Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Thursday, 23 April 2020 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
COVID-19 has hit planet earth! Who, what and how did this debacle happen is for the scientists, investigators and conspiracy theorists to tackle and for us to wonder until enlightened! All we know is 
the world has experienced nearly two million infected people and over 100,000 deaths as of 15 April, the time of penning these thoughts.
Resultantly apart from the loss of lives creating mass grief, there are lockdown imposed economic crashes, loss of livelihoods plus psychological and sociological challenges faced by the entire world from super powers to the small island nations such as ours. Each country from Europe to Americas and Far East to Middle East, Africa to South Asia have their own ways of fighting this deadly infection. Approaches may vary and be debatable based on self-proclaimed priorities by each country which will not be dwelled on here. However the predominantly evident global mindset is preservation of human life. And that’s where the story of Sri Lanka begins.
We are almost on the eve of one month lockdown proper. How long it is to continue is anybody’s guess. Our beloved motherland as much as rest of the world is undergoing the most challenging and chaotic times in recent history – socially, economically and administratively. At this moment of time we have experienced 219 confirmed infections with seven deaths. With recoveries discounted we have 156 active cases with a ratio of 0.3 deaths per million. Unfortunate but creditable. Unfortunate to have lost even one life and suffered the spread of infection but lucky to have been able to contain the spread and deaths. Let us hope and pray that this trend will reduce and the ‘curve flattens more leading to a full-stop in deaths and infections.
We can be proud that Sri Lanka is being hailed by WHO and recognised as one country in the world which is successfully fighting the spread of corona. And that’s a fact! It is not because we have unlimited infrastructure and physical resources, or not because we have ample test kits at our disposal. It is also not because we are spending millions of dollars or rupees into research and treatment experiments; nor do we have the most disciplined set of people in society. Far from it!
It is because we have a set of people who are physically and mentally committed to fight and get rid of this menace at any cost. We have an absolute treasure trove of medical professionals from doctors to nursing and other paramedical staff with public health officials working round the clock treating and attending to patients and the suspected. We have the tri forces and police engaged in a hitherto un-attempted non-violent social lockdown and distancing exercise; with necessary force of course when needed. How difficult this exercise is would be evident if one is to take into cognisance the over 20,000 odd arrests for police curfew violations! An everyday occurrence.
The helter-skelter and chaos which unleashes on the roads and in market places when police curfew is lifted is a reflection of indiscipline and selfishness seen in our society. Administrative and essential service provision breakdowns and inadequacies too contribute to such enmasse movement to secure people’s needs; but it is inherent in us as humans without much geographical distinction, to create chaos when orderliness can save the day. The result in Sri Lanka is that Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara and Puttalam Districts have been under continuous curfew for three weeks plus now!
We have an appointed task force of multidisciplinary professionals assigned to run the affairs of the country during this lockdown led by the President as the country’s head, other and other handpicked public officials including the Prime Minister tackling relief measurers and leading the ground level survival mechanisms through the military forces and the police, given exemplary leadership and driven to action by Chief of Defence staff and the present Commander of the Army, together with the Police Chief and that very passionate professional law enforcer senior DIG Ajith Rohana – all ably advised and supported by the defence hierarchy presided by the Commander in Chief himself!
The multidisciplinary task force, sans the Cabinet and majority of MPs, thankfully, driven by the President and led by his ‘Generals’ and a few other selected likeminded public officials and heroic medical professionals have by now managed to contain the progression of the infection and flatten the curve, keeping the majority of people in their homes enforcing law to punish violators whilst ensuring that the people of the country, especially the downtrodden and the needy, get their essentials supplied.
Many relief measures are underway including monetary grants. There are complaints of shortcomings but efforts ensuring people are not hungry and in want of essentials have reached satisfactory levels. Improving continuously. There are and will continue to be many areas for improvement. That will be a reality we have to live with.
The next stage in the battle is the economic front. Breakdown in business, downturns in industry, loss of livelihoods especially of the significant number of daily wage earners. Job and salary cuts have already started in certain businesses. Empty foreign exchange coffers and challenges in the money supply and circulation is threatening the financial sector and economic sustenance!
There were two avenues available to Sri Lanka. Priority of saving lives or the priority of saving livelihoods. We very rightly I believe took the humane approach of saving lives over or ahead of saving livelihoods. For livelihoods or the social fabric to hold together their must be life preserved! Now we have indications that this task force or another similar think (and action) tank would take on the economic challenges. Industry professionals are rallying around the Government. So be it! There are many opportunities amidst this seemingly hopeless situation but that’s for another day.
I see the approach taken by Sri Lanka, and the thinking behind as practical and pragmatic. This is a shared view of many. Moreover apart from politicians with opposing views and or vested interests and their blind followers the general sensible and apolitical public or let me daringly call the majority in society appreciates the strategies adopted, action being taken by a few for the benefit of many, Few being the task force and many being people at large. It is refreshing to see that even the parliamentary opposition as a total body is not trying to scuttle the efforts of the task force apart from some misguided souls known for eternally being on a wrong trajectory.
