Picture this: You are a Manager in Mom and Dads business.
Through the course of the year your employees present, say, training on various products to your company. These training courses all form part of a competition for a mega year end bonus to the persons who score the most points.
Running parallel to this competition there are monthly competitions to see who can complete certain tasks better than others. All employees and managers (family members) take part and compete against each other.
You get the drift here? We have a situation where employees are tested whilst managers and employees compete on equal footing for huge bonuses.
Let’s put it another way: This is a lot like having school teachers compete against pupils for a year end bonus – NOT like Rassie Erasmus going head to head with Eben Etzebeth, though.
Now this would be fair if there was no hint of cheating or unfairness and if the family members did not consistently win the overseas trips and fat cash bonuses. But, you would be wrong in thinking that everything in life is fair.
I cannot help but thinking if this is a chicken and the egg story:
- Was the nepotism there in business before politics?
- Who taught who how to cheat the system?
- What came first Business Nepotism or Political Nepotism?
- Which one needs the greater focus on to correct?
The real danger in this situation is the systemic abuse that these actions bring to the business environment that is eventually taken for abnormality
Who will be the one to break the cycle – just like violence begets violence so too does the tacit acceptance of nepotism beget even more nepotism.
