Cherry Picking

Cherry picking means selecting some clients to serve while rejecting others. The reasons for this common practice are many. The size of the business makes a difference in determining the ethicacy of cherry picking. The very survival of a sole proprietor can be greatly affected by the behavior of one customer. In practice certain customers exhibiting certain patterns of speech and behavior are disruptive and cost the business money. A small, one man, contracting company might reject building a house for a client who is aggressive and manipulative. Since the business is so small and the contractor does not have the emotional stamina to deal with high emotion, he rejects the idea of building the house. When small businesses do not have the resources to deal with certain behaviors they will defer doing business with that client. While this may seem a form of discrimination the practice prevails .

Coloring

Arranging the sale of products or providing services in a way that benefits the business person. Some forms of coloring are ethically questionable, others are not, Red lining areas of a city is a method used by some lending institutions to define risk. Those areas surrounded by a red line are seen as too risky to lend money based on prior experience. But, there are more subtle forms of coloring. Business people tend to focus on risk. If a potential client is troublesome even before business is done, they assign higher risk to to the service and charge more money.  After twenty or thirty years in business it is fairly well-known where the problems lay. While coloring touches on the legal term discrimination in some cases, small business decisions favor a minimum of risk and a maximizing of profit particularly in businesses where the profit margin is slim.

• Issues of Risk
• Personal Sandbox
• Flow
• Tit For Tat Decision Making