WASTA: Curses and Cures
In this exploration of WASTA, I will do three things:
- Look at the true meaning of this activity that takes its toll on companies around the world.
- Examine the impact that curses have on the human capital of a company.
- suggest some cures that have been successfully implemented in the real world of business.
THE TRUE MEANING
ABUSE is actually an acronym that stands for “Wsick INacceptance of Ssubordination, youyranny and INrelinquishment of personal will.” More directly, it means that when you accept or use WASTA you have given up a part of your personal freedom. Freedom means the ability to say ‘No‘to things that compromise their personal integrity. WASTA also means that you accumulate debts. Nothing comes for free. WASTA is a form of currency that operates in exactly the same way as financial debts. When using someone’s WASTA, you will have to come to terms with the recovery time. Revenge means that you return the favor or lose the ‘friendship’ and ‘support’ of your ‘dear friend’.
The very act of applying for WASTA is an admission of your inadequacy, weakness, or inability to do anything legally. Therefore, the moment you accept it, you have given the offering party WASTA power over you. It’s like taking a rope, tying a noose around your own neck, and then giving the end of the rope to someone else to pull or let go as they please. “Too extreme!” I hear you object. Let me help you visualize a situation.
The business of obstructing other people’s affairs has become an art. Even the most basic services are made to seem incomprehensibly complex, windingly bureaucratic, and endlessly long. Nothing is possible without a ‘middleman’ and generous amounts of ‘fat’ to get you through the quagmire of outdated procedures. This is the ‘power of leverage’ used by those who make a living from WASTA. It is a trap for the innocent, the anxious, the fearful, the incompetent, the greedy, and the guilty. It is your own vulnerability that gives those who offer WASTA power over you and ownership of a part of your soul and your freedom. It’s also what makes investors look elsewhere.
The WASTA topic is vast and complex, and since I am not writing a book, I will limit this discussion to the use of WASTA for business purposes. However, I need to discuss it in the context described above to show why some people or companies may be more susceptible than others.
CURSES: THE IMPACT ON THE HUMAN CAPITAL OF A COMPANY
What if, for one reason or another, your company decides that WASTA is, after all, just a way to play things that way? Also, what if they confuse WASTA with sound marketing strategy and business planning and use WASTA as a coping mechanism? You do me favors, so I do business with you. The result is that your company will be ‘blessed’ with employees with varying degrees of incompetence. These people can be at any level of the company, from doorman to senior manager.
Curse #1: Everyone will know who the WASTA of the new employee is and will immediately be divided into camps, in favor, against and indifferent. This will limit the effectiveness of this person from the start.
Curse #2: Depending on the strength of the new employee’s WASTA, he or she may ignore his or her supervisor’s authority if the supervisor does not have a more powerful WASTA. It gets ugly if the WASTAS are from opposite sides. In general, the result will be a breakdown in the supervisor’s ability to control the team or her department. There will almost certainly be a drop in initiative taking.
Curse #3: Other employees in the same department will notice the new hire’s insubordination and this will lead to questions such as: “What’s the point of working hard or doing a good job if other people can just parachute in and get paid for doing really well?” ?” small?” If the salary of the new person is higher than the existing salaries, beware of significant demotivation and drops in productivity.
Curse #4: Spiteful behavior towards the new employee will develop. This will lead to ‘slowdowns’ and/or ‘blockages’ in the workflow, as colleagues express their unwillingness to cooperate with this person along with an unconscious or conscious desire to make them fail.
Curse #5: If this new person takes a position that one of your most competent employees had your sights on, that person will start updating their CV and look for opportunities outside of your company or outside of the country. When competent people leave, they take valuable knowledge, skills, and customers, both internal and external. The turnover of key personnel results in direct and indirect financial losses for your company.
Curse #6: The ties of loyalty between the employee and the company, if they exist, will be weakened and if they were already weak, they will be broken. Lack of loyalty could mean increased selfish behavior: longer lunch breaks, frequent bathroom visits, increased sick days and general absenteeism, tardiness, gang formation, abuse of property, resources and facilities of the company and even, in extreme cases, theft.
