What do you put your name on?

First of all, to most of you this post does not contain any news. It’s a reminder to some of you and a tip to a few others, that sometimes you hurt yourself by being nice to other.

So a few days back an administrator from my education program emailed me asking if I could be a reference to their program. They provide education abroad and the principal from the school in the US had recommended that she talked to me. Since I liked the program and learned a lot, I was about to agree. When I began thinking about the consequences.

If I agreed on this, I would put my name on this organization and if people liked them I could perhaps benefit from it, but if they did not, it could hurt my reputation a lot more.

To make a long story short the organization in question had sent us some pretty questionable bills, which if I looked in deeper could be illegal and also they very also deceitful about the arrangements. Knowing this you might wonder why I even consider putting my name on it? The answer to that is that I would not have been talking about this organization but about the school in the US.

But since the words I said would be in the organization’s marketing, people might think that I was recommending the whole organization and not just the school. After all, marketing is so much more than the words you read.

Therefore I decided to decline the offer and emailed both the administration at the organization and the principal. When I got the returns I realize even more I good my choice were.

The principal emailed me and told me that it was a smart decision to not put my name on something I don’t believe in, which is completely true.

However the organizations respond was something like:  I’m sorry to hear that you feel that way; could you please write and tell us about what we can get better at? We always want to improve.

Now I don’t remember for sure if they gave us a survey after the program was over, because we had a lot of things going on in the end of school. But I know that if they did, I would have taken the time to answer it thoroughly because I think it’s important to learn and get better. And in that case she would have known what they should be working on.

However, if they did not and they want to improve they should not ask me how now. Even if I would take the time and write down what I find questionable it does not feel like they would read it and consider it. If they want to know, show people that by handing them a survey, at least then you seem to want the answers.

I’m not saying that you should not be nice, and that you should not help others. But you have to think about the consequences. If I would have agreed to be a reference, I would probably have got a “thank you email” and their day would have been easier, but next year I might have lost my trust because they got sued for fraud?

What’s the price for not being able to say no?

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