So much so there is a call for a military government, an autocratic administration if you may, going by the large number of social media comments to that effect and people’s sentiments voiced in general. Rhetoric they may be, and challenged as foolish or unfounded by some, debatable of course, one thing is certain! People want a change in the way things are done! People want a different set of people than the traditional politicos taking matters to hand and telling us what to do. People want results not words. This is the intended or the underlying cry within the calls for a military government! I for one would not want the military running the country! But I would like the country to be run like the military. The leaders and rulers to behave as the military and inculcate and embrace the values of the military establishment.
Let us examine how the military consisting the three armed forces, stand out from the typical administrative structure and bodies of the country, with all due respect to the Police Department, which is not discounted.
Organisation
The military forces are highly structured organisations. The command, rules, administration and implementation orders stems from one central act of incorporation and vested with the command structure and mechanism. Thus it does not have competing priorities. To execute the duties of the military there are geographical sectoring, sub sectoring and job and task based organisations and teams. The different geographical security force headquarters and the specialist regiments are examples.
Furthermore the military has need based highly skilled human resource deployment structures as well. The Special Forces or the medical corps would be few of the many examples which is inherent in the military organisation structure. They have policy, one law and shared values throughout the organisation structures. High monitoring and control with inbuilt mechanism of performance monitoring, reporting, checks and balances.
Contrary to the above the country has three constitutional pillars of governance. The Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary. Noble objectives of segregating and balancing ruling power, policy also law making and judicial protection of people for law and order. Unfortunately these three pillars more often than not either get politically coloured or compete with each other rather than complementing. This results in bottlenecks and breakdowns in governance. Sub optimal civil administration.
Administratively the country is run by a central government and provincial administration going down to divisional/district segregation and local administrations such as municipalities. The main differences 
here are the governance and administration is political party based, priorities, strategies and policies change with power shifts. No main blue print or road map or a sustained national plan. Keeps changing. The devolved or provincial administration is always not aligned to the central government depending on who holds power.
Moreover central direction or approach is not a shared value and a priority due to many administrative norms and political bias. Then there are the duties and functions of the central government and the provincial list! A very deeply layered structure of management. This results in delays in decision making, ambiguities in policy interpretation and lack of goal congruence. Less productive if not totally unproductive. A flatter administrative organisation with fewer layers and functional nodes is more manageable, flexible and task oriented. Visualise turning a bulk carrier vessel as opposed to a speed craft – to be imaginative about the concept. Titanic sank. Gun boats ride waves.
Command
The chain of command in the military organisation is clearly defined, and unquestioned. Limits of authority and span of control is set and commands flow top down. There is discretionary power in action and active situations or operational challenges where hierarchical leaders or commanding officers from platoons to divisions are free to take decisions and act; but never outside the realm of the end result specified. The words autocracy and power reigns supreme yes! But democracy has failed to a great extent in many societies. Especially in emergency or disaster management democracy has not proven to be effective.
The civil administration is not geared and exposed to such contingencies. Orders have to flow down and if one must, you comply and complain. When variables are limited and crucial success factors are few centrally disseminated directives and action “flowing that” wins the day. In humanitarian operations such as what we are experiencing now, concern for the people and their welfare have to be displayed apolitically and objectively in a detached but humane manner. You must hear views of many but one person or few people have to take the decisions. Not for popularity but with the end in mind. This is an aspect of what in management we call benevolent autocracy – a style favoured by many Asian leaders. What we see today in the country’s efforts at fighting COVID-19 is a classic example of a top down chain of command with proven affection for all. It is working. Like it or not!
Accountability
In the military there is no room or allowance or freedom to pass the buck! In civil administration and public management one of the biggest maladies is people shunning responsibility and shying away from accountability! In the military you have to ‘bite the bullet’ as the saying goes. You are accountable to deliver and if you shy away or neglect responsibility you have to pay a price!
Court martials and disciplinary action apart it may cost your life. So the people in the military take their responsibilities seriously and face up to accountability. No attempts to burden another with one’s own responsibility. That’s the discipline, those are the values and that’s how life is. Confusions of anybody, somebody everybody, nobody is not a part of the military. This gets work done
Action
In the military mindset achievement is paramount. Achievement is pride. Winning is not everything it’s the only thing (to quote Vincent Lombardy)! Therefore everyone alike are centred on getting a job done. It matters to them to finish a project unlike the public and even some corporate administrators of the day who would settle for half-done jobs or mediocracy. There is no commitment to deadlines or milestones in political administrations and public management. Productivity is only a buzz word.
