Lessons from the Past 131: From Favour to Entitlement

Walter Vieira 27 June 2025

Life

Some years ago, I made a small but sincere habit of offering lifts to strangers at a bus stop in Chembur during my daily drive to Ballard Estate. The rules were simple: no smoking, no chatting, and everyone got off at the city centre. For a few months, it worked smoothly. Then, the same four faces began showing up each morning, slipping into the car without a word, as if this silent commute was a given.

One day, I had to break my routine. My boss was arriving from London, and I had to fetch him from the airport. That meant no Chembur stop. By 11am, a man showed up at my office unannounced. It was one of the bus-stop regulars, and he was irate. "We waited till 9:30 and had to take a cab! You could have informed us," he barked. For a moment, I expected him to hand me the fare receipt.

That is when I realised the lift had long stopped being a courtesy. It had become an entitlement.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Ken, a consultant in Bangalore, sent me a message that captured the essence of what I had experienced. He wrote about why people often fail to appreciate what you do for them. The first time, they are grateful. The second time, they expect it. The third, they assume it. The fourth, they feel entitled. By the fifth, they depend on it. And by the sixth, there is no reciprocity. Stop then, and you become the villain.

This pattern appears in small, everyday settings too. At a Chinese restaurant in Mumbai, I used to look forward to the complimentary chocolates brought after meals. One evening when they didn't appear, I was disappointed. The next time it happened, I was annoyed. That little sweet at the end of each meal had stealthily become an expectation. Perhaps the waiter forgot, or the kitchen was short-staffed that day. But my reaction said more about me than about them. In that moment, I had allowed a small courtesy to morph into a right. It was Ken Stage 2.

But expectations don’t just form in our heads—they shape our relationships, often in silent and corrosive ways.

A neighbour once allowed a young man to stay in a spare room for six months as a favour. He was known to a friend and urgently needed accommodation. After four months, he requested to bring his soon-to-be wife in for a short stay until her official quarters were ready. The wedding happened, but the departure never did. That favour, too, turned into a 30-year legal battle still trudging through the High Court. What began as kindness became inertia, and inertia became legal entanglement.

I have come to believe that the crux of many misunderstandings in both personal and professional life lies in this simple dynamic: the failure to define the shelf life of a favour. We often assume the other party understands that what we have given is temporary, conditional, or exceptional. But in the absence of clear communication, favours are too easily mistaken for ongoing obligations.

The throughline in all these stories is Ken’s quiet wisdom: "Set boundaries when giving, because those who receive rarely set limits on how much they take."

In business, as in life, managing expectations is not about withholding generosity. It is about clarity—drawing lines so that goodwill does not quietly rot into obligation. The best relationships, whether personal or professional, are those where favours are remembered, not repurposed into demands.

So the next time you offer a lift, a perk, or a plate of chocolates, remember: generosity is a gift, not a subscription, and should be communicated as such.

You may also want to read other articles written by the author. Here is the link https://moneylife.in/author/walter-vieira.html

(Walter Vieira is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India - FIMC. He was a successful corporate executive for 14 years, capping his career as Head of marketing for a Pharma multinational, for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka- and then pioneered marketing consulting in India in 1975. As a consultant, he has worked across four continents. He was the first Asian elected Chairman of ICMCI, the world apex body of consultants in 45 countries, in 1997. He is the author of 16 books, a business columnist, international conference speaker and has been visiting professor in Marketing in the US, Europe, and Asia for over 40 years. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Consulting in 2005, and for Marketing in 2009. He now spends much of his time in NGO work - Consumer Education and Research Centre, IDOBRO, and some others.)

Comments

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pyk

2 weeks ago

Well said .

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