One of the main reasons why many organizations and establishments struggle in achieving their goal or performing to their optimum is because of wrong people occupying the important positions. Every person has certain skill sets and talents and everyone can be excellent at something.
That, however, does not mean that everyone can be exceptional at everything. We often complain when our elected representatives do not perform up to our satisfaction which is quite often. We ridicule and swear at them but we usually don’t even try to understand their predicament. It must be a thankless job to be an elected representative, especially in a place like Nagaland, because the constraints very much outnumber the opportunities.
In such a scenario, imagine the plight of the elected representatives when the people assisting him in discharging his duties are not the right people. Wrong people assisting the MLA could very well be the root cause of the elected representatives’ poor performance.
This brings us to the question as to why or how the wrong people are in the right job. There are infinite opportunities that a single MLA can explore to help improve the lives of his constituents and yet, in Nagaland, unless the local MLA belongs to the ruling dispensation, there is nothing that one can expect from him. Further, even those in the motion bench including the cabinet members often fail to perform.
This is where we can give the benefit of doubt to the elected representatives and pass the buck to the people assisting him. After all, the MLA is also only one person and he can only do so much. It is his ‘team’ that is equally responsible for his performance.
Of course, being the boss, it is his responsibility to keep the right people in the right place for the right job but, here again, the boss is a poor boss because he does not have many options. Apart from performing his role and discharging his duty, the boss also has to think about the next election. So, in order to improve his prospects of winning the next election, he is compelled to keep the wrong people in the right job.
The common and undeniable practice in Nagaland is that, during the election, a candidate requires the ‘right’ people to win the election. Now, after he is elected, these ‘right’ people continue to keep the job. Unfortunately, the ‘right’ people who are good at winning elections usually are not the ‘right’ people to assist the elected leader.
The MLA needs a team of assistants with foresight, acumen and proficiency. Those who are good at elections often lack these qualities and the end result is that the MLA fails to deliver.