Behind every bad governmental decision...

While working for a large corporation, I had the opportunity to attend many in-house courses. One of them was on problem solving. The first thing I learned was that before you start looking for solutions, you must be able to accurately pinpoint the problem. It sounds ridiculously obvious, yet many people are happy enough to start applying solutions before the problem is properly understood.

At present times, many bad decisions being made at all levels of government in all countries. We vote for one party and then sit back and wait for the party to deliver on its promises. A few years later, we get disappointed and vote for the next party to take over. Are the people running the government so incapable? One after another, time after time?

Perhaps it is time to reflect on whether we have correctly identified the problem. Perhaps it is not caused by lack of good leadership, nor lack of vision, nor lack of manpower, nor lack of good laws, nor lack of enforcement.....

Perhaps we are all too reluctant to admit that something akin to corruption is behind all the so-called bad decisions. By not accurately defining the problem, we start throwing wrong solutions at the problem. We waste time over useless arguments and pointless debates. We are fed half-baked surveys and opinion polls. Or worse, taxpayers foot the bill for expensive consultants to tell us what the government just wants us to hear. Until we can accurately state the problem, no amount of rhetoric will change the way the government operates. People will still have to live with one bad decision after another.