Daily Post 1561
THOSE WHO MESS…
Those who mess up things are the most hopeful of a solution. This is the story of Indian consultation, negotiation, deliberation, decision making and its follow through ecosystem in this country. How many of us are tied to the results? How many us cannot even imagine the likely failure of an initiative, project or program in their professional / official capacity? How many of us would be having the same concern for our official results as our personal results? How does mess gets created on a regular basis in lots and lots of areas to an extent that it can be called as a national pastime. Very rare to find public domain organisations and services not being on permanent mess making sprees.
How does it so happen? The complexity of governance, processes and technologies of the day cannot by handled only by conventional domain knowledge. Being in the domain for long number of years, one declares oneself all knowing. The simple reason is that you are not able to visualise the end result or product or service or mechanism with clarity. You don’t hold yourself for the ensuing mess. The validation of the mess also happens declaring it as normal, that the result has been achieved. Given the reality that a messed up solution cannot last for long, so over a period of time and pressure, it gets unstuck.
The messed up solution starts creating one problem one after the other. If it doesn’t get noticed the damage is more like a termite which would go on for years and years. Given the process and delivery dormancy other projects also start taking the same route and leading to substandard performance and this happens in large parts in technology solutions / implementation. We can call it as the unseen mess. You will not be able to take any action and the delivery spin-off can never be delivered. The system of decadence would prevail, with nobody ready to bell the cat, given the scenario possibly it cannot be done. All are in a mess.
So clearing up the mess is in the region of the unknown. On the other hand the real life physical issues, the hardship issues, the livelihood issues, the issues of sentiments and emotions are being messed for long many decades. The wishful thinking and optimism has also been reigning supreme for equally large number of decades. The mess does not get cleared. Things don’t get streamlined. The solution finding in man made mess is the most difficult thing to happen, has been the history of large number of nation states. Hope this mindset would change for the benefit of all.
WE SHOULD HAVE A MENTALITY OF MAKING A MESS BYGONE FIRST.
Sanjay Sahay