By Nimroth Gwetsa, 11 February 2015.
Corruption was the leverage used by the sophisticated and power hungry to corruptly cling to power and privileges. Corruption nowadays is the pastime of ordinary people.
Doing one’s job has been replaced with an attitude of “greasing palms first” before serving needs. Objectivity is no longer acceptable. Bribery is the instrument for advancement.
This article attempts to encourage those opposed to graft to be vigilant and to limit opportunities for corruption to thrive in their sphere of influence.
Corruption is the malaise of our society
Many excuses are usually given to explain away bad behaviour. Excuses such as temporary insanity, being under the influence of drugs and alcohol and possessed by an evil spirit are among many reasons given to excuse appalling behaviour of human beings. It is as if ordinary human beings cannot commit such evil deeds.
People with congenital blindness are people born unable to see or have severe visual impairment. Paraphrased, congenitally blind people are not blind because they cannot see. Instead, they cannot see because they are blind.
There is a difference. In their case, blindness comes first and lack of sight is the consequence. Their condition is not as if they could first see and became blind thereafter. They were born blind and therefore cannot see.
Could corruption be congenital?
Corruption can be likened to darkness. So long as there is light, there would be no darkness. In which case, corruption would be the absence of “light”.
Sources of light to shine away corruption are difficult to find. Corruption has become an art requiring equally well-crafted solutions to overcome its incessant proliferation.
This article lists but a few basic ideas for consideration to limit the spread of corruption in our society.
- Relentlessly promote adoption of shared values to encourage ethical behaviour
Light is our conscience. No one is born without a conscience. We are aware of our sense of rightness and wrongness. The sense comes from knowing what we want and do not want done to us. The adage to “do to others what we would have them do to us” best describes the lowest form of our sense of rightness and wrongness.
Conscience is subdued when we advance perverted desires without regard for the welfare of others.
Values would be upheld if considered uplifting and helpful in the development of people. Although values are meant to be ideals to strive for, they should not be subjected to individual whim, upheld only if they are not considered burdensome. Without values, society would have no uniform standard to measure good from bad behaviour. Values are like secondary defences guarding against loss of individual conscience. We need to promote collective sense of caring for one another and ideals we should strive for to keep corruption at bay. Combatting corruption would entail denying perpetrators collaborators and denying them an environment where their corrupt practices could thrive.
Selflessness is an antidote to corruption. To begin overcoming corruption, promote values increasing the extent of “others-centeredness”. Encourage, measure and reward good behaviour. Decisively and publicly discourage undesired behaviour.
- Increase focus on service delivery and push natural performance limits
”Idle hands are the devil’s workshop”. This natural law tells us the basic truth that unless people have something particular they are responsible for and are expected to accomplish, they could easily occupy their minds with corrupt thoughts.
The immediate sign of increasing complaints about a lack or poor delivery of services should automatically hint at the presence, if not the beginning, of the prevalence of corruption.
Avoid distraction of mind by assigning people specific goals to occupy their mind and time. Manage performance and ensure tangible results are produced.
- Encourage personal mastery
Personal Mastery has already been covered in previous articles. Click here for the article.
Nevertheless, without self-drive, we would have the driven. The driven, as opposed to self-driven, are energy vampires. They suck energy out of others and are prone to being gossipmongers, sowers of division and strife in the work environment. Such behaviour would make them attractive to becoming conduits for corrupt practices to permeate the organisation.
Every organisation should encourage the presence of self-driven and motivated staff. Self-driven people are less dependent on the direction of the leader. They could translate the vision of the organisation and create work to realise it. Even though such people have higher independence, they also understand teamwork yields far more rewarding results than working alone.
Create and manage talent pipeline. Encourage diversity, personal development and growth. Discourage mentality of job for life or promotion to the next level when the incumbent dies. Remove ceilings to prevent people feeling they have reached theirs with no exciting prospects of improvements.
