Messy Sony-Zee breakup shows in business as in love partings are never easy

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Wipro filed against two former executives including its former CFO Jatin Dalal, there's no such thing as an amicable parting. At startup Bharat Pe, Ashneer Grover was controversially ousted from the firm he helped found, after it accused his family of misappropriating the company’s funds.

Elon Musk fired Twitter’s top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal immediately after he took over the company and minutes before they could put in their papers. It saved him a small fortune in severance pay but left them with the ignominy of being sacked.

Whatever happened to graceful exits? Commenting on the lawsuits against the company’s former leaders, Wipro’s executive chairman Rishad Premji said it wasn't personal. But after the episode would Dalal ever come back to the company he served with distinction for close to 21 years before he moved to rival firm Cognizant? The world of business is fluid and asymmetric which is why it’s a good idea to allow for reverse flows.

In 1999, Ratan Tata, struggling to sell his struggling car business to Ford was rebuffed by the company’s executive chairman Bill Ford with the words "You do not know anything, why did you start the passenger car division at all. We are doing you a big favor by buying your car division".

Tata decided to walk away from the deal and just nine years later his company Tata Motors bought Ford’s struggling luxury car brands, Jaguar and Land Rover, for an all-cash deal worth $2.3 billion. This time the boot was on the other foot and Ford reportedly told Tata " You are doing us a big favour by buying JLR, thank you." It is a useful example to keep in mind when recrimination and revenge threaten to take over reason following a deal gone sour or a corporate marriage that’s