The Jamaica Observer: Was Don Wehby a Success at the Ministry of Finance?
In Martin Henry's article (the Gleaner one), he points out that, in Jamaica, technocrats called in specially to help fix the fields to which they were assigned -- "magicians", he terms them -- have generally failed across the board. He references the Observer article to back up his point. This worries me somewhat, in terms of my bid to secure a Rhodes Scholarship, even as I essentially agree with his thesis and conclusion:
High-performance systems are rules bound and personality-insensitive. Jamaican people and their political leaders alike do not like system, order and discipline. We prefer magicians.
The most successful institutions are those that can replicate that success, almost in perpetuity. This is not to say that leaders -- business leaders, political leaders, etc -- are not important. This is merely to say that Apple would be a crappy company if it couldn't produce a decent computer without Steve Jobs. (And this is a question that people debate.) So, even if these magicians had managed to "succeed" in their jobs, the true test of any one magician's success would have been whether the institution in question managed to thrive under his successor.
As it was, we don't even need to ask that second question.
In addition to Henry's cynical conclusion, this analysis tells me two things. The first is that I will need to come up with some substantive plan for slow, yet steady, systemic change in order to impress the Rhodes Committee. I won't do much for the Education Ministry if I believe that everything rests on me. Secondly, it tells me that Jamaica is pretty much in problems right now if none of these people managed to achieve the systemic change that many of them desired. Actually, this leads me to another point. Perhaps it is not that Jamaican people do not like "system, order, and discipline." Hernando De Soto might back me up on this conjecture. Perhaps it is, rather, that Jamaican people, having given up on the systems and institutions of the country, still expect too much from the magicians. How could there possibly be a two-year solution to the crime problem we're experiencing now? I don't care how much leverage you have or don't have with the force. Even the political ties aside, where is the money coming from to ease all our aching woes? Yes, Giuliani's "broken windows" seemed to generate positive results quickly. But it certainly has its detractors. And Giuliani had money to work with. We do not.
Again, I am forced to reconsider my position on moving back, on dedicating my life to a field that I'm really only in because I have chosen to place my country's needs above, in some sense, my own. The Lord knows that I would probably be happier, in some sense, as a lawyer, in some developed nation. But at the same time, I would be extremely unhappy to be country-less, as I watched my nation-state go up in flames and sink.
Tune in for more revelations as I get them.
Night night,
Katherine
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