Dear Editor,
From casual observers to serious analysts recent months have provided lessons in the deconstruction of some organisations; the reconstruction of others; then again the creation of semblances of organization ‒ and possibly beyond.
In the process of all the aforementioned there has been heavy traffic of varying ranks and status of employees, including the new and untried. The more contemplative witnesses to this hustle and bustle are left to ponder on, indeed wonder about, the impact of planned and unplanned changes, in some cases involving beginners replacing those with (too) long (of the wrong) experience.
Hopefully there will be positive lessons to be learnt quickly from the inevitably unavoidable misjudgments. The latter come with the best of turf anyhow.
But with the best will in the world some of the scenarios exposed defy predictability, thus forcing a rush (if not rash) of decisions on the under-prepared decision-makers, and on others whose experience bore little or no relevance to the challenge.
However, because these interchanges have attracted wide publicity there may be a general impression that the various types of organisational malfunctions are not typical in our society. Unfortunately that perception can be as easily disabused by those paying closer attention to institutional best practices, about which perhaps older generations in the society can legitimately boast. But there would also be scores who would have been formally trained, in addition to being developed in organisations guided by their respective visions and driven by their missions.
While such organisations do exist in the public sector, they are probably counterbalanced by too many exceptions in the private sector, where disappointingly it could be difficult to locate a formal organisation structure that would suggest even a modicum of a succession plan.
One reason perhaps for the latter faultline is the culture of ‘power’ relationships that has been spawned over more than the last two decades. Truth be told it became embedded with the nationalisation of different types of production and service agencies.
Its exacerbation, however, grew during an extended period of political patronage to which the current under-30 year generation at least has been exposed, and probably succumbed. ‘Might’ was not only right, it equated with ‘wisdom’. One is tempted to suggest that commonsense became the rarest sense of all. It all boiled down to a matter of individual interest – a consideration which increasingly influenced relationships, behaviour, discipline (or otherwise), pay, promotion, indeed recruitment and a range of other employment issues.
Merit, integrity, ethics, even the right qualifications could be overlooked in the matter of senior appointments, glaringly in the public service, for example – interestingly enough starting with the latest head of the public service commission.
This incumbent wearing another ‘power’ hat is alleged in the media not only to have served himself with cheques, but more so of colluding with another powerhouse official to lightly transfer millions from their company to a private bank account, with a clear conscience.
Such misbehaviour, in tandem with several similarly exposed scenarios, is what has come to be portrayed as the leadership model to young employees who aspire to rise to the top of organisation’s hierarchy. Meanwhile the more indifferent are barely sensitive to the disgraceful image projected to foreign observers and moreso the very investors they claim they wish to attract.
Little do they understand the critical ingredient of trust. In his book titled The Speed of Trust, Stephen Covey has this to say: “Whether it is high or low, trust is the ‘hidden morale’ in the formula for organisational success. The traditional business formula says that strategy times execution equals results. But there is a hidden variable to this formula: trust – either the low-trust tax which discounts the outputs, or the high trust dividend which multiplies it. You could have good strategy and good execution but still get derailed by low trust. Or high trust can serve as a performance multiplier, creating synergy where the whole is more than the sum.”
But fairly wide experience across the local public sector spectrum suggests close to minimal acquaintance, with, much more interest, in management literature amongst leaders. That is left to the underlings. So the former are by no means an inspiration to those with whom they relate in the private sector.
The tragedy is that public sector governance behaviours wield such an overbearing influence on the business and social environment, that too many have assumed they must mimic the perceived management styles to succeed. But as my grandmother used to say ‘moon does run till day catch um’.
What the recent changes have exposed in some quarters, therefore, is the level of pollution in various management systems. Again the Guyana Power and Light comes to mind, when one is directed to unpalatable physical encounters between senior managers, albeit in the inexplicable presence of police ranks – the latter being a further image of ineptitude. As little information as one may have of this brouhaha, it speaks eloquently to how poisoned personal relationships can become in the absence of recognised and respected systems and procedures – a matter that does not appear to have registered on the relevant oversight authorities who (according to the media) would have appeared to overlook the miscreant display by one of the aggressor managers, sending the message to the rest of the organisation that the latter’s indiscipline was in fact permissible.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