- Avoid complexity and pursue simplicity
Obfuscation is the weapon of the corrupt. They like complexity because they know that knowledge is power and few people understand complex issues. Complexity enables them to obfuscate. Obfuscation enables them to quote higher prices and add unnecessary items to solutions. Obfuscation allows them to siphon resources from legitimate courses.
Simplicity is the best solution. Everybody would understand it and there would be no need for cumbersome change management efforts.
Unbelief is the main concern to note with simplicity. Unbelief is not about lacking or having little faith. Unbelief is about refusal to believe even when facts speak for themselves. Overcoming unbelief is not by convincing others, as no amount of convincing would persuade unbelief. Unbelief is a conviction and reflects strong beliefs. The answer to unbelief is not by providing more facts, but changing beliefs. Unbelief is a psychological and not a factual issue.
We should avoid invoking spirituality unnecessarily. Similarly, we should avoid directly engaging people suffering from unbelief.
Simplicity often causes others to suffer from unbelief. The ability of a simplified solution in resolving complex issues causes many to doubt its efficacy. History is littered with many examples of how complex issues were resolved using simple solutions. Do not doubt. Believe. Pursue simplicity relentlessly because it simplifies work that needs to be completed.
Unless perpetrators of corruption are protected by some higher power or have groundswell momentum support, only the thick skinned would still openly remain corrupt even when their corrupt deeds are too obvious for all to see. As for the non thick-skinned, corruption is what starts in the dark and carries on afterwards.
Therefore, encourage openness and sharing of ideas and methods. Acknowledge and encourage contributors.
- Avoid large scale (big bang) implementations
Only Adam and Eve were created as adults. We all go through prenatal, childhood and juvenile stages, through adulthood and ultimately death. Yet on solving some problems, we do not hesitate to embark on big audacious plans.
What is wrong with incremental changes of development? Nothing says we cannot implement changes incrementally and rapidly. Why then do we find it easier to embark on shockingly bigger than ordinary capacity implementations causing so much confusion and disruptions?
Big bang implementations enable bundling of corruption.
Avoid big audacious plan implementations. They are a haven in which corrupt bugs hide. Audacious implementations never have firm deadlines. Deadlines are shifty. Results are promised many years in the future. Nothing of much significance is promised for early delivery. The closer one gets to original deadlines, the more excuses and discoveries are made and given. Those excuses attempt to explain away why those expected results could not be provided. To one’s horror, their supporters are brazen in submitting new requests for additional funding. The motivation for extra funding is often threatening, showing how investments would be threatened should additional required funding not be provided.
Coupled with obfuscation and complexity, authorisation for required additional funds is often rushed. The more funding they receive, the more nothing is delivered. Ultimately there would be overcapitalisation in the project and pulling out would look more scandalous.
The wise and those filled with personal mastery would follow their conviction and stop worthless initiatives.
Accept responsibility for wasting resources. Many prefer to enjoy power and privileges. They would rather flog a dead horse than be found wrong or fooled all along. They would rather ask to be transferred to another area of responsibility leaving their successor to resolve the mess they caused. Such people seldom leave peacefully but are pushed out.
Avoid big plans. Pursue short and incremental improvements. Reward on actuals and not futures. Futures are a promise for returns. Do not excessively reward based on exciting promises of the future. Be a realist and reward more on tangible results realised, while encouraging focus on longer-term investment. This would encourage a balanced portfolio of focus in the organisation.
- Conduct regular independent and unplanned audits and appoint independent observers
Leaving an element of surprise could be one of effective means of combatting corrupt behaviour. We note that surprise audits could encourage the corrupt to improve the sophistication of their approach. These efforts would eliminate many chance takers.
Having regular audits would be pointless if auditors were incompetent in the subject audited. Audit is supposed to be done by seasoned professionals. Yet because it is considered boring, it is made of inexperienced newly hired people.
Those hiring practices erode the strength and integrity of “checks and balance” institutions.
Increase incentives and motivation to attract seasoned professionals to undertake audits, especially of large and prominent projects.
