The J-thing's Quote of the Day
"For example, encumbering an organisation with unwieldy rules and processes may look good on paper, but in practice will simply generate a false sense of security, while hindering the organisation from functioning efficiently and achieve its goals."
-PM Lee Hsien Loong
When I read this, the first thing I thought was: "THEN WHY THE BLOODY HELL DO WE HAVE ISO?!?!"
Isn't that exactly what ISO is? Encumbering an organisation with unwieldy rules and processes that look good on paper, but which in practice hinder the organisation from functioning efficiently and from achieving its goals. And it pervades throughout the entire civil service!
Anyway, back on the topic of what PM Lee said, I actually agree with him. I think it's damn stupid that just because something went wrong, the guy at the top has to step down to 'take responsibility', even if what went wrong had nothing to do with him other than the fact that some minion in his organisation was responsible for it. How many times have we seen competent and brilliant leaders have to step down just because some idiot under him didn't have a tenth of his boss's intelligence?
I don't think WKS should step down over the Mas Selamat debacle, and neither should the ISD director. I think the highest level of punishment should be the head of the detention centre, for allowing the complacency to set in, for not ensuring that security was tight, and for the glaring oversights like the sawn-off window handle. You can't expect WKS or the ISD director themselves to go down to the detention centre, inspect the security, and brainstorm about whether they are adequate. Yes, WKS's ministry is responsible for the detention centre, but only at a general level. So unless WKS himself examined the security of the centre and certified that it is adequate, or that he was the one who said no grilles on the window was OK, only then should he step down.
Anyway, while we're still on this Mas Selamat thing, I read somewhere (forgot where) that while everyone was applauding WKS for taking a leaf from Kevin Rudd and saying sorry for the escape in Parliament, if you read between the lines, what WKS said in Parliament wasn't really an apology after all. To borrow the writer's example, if your friend's dog got hit by your car, you'd tell him, "I'm sorry for hitting it, it should never have happened." But if some other bugger totally unrelated to you hit the dog, and you weren't responsible, you'd say, "This accident should never have happened, I'm sorry that it had"-which is exactly what WKS said.
While on the news, I read about the latest tussle between streetdirectory.com and the SLA, I went to the SLA's own map website at www.map.gov.sg, and honestly it's such a bitch to navigate compared to streetdirectory.com's! And I'm not sure if it's my connection here or what, but when I enter my search item, the map just says 'loading' and keeps loading forever!
I wish they'd just bring back streetdirectory.com.
§ Technorati tags:
news bites;
online bitching
-PM Lee Hsien Loong
When I read this, the first thing I thought was: "THEN WHY THE BLOODY HELL DO WE HAVE ISO?!?!"
Isn't that exactly what ISO is? Encumbering an organisation with unwieldy rules and processes that look good on paper, but which in practice hinder the organisation from functioning efficiently and from achieving its goals. And it pervades throughout the entire civil service!
Anyway, back on the topic of what PM Lee said, I actually agree with him. I think it's damn stupid that just because something went wrong, the guy at the top has to step down to 'take responsibility', even if what went wrong had nothing to do with him other than the fact that some minion in his organisation was responsible for it. How many times have we seen competent and brilliant leaders have to step down just because some idiot under him didn't have a tenth of his boss's intelligence?
I don't think WKS should step down over the Mas Selamat debacle, and neither should the ISD director. I think the highest level of punishment should be the head of the detention centre, for allowing the complacency to set in, for not ensuring that security was tight, and for the glaring oversights like the sawn-off window handle. You can't expect WKS or the ISD director themselves to go down to the detention centre, inspect the security, and brainstorm about whether they are adequate. Yes, WKS's ministry is responsible for the detention centre, but only at a general level. So unless WKS himself examined the security of the centre and certified that it is adequate, or that he was the one who said no grilles on the window was OK, only then should he step down.
Anyway, while we're still on this Mas Selamat thing, I read somewhere (forgot where) that while everyone was applauding WKS for taking a leaf from Kevin Rudd and saying sorry for the escape in Parliament, if you read between the lines, what WKS said in Parliament wasn't really an apology after all. To borrow the writer's example, if your friend's dog got hit by your car, you'd tell him, "I'm sorry for hitting it, it should never have happened." But if some other bugger totally unrelated to you hit the dog, and you weren't responsible, you'd say, "This accident should never have happened, I'm sorry that it had"-which is exactly what WKS said.
While on the news, I read about the latest tussle between streetdirectory.com and the SLA, I went to the SLA's own map website at www.map.gov.sg, and honestly it's such a bitch to navigate compared to streetdirectory.com's! And I'm not sure if it's my connection here or what, but when I enter my search item, the map just says 'loading' and keeps loading forever!
I wish they'd just bring back streetdirectory.com.
§ Technorati tags:
news bites;
online bitching