Notes on governance structures in general

Jan 10, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
It has always been a matter of interest how organisations, private and public, invest so much in negotiating the worth of employees on the one hand and customers on other hand, at the year–end holiday season.
It is equally noteworthy that the various announcements, pronouncements, and acknowledgements are intricated with the sales promotions. It therefore leaves the more curious to wonder whether or not in fact the employer is perhaps confusing the productive component of the organisation with its products.
Fortunately most employees, long programmed into an environment of conformity to power, hardly notice whether the ritualistic songs, dances and costumes are true indicators of their respective values to the organisation. Of course, they would have earned the annual increase, after an equally ritualistic performance approval exercise. And since their own managers have been weaned over time to expect and perform this institutionalised process, they would all come to accept this sterile reward, thus starting a new year of repetitive experiences.
At what stage then did they have value added to the quality of their personal lives? How are they motivated to improve as human beings, even while in a practical sense they may strive to be more productive employees, or even managers and supervisors?
What then have the blandishments of the celebrated season of charity done for the human spirit that so desperately cries within to be elevated? Is there in fact enough comfort to be taken in knowing that the substantive measurement of one’s worth is in relation to the organisation only? How does such a realisation reconcile with the selfhood which sees earning a living as translating into parenthood, brotherhood and sisterhood, and other familial relationships?
Is the work place to which one devotes his/her physical, mental and, at times, even spiritual energies, one that reciprocates in a manner that sustains the humanity by consistently advising of the value of the contribution made? If not, what then is the significance of the colourful seasonal ritual, except to camouflage the sterility that informs the next performance year.
The above is merely to point to the irrelevance of the current anachronistic governance structures (private and public) which compress self-value, and limits productivity in the process.  So embedded is the insensitivity of so-called leaders of enterprise and government agencies, that they fail to recognise the negative model they set for investors from cultures (developed as they are claimed to be) which place much less store on human capital than on financial returns. The upshot is that too late some Government agency, ignoring its own frailties, invades and discovers the faultlines in those organisations structured only to exploit, but certainly not to develop – whether human and/or natural resources.
The fact is that across-the-board, our structures continue to subsist in the contradiction called democracy, in which people matter only in the way power dictates – whether as CEO or Minister. For the former ‘youth empowerment’, for example, is translated into sports that gratuitously promote food, drink and entertainment products. In the case of the latter, ‘youth empowerment’ is definitively disaggregated from an education which, everyone agrees, has consistently defaulted on desired delivery.
Somehow, in either case, few have questioned the efficacy of the respective governance structures and systems. Even when one hears talk of consultation, there is a clear message that it is on a playing field shaped by the powers that be, as if the admixture of the selected players would not have prior independent views, and would not have felt empowered to invite consultations in their turn.
What all the posturings cumulate to is not just persistent under-productivity but, more disconcertingly, negative productivity. No one benefits from the stalemate which power-plays engender – certainly not in an environment which has no explicitly structured procedures for identifying talent and, moreso, potential for growth.
The fundamental issue is about performance and output. This witness has been more than a little concerned about some of the views expressed, and the manner of their pronouncement, by the Minister of Public Health (a title which implies a distinct indifference to the private health sector).The Minister, amongst his several spontaneous evaluations of the public health services, with particular reference to individual under-performance and unit dysfunctionalities, persistently proclaims his dissatisfaction with the ‘Nurses’. In the process he bemuses himself, and the public (victims of the sometimes fatal procedural errors) that the personnel involved are actually trained ‘Nurses’, in the substantive sense of the job title. Those who know better find it difficult to understand the implied lack of appreciation between (trained) ‘Nurses’ per se and ‘Nursing Assistants’, ‘Nurses Aides’, and ‘Patient Care Attendants’, who together substantially outnumber their trained counterparts  in the related medical facilities – a significant distinction which the uninformed patients cannot possibly make or, even more, complain about.
What is relevant here is the egotistic approach to any resolution of a fundamental human resources developmental problem, immediately reflective of mal-structured organisational relationships. Nowhere in the repetitions heard, has any mention been made of executive accountability: of the efficacy or otherwise of the role of the Chief Executive Officer; or the functionality of a statutory Board. Where, one must ask, is the consultative process that should include the equally authoritative views of this grouping? What then would be their purpose in an organisation where, to some appearances, authority and decision-making is funnelled up unto a single ego?
To any attentive observer it is clear that the G.P.H.C in particular is in dire need of the creation of a performance-enabling environment – more structured to serving the objective of restoring health.
It is not only about technical training, but, perhaps more critically, the re-creation of a culture that makes the very healers feel healthy in their own hearts and minds, wherein they can be counseled to appreciate their limitations, and be helped to rise to a level of consciousness that by adding and/or restoring life to others, they are at the same time increasing their own value as human beings – a quality that is bound to be recognised at least by those who surround them.
Hopefully the case would have been made for the urgent need in our society to rebalance the inequitabilities in organisational relationships in order to generate the levels of productivity so much desired in all areas of work – through more committed conversations which must recognise the wisdom of all the parties – willing to own their accountabilities.
In the final analysis, however, what is most urgently needed is one or more carefully selected specialist consultancies to investigate, analyse, recommend and, where appropriate, implement the strategic interventions necessary to address the identified resources gaps in our medical services. Indeed, as a registered Corporation, G.P.H.C can legitimately move outside the box in which other Government agencies are contained and, with guidance, explore the creation of an organisational structure that will energise its employees to put more of their hearts and souls in saving the lives of their patients and companions (albeit for the time being).
E.B. John

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