Bonjour Bonjour Avalanche (Wk #04)

Hmm, seems like deadlines ought to be instituted and made sacrosanct for my blog posts. Going forward, 12 midnight Sunday it is!

@Random

'The progress of the nation at the perils of its politicians. And it's unfortunate that most of them are corrupt, dishonest, incapable & selfish' - the easy way Indians pass the bucks for any problem. Not to deny that, I thought 'Chuck the politicians, what's wrong with our Government officers?' - To that end, this post is dedicated to some thoughts on Public Service (PS)

Have you ever seen people preparing for IAS? The hard work, the commitment, the intelligence! They are some of the best brains in India. Not just IAS, but the officers working in departments such as Education, Infrastructure & City management, People welfare, Finance, Economic Development etc. If PS is not working well, there is something wrong in the system. I tried drawing the parallel with private organizations. The overarching root cause I felt for the problem is that Indian Government as a HR organization is failing miserably (I know you would complain that HR in your pvt organization is inefficient & dumb as well! But after working in a public service for a week, you would say your current HR is far more efficient and beautiful!). To get to the specifics:  

1. Poor Leadership

In public service (PS), if a leader is honest, predominantly his subordinates tend to be honest as well. So, there is this great china wall between honest and dishonest crowd in PS. Then there is capable vs incapable category. It doesn't take an IAS officer to come up with the following 2x2 matrix. 

(I know some people will have reservations reg. the choice of animals with claims such as the mosquitoes at their home is very intelligent and very very honest. Ok, assume a dishonest mosquito which doesn't repay for the blood it sucks and a creature incapable to escape even the blow of a hand or the one rupee coil. And for the animal activists, the post is not to demean any animal - I love / fear a mosquito as much as a lion - Both bite and suck your blood! Oh, enough of justification, let me get to the post!)

So, when the head of the department is a lion, the entire department behaves like lions. Some people hate to be led by lions or cows, as these animals expect their subordinates to be kempt as well. 

Ideally we want the PS to be an Utopian world full of lions - Neither the lord Brahmma who is touted as the creator nor the Indian Govt HR which recruited them made it possible. So, we need to be put up with other animals as well. 

One might think fox is the most dangerous of all, but contradictory to popular belief, it's the mosquito! A fox takes his share, but gets the job done partly. Irrespective of his cunning behavior, he has some stuff which makes progress possible. The cow wants to keep its hand clean oblivious of getting things done - could lead to possible exploitation of public resources. So, foxes could turn out to be better than cows. Actually, mosquitoes are differently capable - capable of making negative-development with all the public resources. So, the primary objective should be to get rid of them. As my consultant friend says, you can either kill them or move them from quadrant one to another. Morphing a mosquito to a lion may not be possible overnight. But moving them towards lion via fox or cow is not impossible.

2. Recruitment & Training Process is weak

Inefficiency, favoritism, unfairness, bribery and reservation are widespread in PS recruitment process. Yes, there are some reliable and rigorous selection process such as IAS / IPS. But the cadre below it have issues. The entire process need to be revamped. How about forming a forum / regulatory agency / industry body like SEBI, TRAI, CII to take care of the recruitment and training process in a fair and transparent manner.

Unused brain or bicycle, both will start rusting - need to be used and overhauled periodically. So,we need to make their jobs interesting, engaging and periodically provide training 

3. Lack of Performance Management

Oh, this is the most important reason for the very poor performance of PS. If my age matters more than the results I produced, I will snore at my office chair the whole day gulping the aging tablets. There needs to be handsome rewards for excellent performance. The PMS should separate the weed from the pulse. There should be pressure on the under-performers. There should be severe punishment for preaching the code of conduct. The HR department should act like the watchdog with which the mosquitoes and foxes dare to survive. I know what you are asking - how can this PMS be without politics and bureaucracy - we can't uproot them even in private organizations easily - Yes, it's going to be difficult, but instituting a PMS is lesser of the evils compared to not having it.

To summarize, our PS officers are not born mosquitoes, but more because of the systems and processes, which when revamped can go a long way in ensuring the next generation of growth for India.

@Regular

The dance in the beat Prabhudeva

The beat in song is DSP

The girl in the groove Nayanthara

And to rock the floor Ilayathalapathy

Feel like dancing? I felt so when I watched the tamil movie Villu. But my Mom felt like sleeping. In night shows of action movies, she sleeps happily in the last 1 hour. But Villu was far more efficient in making her sleep in the first half itself. While returning from the movie, I asked 'Ma, do you remember what happened in the movie?' To my surprise, she told me the entire story. I asked 'I saw you sleeping. But how?' She replied with her usual smile, 'I was awake for the last 10 mins. The villain gives the executive summary of the movie!' I continued 'The movie was so noisy, how did you manage to sleep?' She replied 'The movie is no different from others - 5 sequences of dance followed by fight followed by heroic dialogues. It feels more heavenly to sleep than being awake in the hell' Oh, too much to tell these to a Ilayathalapathy fan! I quite liked the dance sequences. Vijay's foot never seemed to be in ground - be it dance or fight sequences. A 100% vijay movie. Give it a miss if you ever hated him or his movies.

Got to visit City of Sentamizh and God's own country. Hey Kerela, you always mesmerize me with your lush forests, winding roads, cool backwaters and the beautiful women. Kochin was no different. Quite an interesting place! Got to see a different marine drive.

Oh, how can I miss telling about the book I read - The Great Indian Novel - Shashi Tharoor's intellingent and funny blind of Mahabharata with modern Indian history. Absolutely brilliant! Not that it's a page turner (esp. for people who hated 'social science' subject in school days), but was quite exciting, humorous and thoughtful. A definitely recommended reading! Now curious to read the original version of Mahabharata by Rajaji. Also, picked up the novel 'Critical' by Robin Cook.