Dear Editor,
On reflection it appears that my letter to Stabroek News of November 4 needed some expansion of the organisation management principles to which it referred (‘Some important lessons for the delegation of authority and matching responsibility and accountability’).
The reason is that the process of decision-making and consequent imposition of disciplinary action in the specific cases mentioned therein, needed to be seen within a context, so as to be properly interpreted whether in either scenario the model implemented was one which students, managers, and human resources practitioners in particular, should emulate in the future.
The first principle to be observed is that of delegation of responsibility within an agreed structure and system of reporting. There is no debate that the effective discharge of responsibility must be assured by the relevant authority to do so, as in the publicised claim of the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security (MLHSSS), in relation to the approved ‘protocols.’
Whether or not the exercise is routine, or the incident exceptional, managers normally expect the responsible head of the related operational unit to report appropriately. It has always been a legitimate conclusion that the manager or supervisor must accept responsibility for the performance, successful or otherwise, of immediate subordinates, except in the case of some major aberration in the system.
Given the national attention paid to the Neesa Gopaul case under discussion, justice would require that basic transparency be observed, through exposure of the investigative report which determined the final action by the ministry, and which also would have explained the exculpation of the supervisory personnel of the particular service from a modicum of blame (at least in public).
Moving on to other published reports, it would appear that the health sector’s image of competence may have suffered the loss of some credibility, as a result a series of published operational ‘failures’ of its delivery services.
At least one of these recent ‘failures’ took place at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, so called because it is a registered corporate entity under the Corporations Act. It should logically therefore be expected that the reported admission of ‘failure’ by the Minister of Health, would instead have been forthcoming from the CEO of the corporation. Rather, there has been a deafening silence, about which the Managing Board has neither been heard to complain, nor to appropriately request an investigation with a view to assessing accountability, if not culpability.
There is certainly a case for enquiring why no related declaration has been made. Not to be overlooked is the implication that this lacuna can be interpreted by the disaffected, that more than individual incompetence, there exists a broken system.
Perhaps, just perhaps, this perception may have been bolstered by the once more curious admission on TV that errant health personnel are disciplined ‘quietly.’
But the following addendum relates to our first scenario (MLHSSS) from which a fall-out of disciplinary action has extended to the teaching service at Queen’s College.
Here again one sees the puzzlingly distorted perception of accountability that most remarkably excludes the management of the institution, including the principal. Again one must insist on enquiring of the operative reporting arrangements which allow ‘teachers’ to bypass the ‘head’ and communicate direct with another agency.
Such an unauthorized bypass ended up being fatal to the initiators for their act of virtual ‘insubordination.’ That this breach of protocol, however, appeared to have been accepted by the MLHSSS in the first instance, and not brought to the active attention of the Principal of Queen’s College, also gives pause for concern about the observance of the relevant communication ‘protocols’ at ministry level.
So that the justification for the penal fall-out on the ‘erring’ teachers deserves a pellucid explanation from an agency which manages a system in which (if only occasionally) must be taught the principles of integrity, honesty and, most currently, transparency; and which interestingly enough, is headed by a former management academic.
Since the thrust of this recital is to identify and emphasise some aspects of good management which should normally obtain in a society which subscribes to a range of acceptable standards of global performance, it can do no harm but reflect on the legitimacy of certain actions taken in the enactment of the scenarios referred to above, eg:
a) the termination of employment of a person who has (albeit pre-emptively) resigned;
b) the termination of employment of a bona fide public servant by an agency other than the Public Service Commission; and
c) the movement (laterally or vertically) of teachers, to the exclusion of the involvement of the Teaching Service Commission.
That there are so many contradictions in the foregoing recital is perhaps one justification for inviting the attention of both management students and mature practitioners to reflect on how to behave in similar circumstances.
In the ultimate analysis one ponders the efficacy of the philosophy of ‘mutual accountability’ between managers and managed espoused by Lalith Seth of HPL Ltd, which was extolled in my letter published by Stabroek News on October 29, 2010.
Hopefully, our former management guru would advise the ministers concerned on the sustainable advantages of the consistency of principle over the selectiveness of expediency.
Yours faithfully,
E B John