Recently I posted about the corrupt bureaucrats hampering the earthquake recovery. Well they are still at it & what is emerging is the poor leadership at all levels which is assisting it.
First we start with the Minister who has quite rightly carried out question & answer sessions, except when someone makes a statement about their experience often the answer goes along the lines, "well that is not correct." Actually it is the case because someone has just told you.
Stop listening to corrupt bureaucrats & start listening to the people affected. They know what is happening to their property!
The same thing happened with the initial Foreshore & Seabed consultation where the Minister of Maori Affairs showed he was actually listening but the Minister driving the Act just told everyone after the submissions what was happening.
That resulted in the later loss of an election or it certainly played a big part.
Then there is the CEO who has done the same on radio. But worse has allowed the system to be driven by numbers.
Having a target set that can be unrealistic causes issues within the work force & don't promote a good working environment. Therefore people don't perform. KPI's(key Performance Indicators) promote this poor type of working environment.
Not all houses are the same so time taken can vary as can damage. Yes everyone wants it done as quickly as possible, but done properly with empathy.
What we don't know can hurt US.(Leadership and Self-Deception)(Video Recording Review): An article from: Training Media Review
So the six a day target should only be that. Ask people to do that many if they can but do their best. Get out on the ground with these teams, don't just set a figure & think it will be OK. Instead of sacking those that don't make it, keep them on so more properties are dealt with. Have a set payment with a bonus for number of properties seen(up to 6 a day).
For those who have never been in the military there are set rates of movement written down which work good in war games on maps but not in reality. It results in what we called 'other end itis'. An officer who had been away from the coal face would be looking at these guilde line rates & wanting to know why units were not where they should be. All their planning is based on these guidelines.
On one exercise a certain officer was really sticking to these guidelines, so for the last part of the exercise the Commanding Officer(CO)(a Vietnam Veteran) sent him out with our patrol to remind him of what it was like at the coal face.
First thing is this officer enjoyed it & said it made him realize again of how different things were. But then the CO probably got a better result than he could of ever wished for. One patrol got into a contact, another was ambushed as the company quite literally blundered into the enemy party returning to their base camp from different directions.
The map showed a nicely forrested area but what had happened was the area had been clear felled & all the trees were lying where they fell or had been stacked years before. Instead of 500 metres an hour as per the book we were doing 5 metres an hour then a battle erupted! Progress was in centimetres & total confusion!
It was great & a good officer learnt a great lesson in leadership & trusting those on the ground to give the best information(in most cases).
Leadership & Self-deception (The Hidden Key to Improving Results)
Then there is the inefficient way of dealing with properties. Yes the worst affected should be dealt with first, but as they have found many of the worst affected have said nothing early on.
Now relations in Rangiora tell us they had little damage but the way the four that come to their street was efficient. Seems they were working to a pattern.
What a novel idea!
The Four Conversations: Daily Communication That Gets Results
Meanwhile in Hororata, a small country town near the epicentre of the initial quake, news reports tell of the citizens mystified by the inefficient way it has been carried out. Check one house, miss out the next five then do another one. Then I expect from comments they come back on another day to do the others.
Now I grew up near Hororata & worked around there before joining the army. Later as part of the army for an exercise we searched the nearby town of Glentunnel. It is not rocket science. You pick the point you are going to start from & work from there in a methodical manner.
I am sure with a computer you can task it to return all claims within the township of Hororata or within 5km. In fact I know you can because you can do it with most other things.
Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box
Then again there is the point where people need to ignore the experts & get out there to talk to people. To be told that the experts said there is no damage in their area just adds to the frustration when your gut feeling is something is not right or you can see damage.
People know their property!
As the earthquake has shown one property can be perfect with the one next to it is munted(destroyed). So how someone who has not been on the property can say "no there will be no damage as that area is OK" is not credible.
There is a lot more to leadership than just telling people to do something. As some British units told us they learnt in the Falklands after all the years in Northern Ireland, sitting back & directing didn't work in a full on firefight. Leaders had to actually lead. Colonel 'H' Jones even got a VC posthumously for leading from the front at a crucial time in the battle for Goose Green.
Bonds That Make Us Free: Healing Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves
Best the government & bureaucrats start showing some real leadership since they haven't yet & are loosing the people.
As I have said before you only have to look at what has happened in the likes of Italy & Haiti as the frustration grows & the security situation deteriorates.
Slower here because no one has died yet & hopefully they won't, but the financial crisis is just adding to the stress.
Self-Deception
Why does this concern me so much?
I have enough conerns of my own with a corrupt bureaucrat from the body corporate using any excuse to do nothing since he doesn't live here or own one of the units, but acting like fixing anything would be using his own money.
Because it is the likes of us in the security industry or the police who have to deal with the upset & frustrated people when they take their frustrations out on someone or something.
Allegedly the police have already had to deal with at least one relation of a Pike River Miner upset & frustrated over the disaster. A very hard situation for ayt police officer.
Some real leadership with people actually prepared to make decisions after the initial disaster period is what needs to be shown to lessen the impact of the frustration.
We just don't get that with government or bureaucrats. Any excuse not to do anything.
http://www.foxhoundsecurity.co.nz
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment