Remember the scene in the Jungle Book where the young orphan boy Mogli meets up with Kaa, a hungry Indian python. Kaa tries to hypnotise Mogli into a deep and peaceful sleep saying “Trust me… trust me. ”
We’ll come to how Mogli escapes the scary python Kaa in a few moments. The python hypnotises Mogli, traps him, holds him tightly in his coils and tries to devour him.
During the festive season I heard of a business person, an exceptional entrepreneur, who had put his trust in his factory manager only to find out that while he was away the factory manager had purchased the premises that he had been renting for his factory, changed the brand name of the product being manufactured and refused to let the original owner in.
It’s the old, old story of putting your trust into a business partner only to find out that when the chips are down money transforms seemingly “nice” people into venomous villains.
The problem is really with original owner who became so successful in his business that he went to live at the coast and let the factory manager take over the whole running of the business. But still, it shows how the factory manager broke the original owner’s trust, betrayed him and has allegedly taken money from the business that wasn’t owed to him in the first place.
How far would you go in trusting a business partner? Would you place your trust in someone even if you had known them for a number of years? Would you be foolish enough to leave your business in the hands of someone else without routinely checking up on operations?
Getting a business off the ground as a start-up takes huge amounts of energy and resources. The entrepreneur I’m talking about worked extremely hard and took huge risks to make the manufacturing business possible in the first place. It took him at least 2 to 3 years before he had large repeat orders that would ensure the future success of the business. This was hard, nerve-wracking and demanding promotional and selling work.
But the tragedy was that this business owner thought that once the business was at a successful level he didn’t need to keep a constant eye on it. He packed up for the coast, living the high life. Things went very well for a good few years until the money started to dry up. That alerted him to the danger of what peril the business was in. By then it was too late. Now a long court battle is likely to proceed with both parties unlikely to be the victors.
It’s hard enough starting a new business from scratch but what’s even harder is to hold onto the wealth that you accumulate from your business. It’s a lesson for us all. Not to become complacent. To make sure that we know what is going n in our business even though we may have a manager to run it. It’s also about being prudent. No matter how much faith you have in another person, there are always limits to how much trust you can put into anyone. When things are going well, you feel that you can go on somebody’s word but it’s far better to have legal contracts drawn up by a lawyer.
Even if you get down on your knees and pray that the storm may not come and smash your boat up in the harbour, it’s still necessary for you to moore your boat properly in the harbour and tie it up against the quayside so that it won’t come adrift in the storm in the night and smash up against the rocks.
Mogli, the young orphan boy, who is found in a basket in the deep jungles of India was saved from the Indian python Kaa by Bagheera, a black panther. Business owners don’t always have someone who can rescue them. As in the Jungle Book the vultures are ever circling to pounce on fresh meat. Trust is very important in business but take it too far and you could just end up being roadkill.
