If Life's Not Fair, Does Justice Matter?

Read enough blogs and e-books about leadership and success, and you'll see one bit of advice that overshadows all others: don't be a loser. Or, to be more precise: don't let a few losses keep you from winning in the end. This concept has created an endless number of platitudes that offer little comfort to the aggrieved: focus on wars instead of battles, be resilient in the face of adversity, and remember how long it took to build Rome. But embracing failure seems to deny one of our basic traits: a desire for justice.

If people are hardworking, kind, and generous, we want to see them rewarded with success; if they are hurtful or lazy, we want to see them punished. Our desires often don't become reality, leaving us with the conventional wisdom: "life's not fair" and "business is business." But the reality is that no matter how much we try to shake off this concept of justice,  we can't. Fairness is a part of us.

In a blog post today on the Harvard Business Review website, N.  Taylor Thompson, a fellow at Harvard University's Forum for Growth & Innovation, writes about how fairness is an integral factor in consumers' decisions. When Netflix decided to split its DVD and video streaming subscriptions two years ago from $10 total to $8 each, they expected to attract some customers interested in just one of the services eager to pay less for renting movies. But what happened? Many Netflix users considered the split an unfair price increase for the services and more than a million of them cancelled their subscriptions. What should Netflix have done? Explain why it had to raise prices. Maybe the company should have said how movie rights are more expensive on streaming video than on DVD, and that it wanted to provide as many movies as possible to its members? Or maybe it should have talked about the new costs associated with developing original content for subscribers, like the popular show House of Cards? No matter what, providing a reason would have been far better than telling people nothing. By sharing their rationale, Netflix executives would have shown that they wanted to be fair.

When to Throw in the Towel

Arakawa takes a shot from Figueroa last night. (Source: http://thesweetscience.com

)

 So I have to admit: I love boxing. Boxers endure intense training to prepare for a fight, and in the ring, they battle not only their opponents, but also fear and exhaustion. But as much as I enjoy the sweet science, even I was a little uncomfortable watching last night's fight between Nihito Arakawa of Japan and Omar Figueroa of Texas. At first, Figueroa started bleeding from above his nose -- the result of an accidental headbutt. Then, Arakawa's eyes began to swell to Rocky-like proportions -- as he took an unbelievable number of power shots from the hard-punching Texan. The fight lasted the full 12 rounds, but many spectators on Twitter were thinking Arakawa's corner should have thrown in the towel. After all, it's those kinds of beatings that have been known to lead to long-term brain damage, and sometimes death. I have to agree with them. There was no point to fighting on once he'd lost the fight. People had gotten their money's worth, and he'd shown his courage.

History is replete with examples of times when armies should have retreated and regrouped. Sometimes in life, it's important to know when to stop what you're doing and live to fight another day. In business, they call this "pivoting." In the middle of team sports, they call it a "timeout." And if you're afraid that losing shows a lack of will, remember: no one ever becomes a success without learning how to fail.