There is such an apt expression among our people “godfather to the king and matchmaker to the minister,” which implies that this person has “everything in chocolate” or “sour cream!”, like a cat in the picture. And, regardless of his abilities, talents, hard work, a brilliant career awaits such a person, as in one of my favorite jokes. The topic of “nepotism” is eternal and continues to remain relevant not only within the framework of any organization, but also in realities of the country, and in general - on a global scale. But today I will limit myself to the company and give you such a scientific term as “nepotism”, which means official patronage of relatives and one’s own people, or, simply put, nepotism. What does “nepotism” mean for company leaders? It means: if nepotism flourishes in a company, then this negatively affects the growth and development of the company, makes it less competitive, and worsens the morale in the team. But nepotism is not just the admission of relatives and acquaintances into the company, but precisely their hiring according to acquaintance", "through connections" - without taking into account their business, human qualities, education, etc. If nepotism flourishes in a company, then it can spread greatly, like ripples on the water from a thrown pebble, and will negatively affect the company’s activities and the environment in the team, giving rise to gossip, envy, and a sense of injustice among employees. To avoid nepotism, it is necessary to hire and promote an employee on a competitive basis based on his business and human qualities, and not just because he is someone’s godfather, matchmaker, brother... In our group of companies, when hiring relatives , acquaintances, an additional interview is conducted by one of the top managers to ensure the validity of hiring this candidate. I have already written that at the dawn of the company’s existence, many relatives, friends, acquaintances were hired, but on a competitive basis and taking into account their business and human qualities. While the company was growing and developing, there were no particular difficulties with relatives at work. But since we live with amazing constancy in an era of change, and crises followed one after another, it was necessary, as sales and business declined, and for the survival of the company, to fire a certain part of the employees. And this is where difficulties began to arise. The husband should be fired, since it is quite possible to do without him, and he is not particularly successful, and the wife should be left, since she is in place and generally difficult to replace. What if she gets offended and leaves after her husband? And if he doesn’t leave, he will live in his resentment for a long time, its effectiveness will decrease, but a lot depends on it, and it affects the atmosphere in the team. And here the “personnel balancing act” began, I’ll tell you... We, of course, found solutions, but the sediment remained. I’ll give more examples of the difficulties that arise when relatives work in the company. Close people can be surprisingly blind in relation to each other. I saw that the smartest man who “clicks” people like seeds, perfectly knows how to objectively evaluate them, sincerely considered his wife, a limited, eccentric, capricious woman, to be very smart, modest and a hard worker. And a woman who is smart and successful in her field of activity is point blank I didn’t see how dishonestly and conflictingly the husband she adored showed himself: he was fussily loyal to the top management and at the same time devalued his associates, treated them with disdain and contempt, since his “reference group” is precisely the managers, and not this one.” small fry."And, for example, the wife of a high-ranking man, with whom literally everyone was unhappy and no one wanted to communicate with her because of her arrogance and uncritical attitude towards herself, believed that everything was fine with her, that everyone was finding fault with her , because she is the wife of himself (shhh!) and therefore everyone is afraid of her and everyone envy her. All these situations in one way or another interfered with the work of the company, requiring almost jewelry intervention, from the series “how to walk through a minefield”, analysis , forecasts and planning!