13
2
What Are the Net,
Net Consequences?
When the US Marine Corps trains young officers, it tells
them “the radio is your weapon.” In other words, they won’t
be fighting on their own, with rifles, handguns, and bayo-
nets. The radio is their weapon because, as officers, they will
fight by leading other soldiers.
1
The same is true for you as a
manager. Your organization—whether it is a team, a depart-
ment, or an entire organization—amplifies the impact of
the decisions you make. This is why the first question asks
you to think hard about the net, net consequences of what
you might do, when you face a gray area problem. This may
sound like common sense. Of course, you should think about
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Managing in the Gray
14
the consequences of your decisions. Everyone should. But this
reaction can be profoundly deceptive, even for experienced,
successful managers. To see this, consider a remarkable
series of events that began in 1996. Late that year, something
extraordinary happened: an American business executive
came to be viewed as a national hero.
The executive was named Aaron Feuerstein. His company,
which made and sold textiles, was called Malden Mills, and its
best-known product was Polartec fabric. In December 1996,
while Feuerstein and his family were celebrating his seven-
tieth birthday, he got an urgent phone call. The main plant
at Malden Mills was on fire. Feuerstein got into his car and
drove north from Boston toward his company. He first saw
the flames when he was several miles from the plant. When
Feuerstein arrived, the facility was an inferno that reminded
him of the firebombing of Dresden in World War II.
2
Because of the fire, Feuerstein faced a profound gray area
decision. He didn’t know how much he would collect in
insurance compensation. He didn’t know how much business
he would lose to competitors while he was rebuilding. He
didn’t know if Malden Mills would even survive, if he rebuilt
a textile plant in New England, because much of the industry
had already moved to low-wage countries in Asia. Feuerstein
didn’t even know if he was the right person to lead the com-
pany into its next phase.
Despite all these uncertainties, Feuerstein almost immedi-
ately made a personal commitment to rebuild the entire facil-
ity. The new plant would utilize state-of-the-art technology
and employ the same workforce. The cost would ultimately
be more than $400 million. Insurance covered $300 million,
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What Are the Net, Net Consequences?
15
and the rest was bank loans. Feuerstein also announced
he would continue paying his workers’ salaries during the
rebuilding, even if they had no work to do. These were the
decisions that catapulted Feuerstein to national prominence.
At a time when many US jobs were being outsourced,
Feuerstein had made a strong commitment to American
workers and the struggling communities in which many of
them lived. He received widespread media attention, a dozen
honorary degrees, and was a guest at President Clinton’s
State of the Union address in 1997. Then, just a few years
later, Malden Mills filed for bankruptcy. New owners and
managers took over the business, but it never recovered.
There is a sad, almost tragic, irony here. If you met Aaron
Feuerstein, you would probably view him as most people did:
as a generous, warm, honest individual. Despite his wealth and
age, he lived modestly and worked hard. When a journalist
asked Feuerstein if he wanted to have more money, he replied,
“What am I going to do, eat more?”
3
After the fire, Feuerstein
genuinely wanted to do what was best for his workers, their
communities, and the company. In other words, he thought
the decision to rebuild would have all the right consequences.
Instead, it bankrupted Malden Mills. Feuerstein’s character, ded-
ication, and altruism led nowhere. And the reason, it now seems,
is that he failed to make use of the first great humanist question.
This question asks you to think broadly and deeply about
the full, all-in consequences of your options. So what was
this question asking Aaron Feuerstein to think about? What
makes it such an important question? And how can you use
this question as a tool for judgment when you face a gray area
problem?
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Managing in the Gray
16
Thinking Broadly and Thinking Deeply
To understand why the first question matters and what it is
really asking, we will turn briefly to two important philoso-
phers and social reformers and, in particular, to the shatter-
ing life experience that shaped the ideas of one of them. The
first philosopher is Jeremy Bentham, who lived in England
from 1748 to 1832. Even if you don’t recognize his name, you
are probably familiar with his central idea. Bentham believed
that the right way to work through really hard, important
problems was to look as broadly as possible and ask what
would promote “the greatest happiness for the greatest num-
ber of people.” In other words, before you make an important
decision, look at its consequences—in terms of happiness—
for everyone you will affect.
But what is happiness? For Bentham, the answer was
simple: happiness is pleasure. In other words, to be a respon-
sible person and make good decisions, all you have to do is
think thoroughly and objectively about what will produce
the greatest pleasure and the least pain. There is no formula
for this, so you have to make judgments. But your basic
objective is clear. You have to think broadly. This means
looking at legal and economic consequences and also look-
ing beyond them. It means looking at consequences for the
people in your organization and looking beyond them as
well. What matters are all the consequences for everyone
affected by your decision—and this means everyone.
Today, we are all disciples of Jeremy Bentham. We often
think about problems—everyday problems and huge
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What Are the Net, Net Consequences?
17
questions of government policy—in terms of cost and bene-
fits or costs and risks. This means looking at all the options,
assessing their likely consequences, and trying to find the
option that is best for everyone. This approach is an alto-
gether useful and responsible way of making decisions, but
Bentham’s thinking has a profound flaw. It encourages us to
think broadly, but not deeply.
John Stuart Mill, perhaps the most important philoso-
pher in the English-speaking world in the 1800s, discov-
ered the severity of this flaw, not by sitting in a chair and
thinking, but by having his life painfully derailed. Mill
was the brilliant son of a domineering, highly intellectual
father, who imposed a rigorous educational program on
him. The young Mill was kept away from other children,
began learning Greek at the age of three, Latin at eight,
and Aristotle’s logic at twelve. Mill’s radical training con-
tinued until he was twenty, and then he suffered a massive
emotional breakdown. Today, Mill’s collapse would proba-
bly be diagnosed as acute depression. And anyone who has
suffered from depression will understand why Mill chose
these lines, from a poem called “Dejection,” to describe his
misery:
A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,
A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet or relief
In word, or sigh, or tear.
4
Later in life, Mill blamed his breakdown on his intense, nar-
row, highly intellectualized upbringing.
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