The Titanic trap

Since times immemorial the saga of the battle between nepotism and talent has remained in vogue, and the battle lines still continue to be drawn… and will most likely continue in the future. Perhaps it is an inbuilt and intrinsic aspect of human nature to favour the people who share common interests, as divergent as they can be and as converging as they can be.

With the progressive cultivation of human traits that provide for examining things and people on a dispassionate basis, the element of partisanship is now viewed by almost every single society, across cultures, as a negative aspect. The west has progressed much faster in this area than the developing world. The reason for this is obvious. It is primarily by education that the human mind achieves emancipation from feelings of prejudice or bias; and to the contrary the development of independent point of view without fear or favour begins to take precedence. Decisions are made purely on the basis of merit; no other surrounding circumstances or alliances are given any consideration.

Nepotism can be subdued or pronounced. In societies of say Far East or those across the Atlantic also have remnants of having practiced nepotism, and even today, particularly in smaller corporate joints, it is found to exist on a limited degree. Nepotism emerges from both negative and positive reasons; it is negative when there is deep seated bias against societal values or it could be positive when the intent is to find similarity of thought and values. Nepotism manifests itself through like and dislike that is based on linguistic, parochial basis, and in worst situations, it could be due to prejudice or positive bias based on sect, nationality, colour and creed. Regardless of its format, nepotism is ugly.

Being an avid and keen reader of the classified section of newspaper dailies, I recall seeing an advertisement calling for appointment of Director – Human Resources, with a caption that read in bold, ‘equal opportunity employer’; and as a twist to this caption in the fine text on the advertisement, it said , ‘ preference will be given to those who have worked for…” (the company was actually named!) The slogan of equality was ruthlessly hung on the platform of injustice. Nepotism and talent cross each other’s path especially in relation to seeking employment or in situations where an individual is to be promoted and charged with new, higher and challenging responsibilities. In my decades of experience of having sat through various interview boards, I could sense nepotism at play either due to the negative thought process of co members on the panel and in some situations nepotism was actually provoked and sought by the candidate. In such situations the bias is visible and is made to be perceived to the advantage of the similarities of varied aspects between the interview board and the interviewee.

In my later professional life when I was heading the interview panels, I would humorously narrate to my co-panelists my joke that I had titled as the ‘Titanic Trap’ — the imaginary story follows that at a university there was a position of assistant professor in the department of economics. The head of the chemistry department was extremely friendly with the head of the economics department; the son of the former had passed out with a master’s from the department of physics and was on the look out for a job. The head of the chemistry department requested that his son be hired as an assistant professor to teach economics! The recipient of this request obliged, but said the candidate has to pass through the process of interviews. Since agreement was reached the remaining interviewees were punished to a rigorous drill of having to answer questions from the panel whose task at hand was to reject the ‘talented and worthy’ in favour of the ‘unworthy and the unskilled’. The rejection process started by a panellist firing the first question to the first candidate , ‘what do you know about the Titanic?’ The candidate replied that it was the largest passenger liner that was sunk by hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. The answer was correct. So the next question fired was who was the captain of the ship?’ The candidate could not answer. Hence rejected. The following candidate gave the name of the captain. and so to reject him a panellist asked what was the gender distribution of those who sank, the number of males and females and the children. The candidate could not respond — rejected. The third candidate went through the drill and answered the questions thoroughly including the gender diversity and the number of children that were on board. The panel was baffled on how to reject him; a wise acre panellist came up with the most brilliant question, staring at the candidate and looking deeply into his eyes, admonishingly, said to him, I hope you know the names and addresses of those people who perished? The candidate stood sunk. rejected. The reason assigned on the files was the candidate could not answer the most important question about the passengers names and addresses, who perished. After narrating this self made anecdote I would ask my co-panellist if there is any one of you today, going to play the ‘titanic trap’. This observation I used to make to prevent any attempt to allow talent to be subdued by nepotism. The cultivation of one’s self is fundamental to the proper leadership of others.

The other format and a common one is institutional nepotism. This relates to giving preference to people who would have studied from specific schools, colleges or universities. I also refer to this type of nepotism as alumni bias/preference. Today, in our system there exists this type of nepotism in plenty. A close cousin to institutionalised nepotism is ‘corporate nepotism’ that emerges when the hiring process is inflicted to seek candidates for induction from a single or a multiple predefined institutions. Both these types are a reflection of the English adage birds of a feather flock together. All this is done at the cost of talent. Most often, talent is de-robbed by nepotism.

‘There is hardly anybody good for everything , and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing’ (Lord Chesterfield). A forte makes a foible (Emerson). The placement of a sundial in a shade or a canopy defeats the purpose of its existence; and that’s exactly what nepotism does to talent, it hides and masks skills and abilities of others. ‘Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius’ (Sir Arthur Connon Doyle). However it is also true that talent, and excessive talent particularly can be found on the fringes of lunacy. There must exist an embarrassing distance between talent and age; the latter should always remain subservient to the former. Genius is power, talent is applicability.

Talent must be put to use , its mere presence is not sufficient. Talent must be distributed and disseminated. Any individual or organisation that indulges in hoarding of talent, will with time, decay and wither. Knowledge, skills and abilities lend credence to talent. Intelligent leaders/managers know well that it is skill and not strength that must be present as a predominant trait to navigate a vessel.

In societies where talent is crucified at the altar of nepotism and favouritism the possibility of losing the skill and talent only grows manifold. This phenomenon is referred to as “ Brain Drain”. A sample of this is the fact that only last year we had more than half a million professionals and skilled individuals who left the country for greener pastures for two reasons; the first being lack of employability and second the loathsome presence of nepotism in the system. A wide spread and wholesome environment of nepotism will ultimately and inevitably lead to massive incompetence. Meritocracy must gain an upper hand over all sentiments that are inspired by either a preference or disinclination.

The writer is a freelance columnist