Leading, Managing or Micromanaging Government? 18 August 2020

 

Leading, Managing or Micromanaging Government?

Lionel Bopage

The new Rajapaksa regime has sworn in twenty-six cabinet ministers and thirty-nine state ministers. Ridiculous as it sounds some in the SLPP camp is already talking about expanding the total ministry! As all those who supported them during the elections perhaps did not get positions and perks they wished for. As experienced several times before, this self-seeking behaviour makes democracy a mockery, by making Parliament an enterprise run for maximising ‘profits’ for a few privileged and formidable. Privately owned enterprises in any country are established for earning a reasonable profit for shareholders through their business operations while satisfying the needs of customers. Some enterprises run their operations ‘Nor for Profit’. A country like an enterprise needs to be run effectively and efficiently. At the same time, holistically speaking, the country needs to be run Not for Profit, not for the benefit a few but for all its citizenry. Otherwise, the nation will be run haphazardly according to the whims and fancies of a single leader, a family, or a clan.

Unlike how previous regime allocated responsibilities to their ministry, the new government did not only swear the ministry in, but they also allocated them specific tasks, work responsibilities and time-frames. During the last regime, some ministers were complaining that the government did not allocate their ministries sufficient material and human resources to conduct their duties effectively. The top-down approach of managing has slightly changed with the President deciding who the taskforces, chairpersons and boards are that would run the state. This time, ministers cannot complain that they cannot deliver goods, because the regime appears to have allocated the necessary material and human resources to kick start ministries. After several decades of anarchic and purposeless behaviour in allocating human and material resources, this is seen a novel experience. Yet would this be sufficient to achieve, not holistically, but even piecemeal improvement in the work ethic of the new ministry.

When I studied for my Management Services Diploma (gratitude to Mr Anver Dole, Emeritus President, Institute of Management of Sri Lanka), I became familiar with the fundamental issue of management, which involves subjecting a system to methodical and critical scrutiny through a structured, questioning process, a systems analysis by applying the methodology of critical examination. This helps identify weaker points of the overall system that need improving. This provides opportunities for making changes beneficial for the system as a whole, not to a faction of it. By making the system more effective and efficient, such examination allows for improving productivity. This process underpins what is called “Change for the Better” or ‘Kaizen’ in Japanese business philosophy, or ‘Continuous Improvement’ in management jargon.

Many may perceive this as effective leadership. Is it so? Of course, effective leadership is necessary, but the art of leadership is not the same as managing and is totally different to micro-managing. The boundary between an actual leader and a micromanager can be slender but it is easily identifiable in the detail-orientation and fanaticism of those who are driving the machine from the top. Are they overtly controlling, or are they aptly constructive? In an organisation people can easily recognize the difference. Unfortunately, those at the top of a hierarchy rarely perceive such a difference. That is why in many enterprises’ employees perceive they are being micromanaged. Those at the top are mostly not aware that their employees change ship or leave jobs because they perceive that they are being micromanaged.

This is also clearly visible from the fact that many of the sixty-five or, so ministers have not been allocated broad-brush ministries, rather they have been allocated ministries fragmented to the micro-level. Some of the ministries seem to be fragmented to such an extent that they need to establish coordinating mechanisms to align their ministerial intents together. Perhaps, the best example would be power and energy. Would this increase the bureaucratic layers people need to surmount and further official red-tape which will slow down the efficiency and effectiveness further? On the other hand, considering from a futuristic point of view, would the current ministry serve the purpose of making use of the opportunities made available by the achievements of the fourth industrial revolution?

Would the fragmented nature of the ministry meet the needs of the country as a whole when faced with the challenges that need to be overcome, such as adopting STEMA in the field of education? One could see the danger posed by the government neglect, the insignificance offered to e-business and the digital world. On the other hand, the drop in traditional sources of national income the regimes have so far relied upon such as export of domestic labour to the Middle East, import of many tourists with purchasing power. Can those gains offset the expenditure that needs to be made in light of threats posed by fundamentalism and the power play by the world powers in the region? In addition, the unsurmountable inefficiencies imbued into the machinery of government both at the central and provincial level will bring up severe challenges that need to be overcome by critically examining the socio-economic system we have inherited from the past.

The top priority of the Rajapaksa regime appears to be adopting a new constitution. The talk about the political stability established by the new regime will depend upon what the regime wishes to achieve by changing the constitution. If they wish to achieve much more concentrated power in the hands of a family or a clan, it may be seen as stable in the short term but in the long term it will lead to much instability. Such concentration or centralisation of power have not led to political stability. Historical global experience has provided us with a multitude of examples in this regard.

When power and profits become the priority at the expense of humanity, it has not only created political instability but also devastation of societies.

18 August 2020