The article written by Bowen H. McCoy represents an account of his mountain-climbing experience in the Himalayas marked by an incident that left the author pondering over it long after it was over. Half-way through an especially difficult and risky ascent, which McCoy had failed to complete six years before and which he was hoping to finally accomplish, he and a few other multinational mountaineers were encountered by an almost lifeless sadhu, an Indian holy man, who was suffering from hypothermia and barely had the energy to get to the nearest dwelling. The independent parties of climbers from New Zealand, Switzerland, and Japan, as well as Sherpa guides, did not show much cooperation among themselves and provided only the basic aid to the wretched man, without making sure that his life was out of danger. Upon completing their bit of help, one national group would shift the responsibility to another, thus avoiding any possible inconvenience which might have been caused by prolonged care for the sadhu. In the end, the Indian man has left with some clothes and food 500 feet away from the nearest hut, and none of the alpinists knew whether he survived or not. Therefore there is a controversial and debatable ethical issue arising from the fact of the climbers neglecting their duty of care for their fellow man for the benefit of achieving their personal ambitious goals. The ambiguous question to be answered is whether the mountaineers fulfilled their moral obligation or responsibility for the stranger and whether they, as individuals and as a group, had reacted with the right amount of devotion in such an unexpected force majeure situation.
In order to analyze the aforementioned ethical conflict, it appears reasonable to apply a “tripod” model to the situation, including the dimensions of someone, situation and self. From the point of view of the “self” component, the incident in the mountains illustrates the case when an individual faces a challenge, the solution of which presupposes a moral choice between his own values and the general trend of the group. One of the climbers, Stephen, is described by McCoy (1997) as a committed follower of the Quaker society, possessing deep moral values. He was the person who, suffering physically more than any of the other climbers, showed the biggest compassion for the exhausted sadhu and took care of him as long as his state allowed. However, the group policy of ignoring the needs of the sufferer in favor of their own well-being prevented Stephen from fulfilling his moral obligation to the fullest without risking his own life. Thus he had to stop helping the sadhu at a certain point, which made him feel remorseful afterward, dwelling on the peculiarities of the Christian morality interpretation in the days of impersonal organizations and large groups. Stephen turned out to be quite helpless when left alone with his good intentions, facing the threat of the same miserable state as the sadhu experienced. Therefore, the only escape for him was to return back to the group and share the victory of conquering the dangerous slope.
As the parties representing the dimension of “someone”, it is possible to name the multinational groups of climbers whose actions defined the development of the situation. All of them had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to conquer one of the most difficult crests in their practice — the chance they would not have been ruined by a wretched traveler who had deliberately chosen a more risky trail. Taking advantage of their position as members of groups, the mountaineers preferred not to assume the responsibility of taking a moral decision, which would have otherwise led them to the necessity of giving up the idea of completing their trip as planned. In the extreme conditions of a severe mountain passage, only unanimous actions could guarantee a certain degree of individual safety, thus preventing separate actions that could have turned out to be life-threatening for those who had ventured to detach themselves from the majority.
Keeping in this train of thought, the “situation” on the whole is seen as an ambiguous moral dilemma: on the one hand, a man was nearly dying of cold and exhaustion while several groups of mountaineers did not bother to help him more than it would be convenient for them; on the other hand, providing full assistance to the sadhu would mean, firstly, risking their own health, and secondly, disrupting their cherished dream of crossing the churlish passage. The extreme circumstances that accompanied the situation added a feeling of stress, which is claimed to be the best test of personal and group values (McCoy, 1997). Moreover, there was a bunch of cross-cultural and social barriers that possibly prevented fruitful communication and collaboration between the independent climbing parties. Therefore there was no unity within the group, which consequently prevented them from taking an adequate and considered decision and left many of them wondering later on, whether they had acted morally right or not.
The biggest problem the climbers faced was absence of an ethical code common for the whole group and a leader who would embody the group values and take on the responsibility of decision-making in a contingency. In case when the multinational parties were split and weakened by the ascent, they needed a strong personality who would have united them in the process of negotiating and working out a common decision that would accommodate the needs of each and everyone, including the sadhu. The main moral blunder made by the travelers when dealing with the Indian man and leading to their remorse later on was giving preference to what they wanted, not to what they needed according to common moral standards. According to Gosselin (2007), “the first mistake in negotiating is to equate needs and wants”. Thus a rigid set of priorities should be clarified and kept to while conducting the talks between the climbing parties. For instance, such set is possessed by Stephen, as an ardent Quaker, who nevertheless failed to persuade the others into following those values due to the wrong strategy of negotiation he chose. Out of the five commonly used negotiation strategies, by Lewicki and Hiam (2006), he opted for avoiding (lose-lose), which in the end demonstrated a low priority of his relationship with the group and of the negotiation outcome. A more successful strategy could be seen in collaborating instead, as it dramatically increases both the quality of the relationship and that of the outcome. Otherwise, Stephen’s individual goodness is lost without corporate support.
Considering all of the aforementioned, it appears possible to learn certain lessons from the sadhu story, which would be of utmost importance for managing a business and implementing a common ethic policy in a big organization. Firstly, business ethics presents a slippery ground where no ready-made answers can be given. As Reardon (2004) states,
“negotiation occurs within social contexts. Some of these contexts encourage moral behavior; others encourage the attainment of goals at any cost; still others are somewhere in between”.
Hence, each time it is necessary to define the negotiation goals as well as to understand at what moral length the company could go to reach those without losing its face. The need for a corporate ethic law, a moral code supported by independent working groups is therefore vital, and no wonder major companies draw that much attention to their corporate values, which increases public trust in their business.
Secondly, there should always be a kind of established process for handling debatable moral issues. The incident in Nepal clearly showed that in the absence of such a pattern the risk of corporate breakup increases rapidly. The lack of guidelines that should be kept to in case of unexpected issues results in panic and distortion in crisis moments, which weaken the integrity of the organization, demoralize the employees, lower their trust in company values and bring about the threat of collapse.
The sadhu case proves to be a burning issue for modern world of large organizations, setting the task of responding to one of the basic and core questions of business ethics concerning the choice between the benefit of the whole company versus the importance of helping one’s neighbor — a matter of choice between traditional Christian ethic of compassion as opposed by modern utilitarian views. There cannot be a single right solution to that problem, and in each individual case the managers should agree on the option which would lead the company to succeed without making its way over corpses.
References
- Gosselin, T. (2007). Practical Negotiating: Tools, tactics and techniques. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Lewicki, R.J., & Hiam, A. (2006). Mastering business negotiation: A working guide to making deals & resolving conflict. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
- McCoy, B. H. (1997). The parable of the sadhu. Harvard Business Review, 75 (3), 54-64.
- Reardon, K. K. (2004). The skilled negotiator: Mastering the language of engagement. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass