Corruption ?

 once visited a friend of mine for an evening of music, drinks and food. As he poured me a mug of my favourite poison, beer, he requested his ten year old son to join in and asked him what he would like—beer,whisky or rum. I was taken aback—how could a fond father actually invite his minor son for a drink when almost all other friends of mine hid their alcohol habits from even their wives?

Looking at my perplexed expression, my friend paused a while to clarify the situation. “You see I am convinced that the more I hide my bottles of alcohol from my son, the more curious he will become and will surely imbibe the drink surreptitiously in my absence. I decided that the best way to avoid this is to offer him a drink whenever I drank. He tasted whisky once and found it disgusting. I am now sure he will not drink even when offered.”

The CEO of a large company asked me to meet with his HR manager to discuss the possibility of conducting workshops on Lateral Thinking for his colleagues. I sought an appointment with the HR manager only to find the man was not interested in meeting me. I suspected that he did not like the idea of being told whom to meet.

A short time later, I sat opposite the man who leaned against his large desk looking cynically at me.
“So you think you are a latter day Einstein?”
“Sir I am far…..” I began saying but was interrupted rudely.
“I have seen many trainers who think they can transform this company. But they are only after money,” he argued.
“But I never even….”
“I believe we are creative enough and do not need….” His voice trailed off as the intercom rang. He barked some instructions to his secretary and then turned to me.
“See we are a very innovative company and do not need anyone to tell us how to think innovatively,” he said in an authoritative tone.
“Sir please listen to me….” Again I was interrupted mid- sentence.
“I think you are wasting my time,” he stated with an air of finality.
I got up. Before shaking hands I told him, “I hope at least now, when I am about to leave you, I will be permitted to say at least one sentence.”
“Of course go ahead. Why do you stand? Please sit down.”
I obliged and continued the exchange, “I have no doubt that your company is innovative and has won some awards for innovation. I am convinced that you do not need my services AT ALL! On the contrary I would learn from your lateral thinking colleagues. I hope that will happen some day.”
So saying I again stood up and stretched my hands towards him.
“Oh come on. Nobody can claim to have learnt all there is to any subject. We can learn from you. You have a formidable reputation,” said the man looking amiable for the first time. His defences were finally down.

I would go on to conduct a dozen workshops for that company and the HR manager is now one of my close friends!

These are two examples of counterintuitive thinking in which we ask ourselves what is the last thing that one can think of or do in a tight situation? One goes against the grain as it were.

The State of Tamilnadu was rocked by a series of shocking incidents of people imbibing ‘hooch’ and either dying or being blinded. The concoction served by bootleggers, was contaminated by acids and ethyl alcohol that were almost always lethal. The obvious ’solution’ to this crisis that might come to most of us is to ban hooch, clamp down on bootleggers, swoop down on known sales outlets, and arrest the bootleggers. This not only did not solve the problem but made the trade even more secretive. The drink was now made under even more unhygienic conditions with even more cheap and lethal ingredients (including lizards and rats) which led to even more tragedies.

Surely this called for counterintuitive thinking. The government decided to open dozens of stores where good quality liquor would be available at a fair price. The underground market almost totally ceased to operate.

We all talk of corruption in India but few have offered concrete suggestions to reduce or eliminate it. The Right to Information Act is one step in the right direction. Here is a counterintuitive suggestion:

How about legalising corruption?

Let me give you an example based on a system that is in operation in a country even more corrupt than India. Let’s say that you need a fresh passport urgently since you have an opportunity to travel abroad. The Passport office has a reputation for corruption. Now a new scheme is introduced. Those who need a passport urgently—in a week for example—will have to pay 15% extra service charge; those who can wait till four weeks will pay only half that amount. No service charges will apply for delivery after four weeks.The collections will be distributed among the staff— as happens in a restaurant where the ‘tips’ are shared among all the staff.

In effect this scheme legitimizes what you would have been paying under the table, much like the tipping the waiter at a hotel. I believe most people may not mind paying additional amounts officially as against being extorted.

Witness that way in which people in Chennai do not mind paying a given amount of money to a ‘call taxi’ service where you pay as per the meter. The same people hate paying the same amount for the same journey to an auto rickshaw guy who actually is seen as an ‘extortionist’ since he ‘demands’ more than is considered legitimate. The call taxi amount is deemed legitimate .

The drug menace is one of the many evils of life in many countries including the US. Not many may be aware that terrorists obtain colossal sums of money by selling drugs based on crops that grow in Afghanistan. In effect any American who consumes drugs is financing the acquisition of armaments that are used in acts of terrorism. Drugs are banned but the ban is ineffective and has the unintended effect of making the trade even more secretive and lucrative. Some countries have attempted to implement a counterintuitive solution—Canada for example has made marijuana available legally!

My first encounter with this form of thinking was when I was a fourth standard student in a Mumbai school. I was an enfant terrible and my mischief was the despair of all my teachers, not to speak my classmates some of whom changed to another school just to avoid me. One day, a new teacher joined my class and looking back I could see how she used counterintuitive thinking. With much fanfare, she actually appointed me the class monitor!