As a human being, it never ceases to amaze me the way we react to situations in our lives. When everything is going well, we like to assume credit for it even if we had nothing to do with it but as soon as something negative happens, we simply do not accept the responsibility but rather blame others for the downfall.
In families, when a child is doing well, one of the parents will say that child obtain that positive trait from his/her side of the family. When a child is not doing well, one parent may blame the other parent for the child’s behavior. Somebody will get blame. Even though a child may be acting as a result of a myriad of issues, the parents must assess the issues, accept responsibility and try to fix the issues. The blame game will not work as the problem will still be there.
In politics (applicable to both political parties), When the economy is doing great, the incumbent government loves to take credit, however, when there is a downfall in the economy, the current government will blame the previous government or other circumstances. When crime is at a high level, the Opposition blames the Government for the high crime and convinces the electorate that they have the solutions to reduce crime if they get in power. When the opposition now becomes the Government ,the Commissioner of Police or the Governor gets blame for the high crime because crime is under their portfolio. However, as soon as crime is reduced, the Government wants to take credit. When the civil servants are doing great and are able to prepare the budgets for the elected government in record time, the elected government takes the credit for having the budgets completed in record time. However, when the civil servants are not performing up to par, the Deputy Governor gets the blame.
If you want to take credit for the good, you should also take credit for the bad and the ugly. It is just simple like that. Stop using the blame game methodology.
The recent crisis at the airport resulted from a change in the working schedule for the immigration officers. The elected government nor the deputy governor should be blamed for this crisis. While the Deputy Governor is the head of the Public Service, there are also individuals who are responsible for the various departments in Government. In fact the department in question has one permanent secretary, two deputy secretaries and a director. Certainly they should be empowered to make executive decisions. This is what leadership is all about. Even if there was a change in the working schedule, as soon as management became aware of the crisis at the airport, an executive decision should have been made to deploy additional staff to accommodate the needs of the incoming travellers. In fact, there should be staff on duty for call out and as substitutes in the event a crisis does take place. This crisis perhaps could have been avoided as management should have been made well aware in advance (and based on the past) of the flight schedules and the number of guests arriving especially in the month of March which is the peak month for our tourism season.
Some will say we experience long queue in the USA. Yes sometimes we do but we are not the USA, we are the Turks and Caicos Islands depending on the USA tourists for survival.
As a result of the blame game, we start attacking our elected and our non elected officials. However, what is ironic is that some of the same supporters that want people to respect our elected officials are the same ones disrespecting our deputy governor.
The deputy governor (DG) gets blame for almost everything when it comes to the public service. However the deputy governor has many subordinates that have different roles and responsibilities. For instance, when a job is advertised and the applicant is interviewed, the DG does not participate in the interview process. The Human Resources Department along with senior officials from the relevant department is on the interview panel. Once a candidate is selected based on a score card, the Public Service Commission (a non partisan group) vets the application and interview processes to ensure that the selected candidate chosen by the panel meets the criteria. The PSC then advises the governor on their decision. I have never been on the PSC board so I do not know if that process works that smoothly. The point I am making is that the Deputy Governor plays no role in the selection process.
Being in leadership is not easy. Everyone thinks they can do a better job until they get there and realize it is not how it appears on the outside or what they read in a text book. Managing human beings is the most difficult task a leader faces. In fact a leader will find him or herself spending more than 75% of their time dealing with human resources issues and consequently not able to achieve his or her main objectives. This is one of the reasons why we are not moving ahead. We are spending all of our time trying to fix the human issues when it seems like it is almost impossible to resolve. No matter what you do, you will get blame either due to lack of understanding, lack of communication or simply a deliberate careless act by certain individuals.
Rather than blaming someone or something, why don’t we play our part in resolving the issues in our community. If you see something needs fixing and you can fix it, just do it. No one needs to know you did it. Just do it without trying to get praise or credit for it. For example, if you see the streets need cleaning, coordinate a group of individuals together and clean the streets. If you see our young people in need, volunteer at the Youth Center and the Junior Achievement Program. The Government is not in a position to do everything and quite frankly the government should not be doing everything. If we as individuals unite and help each other, oh what a difference this little country would be!. This is evident in some of the neighbourhood watches that have been established in some of the communities on the island of Providenciales.
Stop the Blame Game and Assume Responsibility. At the end of the day, we will all be great beneficiaries from a resulted wonderful united country.