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