In the military the task at hand fires motivation whereas in typical political governance or civil administration many other factors and influencers determine action and non-action. And action is specific and time-bound, not “will do it when we do it” or when we can. Take the present crisis and how the military is putting up quarantine centres and medical facilities in no time! How their talents are transformed from fighting to community service. No middlemen, no onlookers no individual credit and glory seekers. There is a battle in hand and a war to be won. You box on or keep firing at the target. Nothing else matters.
Attitude
Attitude determines altitude! Terms such as positive thinking and ‘can do mindset’ are aplenty in the public and private sector. But how many walk the talk? How many are motivated and charged with the spark to self-start, get up and go. Our dismal performance and productivity in most of the critical public administrative and industrial bodies and nation building initiatives is a testimony to the lack of action oriented attitudes in our people by and large.
Try the military. They are trained to think and believe that ‘impossible is nothing!’ That’s how they fight wars, that›s how they conquer obstacles and win; and that’s how they try to save the lives of others. Even at the cost of their own lives. They go the extra mile to selflessly and they will try until they succeed. Time it may take and setbacks they would face but the military mind set is a fighting mindset! Not a five-year opportunistic approach!
Country
Simply the above attitudes and commitment mentioned comes through the purpose of existence. The purpose of existence to the military men is to serve the country. Whilst the purpose of the political administration can be to stay in power and win elections. The goal of many a politician is to earn illegally than legally and amass wealth! There are exceptions and I raise my cap to them.
The public and/or private administrators’ aim can be to bat on safely till retirement! The military is selfless. Country before self. The present model of political party based “democratic” governance is a failure and such set ups by and larger are dens of corruption due to this very glaring fact of selfish survival strategy. The military is united in rallying for the country and its people before self!
Competence
One main differentiator between winning and losing is competence. Any organisation of people including the administrative structure and leadership of a country have to be competent. That is the ability to do the right thing. Competence comes through skill horned by practice and training. This a major sore point in the public administration sphere. We will not even dwell into the politicians as the many adjectives used to describe them tells the storey very eloquently!
The majority of political leaders and people representatives of the country, are not adequately educated. Therefore devoid of wisdom or power of thought. They are untrained and unexposed to management thereby lacking skill and competence to govern. Again there are the exceptional few but the numbers don’t match up to challenges ahead. It’s the fault of the people. We elect them!
The public administrators are twofold. We have highly-learned, skilled and competent individuals amongst us who try their best to make a difference but they are outnumbered by the incompetent many. Planned human resource development and training has been a long felt inadequacy in the public sector on which no one has taken much meaningful action. Some action yes! But much more to do.
On the contrary the military man or woman is trained from the day he/she joins and discipline instilled. They are trained, assessed tested, retrained and horned for action and is kept in a continuously primed state of performance even without wars but ready for battle anytime. Military or humanitarian. This competence and preparedness comes in handy when managing and recovering from disasters and when facing the unexpected any time. Unlike the politicians and administrators who is completely taken by surprise the military man or the woman reacts to change and threats to counter them as they happen
These therefore are the attributes people are looking for in their leaders. These are the characteristics they miss and yearn for because they have experienced in every calamity as they are experiencing now; what the “militarised” man or woman can do for them and for the country at large. This country deserves such men and women!
Again, I am not for a moment proposing that this country has to be run by the military. But I am strongly proposing that it is high time that this country is ruled by such men and women who possess the above attributes. Sri Lanka won a three-decade-long war led by people and generals of such calibre. Lee Kwan Yew was no military man but he ruled like a military man. The Singapore story says it all. Freedom? Yes! Freedom of the wild ass? No!
Today we see the fruition of labour and leadership by a collective of military minds in the fight against the coronavirus made possible by the medical force of the country and select public officials and people’s representatives acting totally and selflessly as soldiers in a war! The command flows from a central point and there is only one line of thinking! My effort here is to conceptualise a system of governance under the present context which can be the blue print for disaster management or nation building holistically.
We need men and women of integrity and steel who would leave no stone unturned to achieve the best for the country. We are in need of such a set of professional people and a military-like no nonsense approach not to get us out of COVID-19 and the resultant aftermath alone but on a long-term development exercise. One direction, one voice!
For objective and sustained nation building we need a governance organisation structure and supporting statutes which allows and facilitates the rallying and mobilising of a collective body of people with resolve and competence who make things happen and control and contain every virus affecting society natural or manmade. In viral form or human form. Kind but firm, not afraid to crack the whip when needed! Democracy has failed for 70 plus years! Autocracy is shunned. What model then should we embrace? We need an iron hand in a velvet glove... Try ‘Covidocracy’ – it seems to be working!
(The writer is a regular guest columnist. Specialises in the disciplines of management and human resource development with three decades of industry experience. Presently serves as a senior management team member of the National Airline. Thoughts penned herein are personal.)
