Beacons of Business - 23

[Guest guest]

Sairam Sisters and Brothers,

We continue to listen from Ananth Raman, Chairman & CEO, President, Graphtex,

Inc., New Jersey, US.

---

"There was an instance where I was not the decision maker; my boss was the one

who had to make a very important decision. However, I was able to see the basis

of this decision from a spiritual perspective only after it had happened. We had

borrowed a large sum of money from a banker who wanted to pull out of their

operations in the US, and we had a large multi-million dollar loan due to them.

 

I went to the lender and told them that since they were the ones who were

leaving, we would like to pay them less than the total amount. I proposed a

certain reduction in what we owed them, and we had an extensive discussion

about this. With hesitation, they agreed to a reduction, but it was a smaller

reduction than what I had proposed. Since we couldn't finalise the actual

amount of the reduction, they had the head person from their London

organisation come to the US to meet with our principle shareholder from

Switzerland; and we decided to let those two people work it out.

I had briefed our principle shareholder, who was actually my immediate boss, on

what had taken place up to that point. I suggested that he offer an amount for

the reduction that was a little more than they had agreed to. I went into the

discussions feeling very proud that I had negotiated this loan reduction, and

had gained this extra income for the company.

As we moved toward this critical point during the talks, my boss suddenly said,

"I have not come here to ask for this reduction, I will not do it." We had

negotiated so hard for this reduction, and now this man was saying that he

would not ask for this! He told them that we would in due time pay back the

entire amount of the loan.

I was totally shocked. Here we had a huge gift of money available, and my boss

was giving it away. Afterwards I asked him why he had done this, and he said,

"As a businessman we have a responsibility. We are responsible not only to our

shareholders, but also to our bankers. We have borrowed this money from them;

we must repay it to them. This company is not bankrupt - we are able to pay

this money to them. So there is absolutely no reason why we should take

advantage of this situation just because they want to pull their operations out

of the US. This is no way to do business."

I was really struck by all of this. He was not a religious person or anything

like that. He was just a gentleman with a deep sense of values. He considered

this loan not as something that we simply wrote down and now we can debate

about whether to pay or not pay. Rather, he took it as an obligation to

society.

I felt this was a deep spiritual lesson for me. The lesson was that all

obligations must be honoured. They must be paid back in the right way, not by

arguing like this. I saw that all obligations, whether they are in cash, such

as this, or in some other form, must be repaid in some way or another. This is

my duty and I must honour that duty. I saw that this was the only way to do

business in this world.

If I had not looked at this from a spiritual perspective, I would have thought,

"I did all of this hard work for this man, and he is not even appreciating it."

My financial controller was with me, and he is still not convinced today that

what my boss did was right. He still calls it a stupid decision, and I continue

to tell him why it was not a stupid decision."

© Global Dharma Center 2004

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