The law of unintended consequences

I was reading an interesting article today, one that made me think a lot about the title of this blog. In the article, which you can read here, the story of how Google may just have created its own nemesis in Samsung is told.

Apparently, with Samsung now owning almost 40% of the worlds smartphone market share, as opposed to Apples 25% (I'm rounding off of course, but its close enough), Samsung is now so powerful it has the ability to wag the dog - thus possibly forcing Google to give up some of their revenue share on searches to keep the relationship happy.

It makes me wonder how many times companies and individuals have carefully built and nurtured partnerships and relationships, only to discover some time down the line that the person or company they invested in have become their biggest rivals.

Whether its friends who end up dating a prospective boyfriend or girlfriend, or companies who ultimately end up funding their own successors, there must be countless tales to tell of a similar nature.

I recall hiring a young, aggressive guy in Cape Town many years ago in my previous business, Torque-IT. Seeing his energy, I decided to give him a chance over others who seemed more suited to the job. For many months, he applied himself diligently to learning as much as could about our business, taking any opportunity to learn from me directly about how I had grown my business, and what my goals were for the local market.

After about a year in my employ, he resigned one day with no advance notice, and I discovered some weeks later that he had started his own training company only blocks away from my own branch. Being local, and having the advantage of knowing every customer, method and marketing tool we possessed, he soon became a major competitor in the market place.

I wonder if there is any way to avoid such stories? If you never trust anyone, you can't grow and build the people you need to take your company to the next level. On the other hand, if you do trust too much, you often end up giving away too much.

The same can be said for business partners. In order to grow your own business, you often need to help a prospective partner build and develop their skills, so that they can successfully sell your products. The more they sell, the more you grow. But often, these partners use that growth to demand more margin for themselves, or more exclusivity, and when this is no longer plausible, often turn to your competitor to get better pricing.

Of course, competitors who didn't invest the time, money and know-how to grow those relationships are only too happy to jump in and "steal" the business with higher discounts just when the partnership has started to yield dividends for your company.

I'm not sure that there is any way to avoid this law of unintended consequences, which by its very name and nature is just that - unintended. Since you didn't anticipate the outcome, there is no way to plan against it.

I'm putting this rule down to one of the laws of nature that evolve logically to keep the natural equilibrium, and to ensure that balance is preserved in all things.

My condolences to Google, and my wishes for the best of luck in their attempt to take back control of the tail they have accidentally allowed to wag their very large dog!