Half of managerial decisions fail. The unintended consequences will get you every time.

Last month witnessed a glaring example of these truths as Vermont publisher Chelsea Green announced a controversial decision and then took the fallout.

Chelsea Green, long known as a principled business dedicated to green publishing and progressive values, announced that, due to falling behind in its publishing schedule, it would make Robert Kuttner’s new book on Barack Obama available exclusively through Amazon’s print-on-demand service for the first two weeks. Chelsea Green’s original intention had been to publish the book, Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency, in time for the Democratic National Convention. With the failure to deliver on time, the company decided on the Amazon alternative.

When Chelsea Green president Margo Baldwin announced the decision, all hell broke loose. Chelsea Green managed to alienate both the behemoth Barnes and Noble and the idealistic independents. Barnes and Noble cried “foul” and canceled its order for 10,000 copies, claiming that it was no longer a level playing field. Independent booksellers, outraged, claimed that Chelsea Green, long their trusted partner, had betrayed them. Author Kuttner (who had nothing to do with the publishing schedule failure or the decision to go with Amazon), who had expected the usual respectful mutual relationship that Chelsea Green cultivates with its authors, suffered the consequences. Not to mention that the commitment to green publishing went out the window with the Amazon decision, and that the Obama campaign took a hit as well.

Margo Baldwin defended her decision by pointing to other values. Claiming that the concept of a “level playing field” is a fiction invented by large publishers and larger bookstores, that small publishers don’t stand a chance in the world in which a publisher is expected to flood the market and the media with books and ads in the first weeks of a book’s appearance, Baldwin countered that the buzz created at the DNC would boost sales in other venues later. Furthermore, she claimed, getting the book out early to counter the negative Obama press (currently led by ultra-conservative Jerome Corsi’s new Obama-slamming book) was a higher value than getting it into the hands of the independent booksellers immediately.

But Baldwin shouldn’t have abandoned the company’s hard-won long-term values so quickly. She didn’t pay enough attention to the company’s soul, that hard-to-quantify sense of the values a company stands for in the minds of its customers. Chelsea Green should have done everything it could to publish this book on time, and failing that, to stay true to its values when the chips were down.

Margo Baldwin blew it. She should have stayed on top of this one and delivered on time. If ever there was a deadline to adhere to, this was it.

But she didn’t. She made mistakes. And now it behooves the rest of us who claim to live by our values to find it in our hearts to forgive Chelsea Green and repair the relationship. With the likes of Jerome Corsi out there, we can’t afford to do otherwise.

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Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of "Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations," and "The Soul of a Leader: Finding Your Path to Success and Fulfillment," works with leaders in business, healthcare, churches, government and non-profits to help them develop spiritual leadership. Visit her website at www.ExecutiveSoul.com. © Copyright 2008 by Margaret Benefiel.