DailyPost 1661
IF YOU CAN’T DECIDE…
If you can’t decide, you should not govern. If you don’t know what you are deciding on, you should not govern. If you don’t know the implementation / execution mechanism, you should not govern. If you can’t follow through the decision, you should not govern. If you cannot get the proposed result, you should not govern. And finally and more importantly, if you can’t own up to the failure of your decision on the ground, you should not govern. Then the most pertinent question comes to our mind, who will govern? Do we have a governing class which does not have the skill of decision making? Is decision making just a by product of adorning a position.
Before getting into the art and science of decision making, what is even more critical importance is to understand what is success / accomplishment or achievement. Achievement is the announcement of targets or goals, the broad process of reaching the destination and making it happen. Achievement is not apportioning to oneself anything worthwhile happening under you command, control or jurisdiction. Achievement does not mean any windfall that destiny showers on you. By that logic COVID-19 should fall on somebody’s head in the very same manner. Achievement makes sense, even if it is the most genuine one, if you announce your failures as well, even as whimper.
The quality of decision making is directly proportional to your understanding and practice of achievement. What is decision making? It is the sum total of your near perfect understanding of the concerned ecosystem, expertise available, owning the issue, visualization of the execution process, result and the impact thereof. It also entails your capability of being in control of a project or program or the measures decided. The capability of making corrections as and when required during the course and *successfully bringing back to track can do magic to your confidence to decide. Necessarily, it means you would have burnt your fingers, any number of times and would have come out successful at least a few times. Decision making is not the job of green horns, whatever their age and position.
If your fate is not intricately tied to a decision, there is very little likelihood of it being of serious concern to you. This is at the core of dilly dallying which has brought the country to the brink of a health disaster and by direct corollary, an economic disaster. It is like regulating busy traffic at an intersection during peak hours without traffic lights, traffic police and challans. Can economy function with crematoriums overflowing? That effort can do wonders is not what we have been taught. Enactment, policy and talking is our forte. Every single time, as has been the practice, is that the time lost in procrastination has turned out to be suicidal. Not deciding cannot be a decision, time bomb is ticking.
THE CAPABILITY TO DECIDE AND EXECUTE IS THE BASIC KERNEL OF GOVERNANCE.