Fish Snuff
How Corrupt is your Company or State?
Suppose a new leader wishes to attack systemic corruption or issues in his/her department, or his/her company, or even his/her state.
If you are sceptical about whether such leaders exist, then suppose for the sake of argument that your new leadership does have the will to make reforms.
What advice might an experienced underling provide to the new leader, and what are some of the potential options that they may wish to consider.
First of all, what does "systemic corruption or issues" mean? Well in the context of this article I would like you to consider two situations, the first is where some people are corrupt, and the second is where many or an entire group either knowingly or unknowingly have become corrupted. Consider the following simple formula that in my view represents the conditions where corruption can thrive, remove one or more of the conditions and just like the fire triangle, you can snuff out the problem.
Monopoly + Discretion – Transparency = Corruption
It may be quite shocking to suggest that the above is a situation that a new leadership has inherited however it is a situation where the systems themselves have become corrupted. The key distinguishing characteristic of this type of systemic corruption is that the systems that are supposed to prevent corruption have themselves become corrupted, budgeting, auditing, inspection, monitoring, evaluation, and enforcement. Imagine a situation where an entire team charged with oversight for a company are the direct appointee's of or affiliated to one single person. Is that team truly Independent or has it become merely an instrument of that single person's political wishes and desires.
It makes the role of any team charged with oversight duties virtually impossible. New recruits to the team are hand picked to be part of an already groomed and malleable team, other affiliated groups and gangs form elsewhere within the company and anyone wishing to provide any truly independent views are marginalized. The key for the monopoly holder to retaining his/her power base is a reliance on the discretion of their team and a lack of transparency. In an industry such as this it is easy to use the arguments of Security to veil the need for this lack of transparency.
So what is the harm with having affiliated groups running their own show, they would argue that they are the experts and know best, the problem is when these affiliated groups and collectives fail to function effectively especially when there is a need for them to do so especially in order to keep the rest of us safe and secure. The added danger is when the need to monopolise means that recruitment to the group has to be confined to those that can be easily managed whether they are able or not.
Appointments are usually restricted to friends, family, boyfriends and girlfriends, is this company starting to sound like yours?
The good news is that usually someone somewhere eventually spots such companies and decides that there is a need for a change its leaders. For some companies this decision may need to be taken at the very highest level or even forced upon companies by Government..
So what is the challenge for the new leaders who wish to fight systemic management issues within what they have inherited, I believe they need to change the institutional culture. The new leaders need to find untainted partners from within the company and run an assessment process in order to ascertain exactly what it is that they have inherited. However some of the people whom they chose as partners may themselves be the current holders of some of the monopolies that were mentioned earlier.
Changing institutional culture is difficult for the new leaders especially where the culture itself has become sick, morale is low and expectations for being able to challenge the monopolies are also low, talented people may find it easier to leave a company rather than to attempt to challenge the power of the monopolising groups, as their strength lies in their togetherness.
The new leaders can begin by sending a strong message to the plebs, that they mean to challenge the accepted norms and that the days of the monopolies are numbered. There may be a perception that pervades that the big fish can act with impunity and will always swim free from any situation. Therefore the new leaders may need to win hearts and minds through impressive actions rather than just words. The new leaders need to make an impressive start through their Partnering activities this should enable them to easily identify who the monopoly holders are, and once they have extracted what they need, then they may have to fry one or two of these big fish. There may a an instant belief that this has already happened merely by relieving the previous executive of their duties then this can be a huge misconception. The previous Executive themselves may have been failed by the tier beneath them, who may be the real monopoly holders as they may just be continuing to hold power through their monopolies and affiliated groups.
Another option that is open to the new leaders is to break up the monopolies and affiliated groups that have formed across a site or company. Ensure that new recruits to a group are chosen by independent panels who ensure that the best candidate is chosen who has no ties or affiliation to the group, this will keep the group on their toes and ensure that it is corporate policies, procedures and that will keep them safe and secure and not their affiliation to the monopoly holder. Short term success will lead to longer term improvements.
Whatever options the new leaders chose they will need to be brave and politically astute as they may feel vulnerable and that they need the monopoly holder's expertise more than they actually do.
The new leaders will need to mobilise and understand the views of lesser employee's in order to break the hold through discretion that the monopolies have, this may create a feeling of unease amongst these lesser employee's who may feel that they are being disloyal in someway, this is of course a tactic that the monopolies have used to maintain their grip and to ensure a lack of transparency. Those employees should be reassured that their true loyalty lies to the corporate structure and its policies and not the monopoly holders.
Hopefully I have only been stating the obvious, often taking over such companies can lead to the infection spreading to other branches of an organisation or company unless careful pruning is carried out right from the start. Sometimes the inheritor may have to be even more ruthless and start from scratch. Corporate corruption can be a cancer that stifles productivity growth and achievement and usually it is only a matter of time before such corrupt organisations get found out, however the problem then is that the good get punished with the bad.
About the Author
The author worked for a supposedly well-respected company, but was forced to leave on principle. A company where appointments were made on the basis of friends, family, boyfriends & girlfriends.
A company where senior managers would appoint their mistresses to management positions and where if your affiliate was not qualified to carry out the role that they had been elevated to, they were simply sent them to a carefully selected institution to get qualified at the companies expense.
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