Highlights

Understanding Bureaucracy – Learn discipline and to take orders before issuing orders – attitude of service before self – contract service period extendable on performance – lateral entry from the Military, the Corporate and the Academic world taking advantage of required expertise.

Quotations for Consideration

• “The perfect Bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escapes all responsibility.”– Brooks Atkinson.
• “Any sufficiently advanced Bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.” – Anon.
• “Every revolution evaporates to leave behind only a slime of a new Bureaucracy.” – J. Kafka.
• “It is easy to prove a project or policy as a failure or as a success. To prove it a failure, just list the weaknesses without mentioning any strengths. To prove it a success, list its strengths without mentioning the weaknesses.” – Anon.
• “Guaranteed salaries and tenured jobs and ‘No skin in the game’ i.e, benefits they claim credit for, losses they are protected from. Ex-post facto reasoning always shows the faults are not theirs or that they had actually predicted what they had really not. They thus believe that their intellectual contribution is greater than it really was and that they understood more than they really did.” – Nass
• “(Because power corrupts), Society’s demand for moral authority and character increases as the importance of the position increases.” – John Adams.
• “A lighthouse is more than a building with a light on top of it. A lighthouse is a building with a light and a commitment (of the keeper) to keep it burning… without the commitment to serve, it is just an interestingly shaped building with a light on it.” – Adm. James M. Lay
• “Put faith in the young officers, who have integrity, intellect, energy, drive and application and a commitment to make our Country prosperous. Pay must accord with performance, not time spent on the job.” – Lee Kuan Yew.

Hence, there should be no ‘Non-Functional Upgrades (NFU in pay as being given now).

• “It is always good to take competent men from outside the Services for specialized posts. That tones up the Services… Servicemen should realize that security in the Service depends on continued competence and efficiency and that they will not get promotions and indeed they may not (even) continue in the Service if they fail even normal standards” – Prime Mminister Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking about the Civil Services.
• “Punishing honest mistakes stifles creativity. I want people to be moving and shaking the Earth and they are going to make mistakes – Ross Perot