Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

Isenberg, D. (2010). Should entrepreneurs lie? Retrieved April 8, 2010 from: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/04/is_it_ok_for_entrepreneurs_lie.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29

This article was written by professor of management practice at Babson College and in it he ask is it necessary for entrepreneurs to lie in order to succeed. He quotes an acquaintance that said that if a person does not know how to seriously twist the truth from time to time, he or she cannot be an entrepreneur. He further states that some entrepreneurs prefer to refer to it as “stretching the truth” or “marketing” rather than lying. In the article he gives several examples that follow with a question. One entrepreneur had to “withhold” the truth so his investors would not back out at the last minute. Was it acceptable for the entrepreneur to lie (withhold the truth) to save his venture? In another example an entrepreneur misrepresented the company’s product in brochures which did not bother the company’s American customers but did bother their Japanese customers. Should whether and how we lie depend on the culture we are working in? Other questions include: Is stretching the truth okay if the other side is expecting it? “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has been military policy for years: Is it good for startups? Is lying acceptable if you are committed to stopping when you can? The author states he does not have the answers to these questions but that lying is more prevalent than anyone wants to admit and that it’s time for the subject to be discussed in academia and in the real world. Most or all management textbooks on ethics would say that lying in not the right policy and that in the long run will not pay off. All managers and future entrepreneurs should be interested in this subject because they will face this dilemma it at some point in their career and need to understand its importance.