Curse #7: Investment in staff development and training could yield poor returns due to the fact that people develop the belief that progress is not based on ability but on WASTA. The ‘smart’ will benefit from the training, but will use it to move to other companies or look for jobs abroad where they believe they have a fair chance of advancement and advancement based on their skills.
Curse #8: Not being able to attract and retain the most qualified personnel, or losing them to the competition.
Curse #9: Create a work ethic based purely on money. Employees and bosses are sold to the highest bidder. Don’t expect employees to make sacrifices for you if they see that you don’t really care. If you sell them, they will sell you too.
Curse #10: Not building a business on solid foundations. If your business relies on doing favors for key customers to get them to do business with you, where does that put you if you lose the favor or the customer takes their business elsewhere or just has an accident or dies or something?
The net result of a work environment where WASTA is used as a means of employment, promotion, bonus allocation, performance evaluation, selection for overseas training, or other human resource management function is low productivity. You can be sure that the people who will leave first are your most competent staff.
Those who will stay until retirement are not necessarily the most loyal, but the least able to compete in an open job market, that is, those who entered through WASTA or those who know they are no longer employable and are waiting for their severance pay.
The other employees who will stay are those who have their own agenda or are building their own business and are using the company as an insurance policy until they are ready to part ways. Imagine the level of creativity and productivity you’ll get from such a workforce, and ask yourself if using WASTA is really such a smart investment for your business. Instead of getting one or two contracts, you’ll lose millions of hours in productivity and who knows how many in direct and indirect theft of resources.
Your business must be built on solid foundations. Companies created to offer enduring products and services that customers need and want. I don’t think any of the companies that have built superior reputations and brand names have to do favors by employing incompetent staff in order to do business. It’s the other way around.
CURES
Cures are difficult in cultures steeped in the WASTA mentality since time immemorial, but not impossible. There are short-term and long-term cures, and both must be addressed if we are to build strong businesses.
The short term
Cure #1: Clean up your act, past and present. “People who live in greenhouses can’t throw stones.” Make sure you are legally and morally covered on all fronts. It gives you incredible power and self-confidence when facing the opposition.
Cure #2: Continuously work on developing your personal skills and competencies, as well as those of your workforce. That way, you’ll retain the good people, and you’ll be able to pick from the best when you need new talent, as your business will have a reputation for excellence. This will make it difficult for people to approach you with a WASTA for a loser.
Cure #3: Avoid getting into debt with people who will later have power over you by improperly asking to return the favor.
Cure #4: Say ‘No’ by saying ‘Yes’. Have clear job specifications for all positions and jobs in your company so that when asked for a WASTA, you can say, “I’d be happy to oblige if you have someone who meets these specifications.” Even better, be proactive and approach WASTA owners by giving them first choice to provide the profile you need.
Cure #5: Use professional recruitment techniques in all phases of recruitment and selection to avoid exposing your company to unnecessary hassles. These services can be developed within your own company or outsourced.
Cure #6: Make it clear that if you hire someone who has a WASTA, they will have to meet the company’s requirements just like anyone else. Make sure you have a rigorous trial, training, and testing period before new hires are confirmed in their positions.
Cure #7: Make sure your internal systems are set up so that opportunities for abuse are limited. Appraisals, bonuses, salary scales, promotions, etc. all are subject to abuse. These need to be redesigned to be transparent and based on measurable indicators. If the effect of behavior or performance cannot be measured, then it is not having an impact on your business and should not be used as reward or compensation.
Cure #8: Outsource services you don’t want in-house staff involved in, so that no group gains power over other groups by holding inside information. Ensure the neutrality, objectivity and reliability of the external party.
Cure #9: Use modern market and consumer research to understand what customers need and want and build your business on a solid foundation. Make sure you have the right people to implement the plan. Put them in the right places and develop and keep these people by using proven business practices that have helped companies grow around the world.
Cure #10: Forget the idea that your area of the world is a place where you can’t do business like in other parts of the world! If that were true, why is it the dream of almost every young man and woman to get out of their current situation and go where they can be appreciated and valued for their achievements?
Long-term cures are not the subject of this article, but I am sure they will present great challenges to the Ministries of Education, Administrative Reform/Development, Social Affairs and many others around the world who actually have serious public awareness campaigns and education to be addressed. . I wish we could emerge from the days of yore and enter the new century.