one of my rules is: Never lie.''

Crossing from making a story dramatic to telling an outright lie could have “devastating effects,” I wrote at the time. If colleagues who experienced the same events discovered you were lying about those events, your credibility could be lost. If lies found their way to the wider world, then you risked becoming known as a fabricator who made stuff up.

That was 25 years ago. Does it remain a bad thing to lie to colleagues or the public in a story you’re telling? Are there enough incidents of howlers of lies being told on a stump speech or in a widely disseminated media interview that result in boosting a politician’s popularity to make it time to rethink whether lying really matters?

In the movie “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” a newspaper reporter discovers that the legend of a showdown with a local outlaw surrounding an aging and beloved U.S. senator was not factual. The reporter chooses to rip up the notes detailing the facts and utters the now-famous line: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” That’s bad journalism, but it does point out how people can become more comfortable with what they believe to be true rather than with the actual truth.

Telling or spreading lies to make people comfortable, however, falls short of striving to live a life of integrity where we embrace the hard truths as well as the comfortable ones. Witnessing that others get ahead or thrive when we believe them to regularly play fast and loose with facts doesn’t justify telling lies to get whatever it is we want.

When telling a story, the right thing remains to make sure it’s true. We owe that much to our audience, but also to ourselves if we want to continue to strive not to become the type of person we swore we never wanted to become.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is silence golden?

In celebrating someone’s accomplishment, should you point out a mistake she’s made?

A long-time reader from North Carolina who we’re calling Rosalind wrote to report that she’d just finished reading a book that raised the question. She wants to know if she should report an error she noticed while reading.

The book was written by Rosalind’s distant older cousin. They’d met a few times when they were teenagers, but Rosalind doesn’t think they’ve had any contact in more than 60 years. Rosalind’s older sister had read the cousin’s book, enjoyed it, and wrote to their cousin to congratulate her.

After hearing about the book from her sister, Rosalind, checked out a copy from her local library and found it to be a well-written and enjoyable read about her marriage to a controversial and well-known theatrical producer in New York City.

“As I read the book, I considered reaching out and giving my cousin positive feedback on the book too,” wrote Rosalind. That many of the plays the cousin’s husband had produced were “cutting edge” and not shows that she “as a conservative” would be likely to consider seeing gave Rosalind some pause, but then she decided she could simply recognize her cousin’s accomplishment in writing the book.

“Here’s the hitch,” wrote Rosalind. In the acknowledgments, her cousin wrote that her parents “would have been please to know that I, like them, wrote a book.” Clearly, the cousin meant to write “pleased” rather than “please.”

Rosalind would like to write her cousin to praise her work but also to point out the typo in case she doesn’t know about it already and might be able to fix it in future printings. “If she doesn’t know it exists, however, my pointing it out could be a source of some irritation” instead of any “relative joy” (Rosalind’s pun) of hearing from a long-lost cousin.

Rosalind wrote that her spouse says she is honest to a fault. Nevertheless, Rosalind believes that pointing out the typo could be appreciated by her cousin. She’s concerned, however, that she might be making much ado about nothing and should forget about pointing out the typo.

“What do you think?” Rosalind asked me.

Years ago, I wrote about a college librarian I knew who was crushed after being corrected on her pronunciation of English words by a student. She wasn’t crushed because the student had corrected her, but rather because she clearly had been mispronouncing words for years and no one had ever said anything to her. Generally speaking, people appreciate learning about an error they’ve made, especially if they might be able to do something about it in the future.

The right thing, I believe, is for Rosalind to mention the typo to her cousin. It likely shouldn’t be the first thing Rosalind mentions. Instead, she can lead off her note about how well-written and enjoyable a read the book was. I would imagine Rosalind might also want to add a note or two with selected highlights of what she’s been up to over the past six decades. As long as the pointing out of the typo isn’t presented as a gotcha-type moment or a scolding about imprecision or a suggestion that one typo ruined the whole book, I would hope that Rosalind’s cousin would appreciate the sentiment with which the notation is delivered.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should you let someone know you plan to challenge their ideas?

Do you owe it to someone to tell them when you plan to confront their comments in public?

The first byline I ever had was published on Thursday, March 2, 1972, in The Times-Bulletin, the weekly newspaper of Boonton, New Jersey. I was a 15-year-old high-school student. I got the assignment because weeks earlier I had stopped by the newspaper’s offices and asked if they had any jobs. They didn’t, but I got a phone call asking me if I would be able to cover a local education board meeting for which they’d pay me $5 if it was published.

The piece was published, but when I went to pick up my check, I also received the stern advice that if I wanted to continue stringing for the newspaper, I had best learn to type better and not turn in copy with so many cross-outs and type overs. My writing career lasted longer than The Times-Bulletin, which ceased publication in 1979, about five years after I’d left town.

The second half of that first article was essentially a list of all the votes and committee appointments and similar housekeeping done by the board. But the first half of the article was reflected in the headline for the piece: “Athletics Criticism Countered.”

Apparently, at the previous board of education meeting, a resident had attended and bemoaned the inadequacy of the athletic programs offered at the local grade schools. The resident had not been on the agenda and hadn’t given anyone in the athletic department a heads up that he would be making his statement. “I came down here as an individual because it bothered me to see what was going on,” the resident said.

At the meeting I covered, Glenn Moore, who taught physical education to most every student who went through the Boonton public schools over a 32-year period beginning in the 1960s, had been scheduled to make a report about the status of the athletic program. But because the discontented resident had made his comments at the prior meeting, Moore decided he had to address them. An “awful lot of people called me up and said they thought it was unjust,” Moore said.

Moore had a choice. He could have simply dismissed the disappointed resident’s comments and got on with his report, or he could have ignored the topic altogether. Moore, however, chose to invite the resident to hear his report at the meeting and to ask any questions that might help him understand the status of the programs better.

Moore’s choice always stuck with me. It might have been easier to ignore that resident’s comments and to avoid making sure he was in the room when you planned to counter his argument. But it showed integrity and Moore did the right thing by letting the resident know ahead of time that he disagreed with his assessment, that he planned to detail specifics that ran counter to his complaints, and that he hoped to do it face to face so the resident could ask any questions he might still have.

No argument broke out. Questions were asked and answered. The board of education struggled as many local school boards do with funding the best athletics program it could, and Moore continued to be a beloved member of the community until his death at 89 in 2013.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.