Beating a Dead Horse
A few weekends ago I started my day with a bike ride. When I reached the trail, I saw a couple of men power wash the trail to clean the debris caused by incessant rain from the night before. The Common Wealth Games commotion in New Delhi, India led me to think of reasons why the guys were there first thing that morning to clean up, when they could have conveniently slacked off.
Were they there because their supervisor followed up on all their activities? We know there is corruption and not-so-great supervisors at all levels. But the question is, in spite of the limitations, are the deliverables compromised?
What inconvenience can an inaccessible biking trail cause to the public? Does it come from with-in each individual to perform what is expected out of her/him or it is because the public set their expectations to not put up with low standards of any kind?
I was clearly looking at two perspectives, Leadership and Cultural Aspect ... or is it a combination of the two? To twist the tale even further, a revolutionary Indian writer and many others urge Indians not to watch these games. Do we even understand how many years of an athlete's life is at stake here to prepare for a game of this scale? Is our action plan to correct one mistake, to make another one?
2 comments:
Leadership or cultural aspect? I don't know. It is the work ethics. I was in Salt Lake City for 5 years. My company transferred me there. Different story. Lot of snow for 7 months of the year. We hired a college student to remove the snow. Whenever there is now, he used to come and remove the snow from our driveway. And, he used to note it down the number of times he removed the snow in a month and we would pay him.
One day there was snow. He did not come to remove the snow. We were angry. We called him. He said he did not come because he was expecting another snow storm in a few hours and therefore did not come to remove it. He said if I had come to remove the snow I would come again in a few hours to remove the snow and you have to pay me twice. I want to avoid that. I want you to pay me only once and not twice.
That is the work ethics.
Work ethics - yes, if you are looking at it individually, but what motivates people to expect higher standards as a society? My opinion is that it is a cultural thing.
Come on SG, we are talking about adults here. Friends, GF/BFs, games ... kids have a lot of distraction and you expect them to do some boring snow shoveling. I work with a few interns, the truth is it does take some a while to get into the work routine and develop their own work ethics. That's why they come cheap. You get what you pay for.
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