The United States is a place where personal goal attainment is central to the common culture that binds us as a nation. But achieving personal goals can easily clash with other societal needs and objectives, creating legitimate dilemmas at work.

Several years ago I taught a course on business ethics. One of the reading assignments was an article that had been published many years earlier in the Harvard Business Review (HBR, September/October, 1983): "The Parable of the Sadhu."

The article was written by a business executive who was part of a group that climbed an 18,000 foot Himalayan peak. As the group began the last leg of its climb, it passed a disoriented Sadhu, a native holy man. The person was clearly in physical and psychological distress from the elements. He certainly could not continue the climb, and was apparently incapable by himself to descend to the base camp. But one after another of the members of the group that found him decided that it would not be in his or her interest to give up the climb to save the person's life -- including the author. It was clear from the article that the entire group, including the author, believed that in leaving the Sadhu to his own devices, they were also leaving him to certain death.

And so the group reached the summit, the executive subsequently felt guilty and assuaged his guilt by telling his story and discussing the "ethical dilemma" they had encountered, seeking to help other executives see meaning in their corporate lives.

I was moved to remember that article a couple of years ago as we learned of another climbing party at Mt. Everest that left a climber to die. In this case he actually lived, but there was no doubt that those who marched past him to the top were quite convinced that he could never survive...so why bother to help? Evidently this group hadn't read the HBR article, or had read it and forgotten, or had read it and thought it so much drivel. And in some ways I too thought the article as drivel if only because the author thought of the problem as a "dilemma." According to one dictionary a dilemma is, "...an argument presenting two or more equally conclusive alternatives...". I would think any decent person would not believe the situation on the mountain -- then or now, or ever -- would represent "two or more equally conclusive alternatives." To think that the possible loss of life -- which could reasonably be avoided -- would be no more important an alternative than fulfilling even a lifelong ambition to climb a mountain suggests that the preservation of human life is little more than a hobby. Should I climb a mountain today, or perhaps organize my stamp collection? Or should I write that novel? Or, maybe I'd consider helping that person right in front of me who will die without my help? (I admit, we can't all save the world, but a person right in front of us?)

Most of us aren't going mountain climbing, and I for one, would never remove myself so far from fast food and cable television. But I have to wonder that there aren't among us those who are so committed to personal success that they might litter their path through life with others they have damaged -- or at least failed to help. I doubt they would always exhibit insensitive behavior toward others, but how would we anticipate they might behave if someone were perceived as a barrier to their personal goal attainment in the work place?