Things fall apart where mediocrity abound

Apr 29, 2019 Editorial

The questions have to be tabled: does this country have the right people in the right places? The best people in very sensitive places? Are the right candidates being identified, prioritized, selected?
When the answers to those questions are either hazy or unpersuasive or fall short in place after place, and situation after situation, then the conclusion is that mediocrity (or worse) is the standard; and when this becomes the norm, then the most progressive policies and procedures fall apart, mean nothing, and the results are the results. It does not matter whether the field of endeavor is medicine, law, engineering, or business to list a few of the more prominent pursuits.
They fall apart because trusted professionals fall down: they are not up to scratch. Lack of requisite brainpower. Absence of palpable dedication. Deficiency of thinking on feet. In the real world of challenge and performance, sharp skills are cultivated and driven by sharper minds; embedded talent further honed by exposure, experience, and environment. It has to be-only can be-through hard charging corps of contemporaries; competition and keenness feeding standards and leading to flourishing. Pushing for higher and higher bars. Is much of this present in the local arena? What do the records reveal?
Without a doubt, down through the years there were accidents and errors-sometimes fatal-at medical institutions, be they public or private. But so many, and for such routine situations? It must be remembered that these are only the ones that make it beyond the screens and camouflages. How much more of these individually costly incidents never see the light of public ventilation? Something is not right. Similarly, cases were lost before courts over time, but not many were lost because of either poor preparation, or shallow knowledge, or raw inexperience. Or some combination of all three, and that which is left unmentioned. They were not scorned and dismissed due to shoddy work. What is going on here?
The argument could be made that the right raw materials are not being fed into the higher training and development processes for the next stages of delivery in the real world. With due recognition given to the laments and realities of the local teaching and learning spaces, what if the instructors and settled veterans are themselves lacking in the very qualities that separate from the average? Thus, the processes are wrong-footed and wrong-headed from the beginning and at the crucial next levels, too. Society pays the price. It suffers from the broadening and perpetuating of the less than average, through the shaky construction of a wished-for high-performance workforce that is held together by second rate materials.
This society has to face matters head-on: medicine, law, engineering, and auditing, are not the hard, mechanical labors of emptying a sand truck by shovel; of clearing a drain; or chopping down a tree. As relevant and vital as those hewers of wood and drawers of water are in the endeavors and challenges of life, they do not rise to matters of life and limb; debt and decline; liberty and justice; and of driving across a bridge or travelling on a plane and trusting and hoping that the machinery and manpower will hold up and continue life as before. When these things are rickety and imperil, then revision is mandatory.
For all of this is destined to lead to failure and public fallouts: deaths, defeats, and extensive decay. Future crises are spawned unthinkingly and uncaringly. The harsh, jarring realities speak for themselves: Quality of life. Quality of parliament. Quality of confidence. Quality of ethics. Quality of faith.
Rookies learn; they grow; they gain confidence, become respected authorities. They carry others. But what if they can’t? Limitations of intellect? Limitations of context and courses in life: education, higher education; and the self-learning that flows from insatiable minds and keen probing intellect. Policymakers and decision makers have some serious rethinking and reengineering ahead. Starting with themselves.

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