THE INDISPENSABLES

Aug 27, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Many an employee has deluded himself or herself into believing that he or she is indispensable. One time, a boss left on vacation and when he returned he was told that he was sorely missed during his absence. Hearing this, the boss went on a long story about how indispensable he was to the firm.
“Actually,” interrupted his Secretary, “You left with the key to the front office.”
There are some employees however on whom others are so dependent that when they are not on the job, problems arise. Without these employees some bosses cannot function, yet they never really appreciate how important these “indispensible” staff members are to them.
Take the case of the Chief Executive Officer who was noticed by a young executive standing in front of a shredder, with a piece of paper in hand.
“Listen young man,” said the CEO, “this is very important, and my Secretary is on leave. Can you make this thing work?”
“Certainly,” said the young executive. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the Start button.
“Excellent, excellent…” said the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine. “I just need one copy.”
How many times have you heard the adage that no man is indispensable?
How many times has the impression been created in political circles that there are sacred cows that cannot be touched or removed no matter what they do or how incompetent they are?
Yesterday, President Obama, with typical American arrogance, declared that his country was the one indispensible nation. While there are sacred cows in every political system, the Americans have a different way of dealing with the idea of indispensability. For them, it is not a case of anyone being indispensable. Rather, they actively promote that individuals should be regularly made dispensable. It is their way of ensuring that power is never harnessed in the hands of anyone for too long because that would, in their estimation, be dangerous and not in accordance with the separation and balancing of powers, which so inheres in that system and which is intended to avoid anyone becoming a political leviathan.
The Americans therefore make it their practice to constantly ditch leaders, and most often for reasons totally unrelated to those persons performance in public life. In this way, they help to ensure that firstly, no one feels that he or she is irreplaceable, and secondly, it helps to constantly renew the system with new leadership and ideas.
This is something that Third World leaders fail to appreciate about the American application of the concept of indispensability. These leaders operate on the basis that so long as someone is loyal, that person should not be replaced because loyalty, for them, should always trump competence or new ideas.
The PPP, like any other party that holds government in Third World countries is always going to have its sacred cows, those individuals who are part of the party machinery and to whom the party feels that it is obligated.
Unfortunately, in retaining these individuals to the point whereby they become a liability to the government and to the ruling party, the ruling elite is stifling the process of regenerating new leadership and ideas.
It is therefore refreshing to hear the President of Guyana remark recently that no one is indispensable. Unfortunately, the government formed by the party, which he was once the General Secretary, has consistently operated as if there are some persons who for whom no replacements can be found. This is not healthy for a liberalized political environment.
There are many persons who ought to have been replaced, even if for routine purposes. There has to be something wrong with a system in which the same set of individuals continues to exercise political authority and influence.
Further there are some individuals who are in government simply to feather their own nests; they bring nothing to the ruling party and government; they just take and because they are treated as untouchables, they behave as if they are indispensable.
The President needs to send a wake-up call to these individuals. He needs to send them the same message that he relayed to the nation in relation to the Director of the University of Guyana Berbice campus. He needs to make some of them an example that no one is indispensable.

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THE INDISPENSABLES

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