happiness and food

These days, the so-called idiot-box at each of our homes has become a chatter-box. It is buzzing with words like Modern day Mahabharat, Varanasi is new Kurukshetra, India Modi-fied, Jaago re and so on. May 16 is indeed a big day for India and many are looking forward to what the elections results are going to be. As an individual, I am enjoying this entire election season much more and I am not so keen on what the results are going to be. Or simply put, I don’t care. This way, that way or highway, the world’s largest democracy finds a way to move ahead by say two steps and then step back by three.

I earn my living out of Human Resources and it comes naturally to me to look at things through a different lens. Assuming the country to be an organization and the PM candidate to be the prospective CEO, the various political parties as various departments and likewise analogous, below are some points that keep coming to my mind every single day.

Eligibility criteria:  When we were kids, there used to be an essay topic, “If I were the Prime Minister..”. This indicates that a PM’s role is aspirational and even kids at school are encouraged to dream and write what they would do if there were PM of the country. So, as grown-ups, what do we expect out of our PM? Should he/she have certain necessary skills, experience, exposure, ability to lead etc.? Other than citizenship or age, is there any minimum educational criterion like a 10+2+3, 10+2+4 or even 10 for someone to represent a political party, become a leader of people or contest elections?

Selection Procedure: When people apply to a new role or position within their company or outside, they go through a rigorous selection procedure. It begins with sharing your most updated resume, a telephonic assessment and multiple other rounds. When political parties get people in their team, does it involve written tests, interview rounds, personality tests etc.? If there are 15 candidates who have applied for the same job, how does one select which one is better and should get the job? Oh yes, I know that social work is one big thing, but how is it recorded and validated?

Training & Development:  In all good companies that nurture talent, a lot of focus is laid on developing the employee and helping him/her gain new skills. How does a political party ensure that the leaders are being developed on an ongoing basis? What is the plan about learning industry trends, participating in trainings, soft skills etc.? I don’t mean to call out the so-called educational tours where they learn things like – cows graze and roads are cleaned daily. I am talking about some real objective learning.

Performance Management & Reviews: In organizations, employees are assessed over a performance cycle. Is there a performance cycle for our politicians? If yes, what is it and what are the KRAs? Is the performance assessed at all? How is it ensured that when one politician takes on the next level, he/she did best in his/her current role and apples were not compared to oranges? When it comes to talking about all good work that a certain person has done, is it highlighted at regular intervals – 5 years is not fair? Citizens sometimes even forget what the goal was!

Goal Setting: At the start of the performance cycle, if there is any, are goals set? Are metrics assigned or even explained? What kind of goals are these? May be like design a garbage disposal system for the city, plant 1 tree per citizen, work on traffic woes, address women safety or get the potholes fixed. Something that really makes a city worth living in! It should not be to get involved in minimum three scams, book plots in the most expensive locality of every city, mint as much money as possible during one’s tenure etc. I know that there are Manifestos but are these manifestos prepared at the right time and used at regular intervals to track progress?

Feedback: Is there any way for the politicians to know how they are performing in their respective roles? Who helps them improve and how? Why is it so all the mudslinging happens after every 5 years? Why do the leaders start talking sensibly immediately before elections? Why not every day? Why not share constructive feedback and help people so a better job? No one is perfect and the same goes with our politicians. So there is a lot of scope for improvement. Is anybody looking out to improvise?

And I can go on and on..

I am sure every responsible person of our country is thinking about all this. But why are we so focused on which party wins? Should we not let the best person win from every constituency? Should we not vote for that one person belonging whichever party who made the constituency a better place to live, invested in infrastructure, held open doors for public, worked on grievances? I know there are times when there is a right guy in wrong party or wrong guy in right party – but who actually voted to get the wrong guy elected or who brought the wrong  party in power. If we don’t challenge the status quo, there will never be any real progress.

Disclaimer: I am not supporting any political party or leader and the views expressed in this post are my own. As India is gearing to the election results on May 16, this post intends to call out certain key points that matter to me.