Bribery In Business- How Do You Handle It?
The following note came through from one of my coaching clients: “[school district name] deal: We’re starting to get traction there and it looks like they have over $1 million to spend with us. We’re on the
good side of the fed programs director and the superintendent and we’re now calling on the Principals to see where they are and to begin building relations with them as the next step in closing the deal.
“However, we’ve struck an issue: the program’s (female) Director seems to be asking for a bribe. I’ve had the question “Don’t you folks do something special for the people who help you get all this business like I’m doing?” and our Account Manager on this deal has been asked to accompany her on a TV shopping expedition “to give her the benefit of his vast knowledge of TVs”. Our Account Manager refused to play the game other than to help her to identify a good TV (he’s notreally an expert!) and he received some push-back from the Director.
“How do I and my team handle this type of situation effectively, and yet remain competitive against rivals who may be prepared to ‘buy the business’?”
Handling Bribery
For Evil to triumph requires only that good men do nothing.
Since this was a Coaching Client, my response took the following form:
First, I’d be inclined to research some recent local bribery scandals hitting the press slip to gain some perspective on the issue and some evidence for the following conversations (I had done a quick Google check and there were a number in my client’s State, one of which very appropriately read, “Prosecutors claim a greedy, power-drunk Mayor [name withheld, ed.] accepted bribes totalling some $235,000 – a chunk of it for upscale clothes and jewellery – while serving as president of the County Commission before he was elected mayor.”
Second, I’d consider my strategy. I would not want to accuse her (the Director) of asking for bribes (“I did NOT ask for a TV!” – hmmm, sounds a bit like “I did not have sex with that woman!“, but that’s another story). I would be raising the topic in passing conversation with her:
“Say, are you guys coming under the same pressure as some of my other government clients? You know, I went for coffee the other day with one of my long-term school officials and she insisted that SHE had to buy her own coffee – that’s how crazy it’s gotten with scrutiny over issues of bribery. A cup of coffee for Lord’s sake!! Though after I was reading the other day what one of our DA’s was saying about targeting business bribery of officials by . . .
Here, We Make Handling Bribery into a System
I’ve given my team new guidelines that they are to:
- avoid even the appearance of anything that could be interpreted as ‘gifts’ that would influence matters in our favour;
- decline such requests politely and clearly with “[name], forgive me but we avoid anything that would have the appearance of a bribe or enticement to the eyes of a cynical third party”
- record on our system the time, date and identify for any approach that they interpret as “an inappropriate request for consideration”
- notify me if they lose a deal subsequent to a request so that we can notify the authorities of the possibility of one of our competitors having paid a bribe
“Showing appropriate appreciation for the business that our clients provide has become a very fine line for us, and given that jail is on the wrong side of that line, I’d rather avoid the issue altogether.
“Anyway, the best favours we can do are what we’ve always done – provide the best equipment we can at a competitive price and then ice the cake with the best training and service they’ve ever had.”
Bribery only works in the dark. Call it and you kill it.
At ProfiTune, one of our key functions in working with our executive clients is to act as counsel and a sounding board. Essentially, we’re create the circumstances in which they are able to guide them to make better decisions, quicker and with a higher degree of certainty than would otherwise be the case.
