Discretion and Preference Discretion and Preference

In Uttrakhand it was a tradition our earlier generations to joined the army My Father was in Army also, he used to tell that they were taught in Army that “Though Lion is known as King of Jungle but he cannot lead the Army of all animals but of Lions.  The deers,dogs,jackal and rabbit all will be scared to follow the lions.    Therefore the captain should be the person who is not only leader but people should also follow him. If he cannot lead he cannot win the battle. Lions always need lion only as his followers. It is no fun leading jackal and dears by Lions, because deers and jackals can always desert the lions.

Now question arises do we have lions in organizations.  As I wrote in my previous blog   and I would like to repeat it here again “In Public sectors and government sector, the corruption in promotion, transfer & posting is the most dangerous forms of corruption as corruption of the governing body can lead to widespread effects. (Example post retirement benefits, job of consultant after retirement, Director on boards etc.  Recent research by the World Bank suggests that who makes policy decisions (elected officials or bureaucrats) can be critical in determining the level of corruption because of the incentives different policy-makers face. The reason of this being the most dangerous is because it contributes lot to GDP. The size of the public sector is usually measured by either the amount of revenue raised or the value of expenditure undertaken by the state as a percentage of GDP.  

I am watching the “Indian Idol Junior” every Saturday and enjoying the singing of singing prodigies of India. There are three judges, all three are most respect in their field namely Shreya Ghosal (I call him modern Lata Mangeshkar and Vishal and Shekhar both musician and singers.  I observed that in a “reality show”  I guess the judges were awarding the marks by pencil.   Instantly the thought came in my mind. Have I ever seen any selection process, be it fresh recruitment, or promotion etc. where a pencil is not used? The answer is unfortunately NO.  The power of pencil is stronger than the pen. The discretion can be used anytime by using eraser.  It is well proven that discretions are always biased and have no judicious character in it.  

It tempted be to write something about the promotion process in India. We were taught in the beginning of that, the premise of the promotion policy has been that "Unless the best officers are promoted faith of other officers and enlisted men in the integrity of the system will be shaken." The minimum qualifications for the officer to be promoted are, a good leader, having good administrative skill and wide array of knowledge. It is essential that best officer be promoted who will be best qualified to lead the organization. It is a saying that ducks pick ducks and swans picks the swans. It is also believed that when swan is served the solution of water and milk, it can take in milk and water is left. But in the Organization when incompetent personnel, once they have moved up, one day they will be in necessarily be in a selection board, they will themselves be apt to select other inadequate and incompetent personnel because they know that if knowledgeable one is chosen will be of no use for their personal wisdom and competency and incompetency. If you look around yourself, you will find that there are people who are a real manager and another who are Yes man (masked manager) if both of them are promoted and equa ranked. One can understand the insides of the real one and happiness of masked one. As far as merit channel and normal channel are concerned, there are presently two types of seniority/normal (upto Scale-III) and merit from Scale-I to Scale-VII. In the government sector many believe that the Seniority is the most transparent form of promotion led by DPC. Because there is no confusion about your seniority everyone knows his seniority number. Promotion by seniority is the fairest, transparent and stress-free system as far as employees are concerned. There is always one big consolation that your junior can never “jump the queue” and “leap frog” over you in the system. Organizations where promotion is purely by seniority will have harmony in the workplace because of the high degree of contentment in among employees (The bureaucracy is the happiest class). But in Banking and financial sector of India there was no seniority channel but a normal channel (but seniority is always followed in clerk to officer cadre promotions).  This normal channel many times became abnormal. That is why we have some ducks and Swans it the system and it is up to you that whether ducks are in the selection board or Swans Last but not the least one of very intelligent AGM (never compromised with his principles) used to say that if anyone is promoted he always used to two lines 1. Congratulation you have been promoted 2. Congratulation you have been promoted and you deserve it. Now, how many people congrats in second manner from bottom of their heart.

Now lets us talk about the merit channel which has become the buzzword these days which is actually allowing the discretion in full swing. The actual merit means preference over something and merit is like beauty and “Beauty” lies in the eye of the Beholder. Same way “Merit” lies in the eyes of your Godfather Who evaluates your merit for promotion and Godfather will always be true to his son and “Merit” is a highly subjective term, and it can never be assessed merely on interview or APA. The initial five IITs maintained their position across the world because it has been conducting a free fair and independent written examination and so the CAT.

Now let use decide if we are lions,deers,jackals. The lion will always lead lions, jackal will always lead jackal and Deers will lead dears. We must also take not that whether our selection boards are promoting ducks or swans.

The word discretion has been the widely misused world in the society. The idea of discretion was  the trait of judging wisely and objectively and it should be judicious. but in reality there has been rampant abuse of discretion

It was interesting to read “Animal Farm” by George Orwell where commandments were changed to say some animals are more equal than others but finally it has to go to original manor farm and all the pigs leaving the place of Napoleon the Pig. Now I think the suggestion made by the Khandelwal Committer were good and spirit of the committee was excellent but implementation is being done as it was done of the character of Napoleon in  but implementation “Animal Farm” by George Orwell.

 ..

Rajesh Kumar