A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the boom-stalemate-decay phenomenon and had no idea why it is a fact of life. I went as far as suggesting how to deal with it, even though I could not put my finger on what caused it.
I just might be getting closer as to the reasons why, but still with no solution in sight. My theory is this, when a business, government department etc is started by a keen, vibrant and innovative leadership, success is guaranteed. If the demand for service offered or products sold exceeds supply, the logical step is to expand and meet the demand. Almost everyone is keen to be part of the expansion. You only have to look at Google and the number of wannabes that are constantly trying to get a job with Google.
What tends to happen during expansion is an oversight of recruiting inexperienced personnel, friends and/or family into key positions, which I believe is the start of the problem. “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump”. These incompetent people get hooked to the money and/or fame and will start recruiting their own kind in order to cover their inadequacies i.e. there is a shift in focus where the workplace gets dominated by backstabbing and endless meetings. The skilled workers get frustrated and many of them leave. This affects productivity and then the restructuring starts, one after the other, with massive injection of capital in the hope of returning to the “good old days”.
And of course once decay sets in, it is unstoppable … sadly it is like someone who is terminally ill. It seems to avoid such, one has to start early and ruthlessly weed out any signs of decay. Failure to do so would result in a mess, which is almost impossible to untangle. The best way sometimes is to trash the whole lot and start anew. The chilling fact is that many government departments and private businesses are caught up in the stalemate-decay phase and no wonder the whole world seems to be moving at a glacial pace in responding to climate change mitigation. It seems nothing short of a catastrophe will push us into action. I wish it would be different.
By now most of you have heard about the hundreds of e-mails sent by climate scientists that were illegally hacked from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University, England. As it pans out there were particular e-mails that questioned or led to questions regarding global warming. The debate is raging around the world on whether or not those e-mails were taken out of context or possibly edited, as well. This is what has come to be known as “Climategate” affair … and one is left wondering about its timing a few weeks before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
There is obvious doubt being cast on these climate change scientists on whether they analysed these data to maybe fit their theories on global warming. The opposition seems to be predominantly ideological and yet is attacking the science. While I am a firm believer on debating issues to decipher the truth, it would be nice to keep ideologists from both sides of the argument in one camp, and scientists, also from both sides of the argument in their own. It would also be fair to subject climate change skeptics to the same level of transparency that these climate scientists are being subjected to.
However, I should point out that it is ludicrous to ever think that an establishment as old as science would not have the same internal politics (some of which may have been visible in the e-mails) that leads to back-stabbing, cliques, nepotism and dishonesty, rife in some sections of business, non-government and government organizations. I guess this has to be taken into consideration in the Climategate affair and perhaps question whether the science establishment has sufficient checks and balances that rise above internal politics and guarantee delivery of “good science” to the general public.
But somehow to use the Climategate to sow seeds of doubt on restructuring programs and commitment to lower emissions is somewhat obstructive. Hopefully the dust will settle early and we can all go back to the issue that really matters, i.e. good stewardship of mother earth, climate change or not. I would want to think that both sides of the climate change debate will agree that we, as the public, are living beyond our means … it is unsustainable and we ought to find a way forward. So the Climategate affair has now become another big detour on the long road to low emissions.
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