Have audit and other risk officials present in adjudications and authorisation of decisions. Have them as independent observers to note their observations and submit their reports to a higher authority. Let decisions of the adjudication process and the results of independent observations be analysed by a higher body before final authorisation is given.
Do not publicise the list of auditors and independent observers beforehand. Let it be a surprise. Draw independent auditors and observers from a variety of pools not limited internally, but from external sources as well. Auditors and observers are to help ensure the fairness of the process and to make it difficult for cheating to occur.
- Increase accountability through improved governance
No one should have exclusive powers to decide on others without accounting to anyone. Balance power dynamics to avoid domination of one voice over others.
Let there be avenues for disagreements to be lodged, discussed and resolved objectively.
- Avoid unnecessarily keeping a register of potential respondents to a publicised bid request
Even though organisations operating in some economic sectors are a well-defined and well-known group, the list of potential bidders or suppliers should remain confidential. Do not keep a register of bidders expressing an interest to respond to the bid. This, not only creates possibilities for collusive behaviour, but enables internal corruption perpetrators to provide proprietary insights about other bidders to their preferred corrupt collaborators.
If keeping a list cannot be avoided, then keep open and publicise all correspondence to and from the organisation to bidders at least from the bid publication to final day of adjudication.
- Increase accountability
Every wrongdoing should have consequences. Penalties should be uniformly meted out despite the social standing of perpetrators.
The strict discipline adopted by listed companies in enforcing measures to limit insider trading during closed periods should be similarly observed when dealing with important decisions. The discipline should concern decisions having financial impact on the organisation.
For those companies preferring to use the tender system to solicit bids, they should increase vigilance and declare “communication curfews” and impose similar measures used by listed companies. Such efforts should include monitoring affected staff behaviour and communication patterns in the period leading to and after the closed period. People involved in or closer to the adjudication process should be embargoed during that period and their behaviour and activities monitored.
10. Improve your choice of people
Ultimately, corruption is a personal choice issue affecting the decisions and actions taken. The only effective means of controlling anyone’s behaviour is by controlling own behaviour. If we were to all control our behaviour, there would be no need for anyone to monitor any other’s behaviour.
Corruption is ultimately the result of acting out perverted vain or material thoughts in one’s mind. No human being can control thoughts of another. We can all control our thoughts.
Notwithstanding this limitation, it should not imply our failure to combat corruption. Corruption is sophisticated and personal.
We should therefore carefully choose people we associate with. To this end, we should:
- Be more discerning – Truth reveals lies. Corruption thrives on lies and deceit. By pursuing the truth, it would be easier to expose lies and deceit.
- Be ethical and socially active – We should strive to achieve ethical and socially responsible reputation. We should pursue quality and avoid shortcuts. Shortcuts encourage corruption. We should be known for the course we stand for and should not waver in our approach.
- Be principled and factual – We should rely on facts, proven science and written evidence. The corrupt do not like anything written so everything could remain gray. We should avoid weighing decisions heavily on tacit information. Explicit information based on sound age-old proven ideas gives peace of mind. Vulnerabilities are gaps exploited by the corrupt.
- Believe in the vision – There is no point in having a vision if no one believes in it. Vision inspires performance and creates an expectation in the mind of others. Vision focuses thoughts and is the hidden energy encouraging personal mastery when all else seems lost. We should therefore consciously have or define a vision to avoid confusion.
- Have an anchor or something to lean on – We should not have one plan but Plan B also. Disasters, whether natural or man- induced, are inevitable. We should have a plan to counter anomalies. We should not create Plan B only when we are in a crisis. We should have it defined and tested before implementing Plan A.
- Increase and develop skills and knowledge – “Knowledge is power”. We should gain skills to succeed. Notably, no initiative was ever completed without skill. Knowledge and skills are effective weapons to avoid being hoodwinked into making decisions that could later turn out to have been perpetrated by the corrupt. The corrupt rely on either collaboration or naivety to advance their corrupt ways. Naivety is the result of a lack of wisdom. We should therefore increase our wisdom.
Let there be light at the end of the graft tunnel!