For there are no free lunches

Last year when I had heard this sentence for the first time in a Management Institute, I was actually taken aback. Our Economics Professor explained it as the (invisible) costs attached to the (visible) benefits. But the million dollar question was whether the free lunches are good to offer or receive. What intentions will the other person perceive in your offer of lunch? And I had no answer to it until recently.

In contrast to the business world, when we had joined as trainees in the Civil service we were expected to visit the house of the training District Magistrate, any number of times for any number of meals. We were told to not push our hands in the pocket whenever we had a cup of tea or coffee outside with a senior officer. Almost as an unwritten rule, the most senior officer would bear the bill. And then as I grew in the service, it was a wonderful feeling inviting the probationers over dinner and loading them with ‘pearls of wisdom’.

However, in last one year as I saw the repeated use of this sentence by leaders from industry and management academia; my confusion and interest over the issue continued to grow.

So when Sheshadri, Joint Collector of this district asked me to visit his home for dinner, I found my management training put to test. During dinner Sheshadri was trying to push some more rice and chapatis on my plate at every opportunity he could create. The other senior official who had joined for the dinner was equally friendly despite his seniority. By the end of the dinner Sheshadri had again started asking, when I was visiting his home next.

I had my doubts cleared that evening. In life people just don’t meet other people to maximize profits. Dinners are not meant to discuss business deals alone. Human beings being the social animal they are, feel happy with their friends. Most Indian dinners have no costs attached to them.

May be management, the way it is being taught and perceived, is a foreign concept. And these new ideas from other cultures also test our traditions and values at times. Luckily, by a large majority- we continue to believe in out traditions and are unadulterated by diffusion of these foreign ideas. At a different horizon, the width between the middle class Indian society and the U.S. return (elite?) Indians continues to widen.

And I don’t want to change myself from what I am. So rest assured, the lunch stays; if we ever meet- I will take you for a lunch.