Wandering Into Wisdom

This blog chronicles the knowledge, insight and wisdom I encounter every day as a leadership consultant, executive coach, educator, father, friend and citizen. This site is dedicated to my father, Louis (Jack) Laughlin, who passed on to me an appreciation for wisdom. A special thanks to my friend Isaac Cheifetz, a businessman and journalist, who helped me understand the value of blogs and encouraged me to write one.

The Face of Corruption*

During the adoption of his daughter in Mexico City the attorney of someone I know paid the clerk to get official copies of the documents they needed. He was incensed when it took almost two weeks to get the copies because he assumed they had paid a bribe to speed up the process. It turns out that the five dollars per document they paid was not to speed up the process but to avoid the fifty dollar per copy fee charged by the court. A friend of mine living in Switzerland was upset that the Swiss DMV clerk would not take a bribe so she could skip the driver’s test. She didn’t hate the corruption back home, she actually missed it. Bribery of government officials in China is common but the Chinese FDA Minister was executed this summer for taking them. Corruption, and the reaction to it, is not as straight forward as one might think.