Weather forecast through donkey’s ears

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CHOOSING officials is not a complicated process as some make it out to be. Today it does not happen through personal acquaintance or kinship ties or “connections,” or through the recommendation of any influential person.

In many countries, there are relevant agencies that work on nominating those who have competence and experience, who can work under pressure, and whose skills and abilities qualify them to assume public responsibility and work to develop the state. In this case, there are no personal loyalties.

It is also known in management science that those who ask for a position and work hard to obtain it will not obtain it. This is because he has the greed for it. Here is a story in this regard.

Once upon a time, a person was assigned by the king to appoint one of his relatives as the Minister of Weather. Even though this person did not have any experience with weather conditions, he assumed the ministerial position and was given the appropriate capabilities and tools.

Since the king loved hunting, he always sought help from his minister to know the weather conditions. The minister would then throw a dice, and read the paths of the stars, and he would accordingly respond to the king whether the weather is suitable for the latter to go out or not.

One day the king wanted to go out hunting, and he decided to take the queen and his daughter the princess so that they could see his prowess at hunting. When he inquired from his minister about the weather, he told him that the weather is amazing for hunting and is quite suitable for the trip!

The king’s procession left, but as soon as it entered the forest, the weather suddenly turned. The wind blew, rain poured down, and the queen fell on the muddy ground. The king became furious.

While returning back to the palace, the king noticed at the edge of the forest a small hut with smoke coming out of its chimney.

A man came out of the hut and introduced himself as a woodcutter. The king asked him, “Why didn’t you go out to collect firewood?”

He answered, “I knew the weather would be bad today.”

The king was astonished and asked, “How did you know?”, and the woodcutter replied, “Through this donkey of mine.”

The king asked him in astonishment, “How?”, and the man explained, “In the morning, I look at my donkey. If I find his ears standing still, I know that the weather is bad, and if they are fluffy and droopy, I know that the weather is suitable for going out.”

The king then looked at his minister and said to him, “You are dismissed.”

The king then immediately issued an order to appoint the woodcutter as the Minister of Weather.

In the Third World countries, there are many that operate according to this rule. They do not benefit from experience and competence and do not appoint the right man in the right position.

However, many times this action is based on a reaction, like what the king did when he appointed this minister out of respect for one of his servants and then appointed the woodcutter to a position inappropriate for his abilities.

This applies to Kuwait, which suffers from poor selection due to the lack of clear criteria for selecting officials, and the absence of a panel to nominate those with competence and experience.

This is why ministers, undersecretaries, and directors failed to manage institutions. Instead of progressing, the administration retrogressed over the four decades to what can be considered a failure at the executive levels.

When nepotism and quotas prevail, and a job becomes a reward, corruption spreads, institutions become a hotbed of disguised unemployment, and an employee’s daily production is less than half an hour.

Also, when the powers of members of the executive and legislative branches overlap, and the authority of the parliamentarians is greater than the authority of the Prime Minister and the ministers, these people become mere employees and nothing more. We then end up in a situation that we have been living in for decades as if it were our destiny.

That is why we ask how many woodcutters became officials, and how many ministers were expelled from their position and left black marks on their record.

The neighboring countries got out of this impasse when they sought the help of competent experts and advisors. They gave them the opportunity to lead institutions, and they worked to benefit from the experiences of others in developing their management abilities.

In a previous article, we gave the example of the British expert of Iraqi origin Elias Korkis, whose assistance China had sought to build its modern renaissance.

We therefore ask – When will we benefit from the experiences of others?

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

This news has been read 2652 times!