It’s amazing how public opinion can be swayed by firstly
inherent unshakable beliefs and secondly by continual spin through words and
actions.
It doesn’t seem to matter what travesties have occurred
because all is forgiven as a matter of course.
The infamous ‘Stockholm’ syndrome is alive and well even on a grand
scale. The perpetrators or captors do
horrible things then convince their victims that they are in fact good people
and to be admired through spin and their dedication to cause.
I refer to Andrews and his mis-management
of Victoria. As a politician he seems to
conform to the definition – a person who acts in a manipulative and
devious way, typically to gain advancement within an organization.
This is not a political comment but a management issue.
Victoria is now trillions of dollars behind in direct costs plus
eye watering losses of productivity and has seen some 800 people die as a
result of Andrews mal administration of the so called Covid 19 second
wave. This is not subject to discussion
as it is proven beyond any doubt. A
government with collective amnesia about who spent some $30 million to use
private security in hotel quarantine instead of free ADF, refused the best
contact tracing system, refused to replicate what other states and territories
achieved and how they did it and watched as infection rates soared and ruined
people’s lives does not deserve to manage anything.
Constant vacillation over imposed restrictions and mixed
messages all demonstrate a government out of control. And, as we had precedents from all over the
world and within Australia there was and is no excuse.
You can tell when a manager is out of his depth by the guilt
trip of working 80+ hours a week in an effort to redress his own inabilities
and dysfunctions and to be seen as ‘working hard’ so that people will
see him getting more and more exhausted and feel for his dedication when in
good management, interactions are controlled and delegated – not micro managed.
Mr Genuine then imposes more and more ‘restrictions’ in an
effort to fix the issues he created.
Restrictions which have been proven as useless. Still our ‘captor’ is seen as in control,
dedicated, working hard and focused on his agenda of saving us. The spin is fear of death as well as ‘sympathy for his
dedicated plight’ saving us and some 60% of people actually believe him. The Stockholm syndrome on a large scale is
alive and well.
Andrews behaviour is foolish and dangerous as has been clearly
demonstrated.
Good management is around 40% dedicated and focused work and
40% strategic planning with the remaining 20% being interactions with professionals
who actually know what they are talking about.
All of this accounts for perhaps 7 hours a day with the rest taken up
with life, kids, golf, future. Not
hard!
Out of control people work long hours with exponentially
diminishing returns to try and do the job they are incapable of doing. For example, an expert ‘numbers’ person adds
up a series of numbers in say 2 minutes whereas a person who does not see
numbers as friends takes 4 minutes and has to work ‘really hard’ to get
a result. Apart from the stress and
anxiety of being out of their intellect zone it’s taken twice as long and cost
twice as much. WIth Andrews he has
proven to be well out of his capability zone having to work really hard to
‘catch up’ and what happens? - blunders, bungled processes, bad decisions and
lost time. But, in this case, also 800+
lives.
One cannot just ignore what’s happened as that would
disrespect those who had unnecessarily lost their lives, those who have
suffered mental health issues as a result of the mal-administration and those
who have lost their business, savings and financial security.
Remember, this terrible second wave need not have happened
if Andrews had replaced ‘working hard’ real with cognitive
thought with a team of experts leading
to good management. All he needed to do
was watch what our federal government and state and territory governments were
doing and replicate same. Not
unprecedented and not out of the ordinary unless you are a narcissist depending
on and fixated by the need to be seen as one in absolute control.
The cost to Victoria is immense in terms of reputation,
human suffering and financial loss.
Worse, Victoria has negatively affected Australia’s reputation and
caused massive financial loss. All this
borrowed money will have to be paid back with interest for negative benefit – just
catch up. Remember it was Andrews who
spent $1.2b to NOT build a road.
Financial insanity! How about
selling out infrastructure Victoria to a foreign power with a secret MOU which
caused such alarm bells as to force the Federal Government to enact legislation
to be able to override rogue states making questionable decisions. How about Andrews and his management team
suffering collective amnesia over spending $30m on private security for the
botched hotel quarantine when professional support was offered for nothing.
It goes on and on and on.
What now?
We can’t change a government out of term unless supply is
threatened and the body politic turn on the elected representatives through a
motion of no confidence and this won’t happen unless people cross the floor and
vote against their own inabilities. Not
likely.
But, public pressure can mitigate change. Change in management. Let the politicians play at politicking and
set in place a professional management team to transparently rescue Victoria
and reset the bar. Disaster management,
yes, but far more. For example how can
we aspire to be anything unless we have a clear communicated vision leading to
strategic directions leading to strategic plans leading to action plans leading
to focused action. Yes, this is textbook
business 101, is not new but is proven. Don’t
ignore the millions of words written and acted on by companies and organisations
worldwide for decades and decades.
I suggest Victorians demand the introduction of a highly
qualified professional bi-partisan management team to rebuild Victoria from the
top down starting with a vision we can all rally behind. This is not working hard but working
smart. Treat Victoria as the failing organization it is and deal with required
interventions instead of replacing focus with shouty rhetoric and having to be
seen to be working hard to mitigate inability.
Imagine what we can achieve given focus, strength of purpose
and an innate desire to act! All we need
is a new professional, proven, high powered, respected and focused management
team capable of leading that charge. The ‘jigsaw’ people capable of building a
coherent picture from seemingly disparate pieces then handing the ‘plan’ to the
‘block’ people to action within explicit guidelines. [Reference jigsaw/block people to descriptions I coined some 30 years
ago to describe the two critical areas of business needed for success. Simple, intuitive and true.]
The first and hardest stage in this process is an acceptance
by all that this is indeed necessary. In
this case not too hard given the obvious dysfunctions of this government. It takes a good manager to recognise personal
shortcomings and deal with them by seeking professional advice. It takes an idiot to waddle through
dysfunction with horrendous outcomes. If
Victoria was a company, Andrews and his senior team would possibly be in goal
from breaching his own legislation on corporate culpability leading to death.
But, politicians seem immune from actual responsibility
continually wafting around with shouty seemingly sincere voices working
hard to fix disaster whilst
sinking further and further behind.
These people are NOT our Stockholm heroes but merely elected ‘block
people’ attempting to do a ‘jigsaw’ persons job. The second lurches from disaster to disaster
whilst the first strategises, plans and sets in train specific objectives to
achieve desired results.
This thinking is not hard and has been around for decades
and decades.
In an ideal world Andrews would announce the formation of an
arms length transparent advisory powerhouse professional management team ‘with
teeth’ to set in train a program to reset Victoria away from the pariah
mendicant state we have become. This
‘powerhouse’ to be seen as the independent team advising the government on what
to do before the government applies themselves to focused action. Not behind closed doors but out there working
with Victorians. A definite separation
of responsibility. The bi-partisan
powerhouse defines what needs to happen, why it needs to happen and when Vs the
government’s responsibility to make it happen within commercial time frames.
There are many issues requiring this powerhouse including
bush fire plans, covid19 plans, strategic vision development, infrastructure
planning, homelessness plans, image creation, et alia. Quite a long list! Imagine how the world could see Victoria as
the state embracing the future through powerhouse professional management away
from shouty ‘look at me’ inappropriate rhetoric. Wow!
Politicking and narcissism need to be removed whilst the
adults take over. Indeed, Andrews could
be seen as a professional manager instead of the politician who killed
Victoria.
