IN the last two weeks, we have been inundated with reports of criminal breach of trust or CBT involving employees of the public service; a deputy public prosecutor with the Anti-Corruption Agency convicted of accepting bribe, several members of staff of the Home Ministry falsifying travel documents and permits of foreign workers, a soldier using an M-16 rifle to threaten civilians, a few police officers charged with gang robbery, and the list goes on.
These cases were aptly described by an officer of the court as, harapkan pagar pagar makan padi, a Malay proverb that literally means “the fence gobbling up the paddy it is supposed to protect”.
Although the above incidents are considered as major aberrations from the norm, hence by no means reflecting the state-of-the-art of the
Malaysian public service, there are however, other cases of “lesser” betrayals of trust committed by a small portion of those in the service.
True, sometimes these may not necessarily be a betrayal in the actual sense, rather an inability to carry the trust through on the part of the civil servants.
These include intentional or unintentional acts that reflect ineffectiveness, inefficiencies and, worst of all, apathy.
It is true that some of the irritations that one has to endure when dealing with the public service may seem too trivial to mention, but the effects of such irritations can be quite devastating and debilitating to those who end up as victims.
It is, therefore, not surprising that Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi again placed emphasis on the need for government departments to rise even higher to meet greater demands from, and expectations of, the public who happen to be their principal clients.
The most simplistic hypothesis as to why “betrayal of trust” occurs is that people lack a basic understanding of religion.
Hence, about 10 years ago efforts to inculcate noble values in all civil servants were begun. Many programmes have been organised since then. Much energy and money have been spent on these.
All sorts of speakers, especially those with religious backgrounds, have been invited to explain to members of the civil service how to operationalise values into their work place and processes, hoping that this will stamp out unethical behaviour.
Although reasonable success has been achieved as far as inculcating noble values in the public service is concerned, nevertheless sporadic cases of “betrayal of trust” continue to haunt the service.
Thus, the problem may not be due to lack of religiosity on the part of some members of the civil service, or insufficient value-enhancement programmes. So, are we tackling the issue using the correct strategy?
In trying to provide solutions to the bigger problem of enhancing integrity in the civil service, are we perhaps missing the forest for the tree by relying too much on talks by religious scholars per se?
The problems of “betrayal of trust” can normally be traced to the incongruity between individual values and that of the organisation’s.
Sometimes an organisation’s values change suddenly in order to respond to external challenges. But this change is not simultaneously disseminated to individual workers.
While the organisation promises services and products to customers based on the newly acquired values, employees continue to provide them within the ambit of the defunct values.
For example, while organisational leaders are talking about doing business in a knowledge-based environment, those in the lower rungs may not have a clue as to what is happening.
The other possible source of incongruity in values is perhaps due to the change in individual’s values without a similar adoption of these new values by the organisation.
Most, if not all, civil servants have gone through at least one training course. The budget set aside for human resource development as well as building training centres for the civil servants is quite substantial.
In addition, many more regularly attend seminars, conferences and workshops. Having gone through all these, one must have acquired abundant knowledge. And this would also include new values.
But why is it that the new knowledge and values picked up or discovered during seminars or training sessions are difficult to incorporate into their work? Why can’t these be disseminated to the home organisation?
Many civil servants would lament the lack of interest on the part of their superiors in the new values and knowledge that they have brought back from their training stints. As some of them lack assertiveness, they’d let the matter go, hence forever being caught between their newly found values and the out-of-date organisation’s values.
Consequently, they’d end up “betraying the trust” rather than rock the boat. Some bosses do not even want to know what the subordinates have gathered from the seminars or courses.
These bosses do not realise that substantial leadership commitment and involvement are required to change dramatically and quickly to the impinging challenges. They will have to change their perspectives and styles.
As leaders they need to scan multiple environments actively, plan for new realities, as well as create a sense of separation from the past.
This is quite different from the old perspective of public sector managers to scan only their immediate environment, plan according to incremental changes, and adhere closely to the past as possible.
Therefore, archaic values that hinder progress will have to go. Scanning becomes more important in turbulent environment. Shakespeare once noted that all captains navigate well in calm seas; it is in the stormy seas that great skills are exhibited.
Understandably, due to its sheer size, it is almost impossible for the civil service to be free of the black sheep. On the other hand, perhaps size may be converted into an advantage, if the minds of the one million or so civil servants are maximally tapped.
To do this they must take pride in managing their people, who will increasingly become knowledge workers or professionals, motivating them to adopt new values, and share them with their peers on a structured basis.
Civil servants in this country are generally well regarded. Many of those in the higher echelons have had the opportunity to study at top- notch universities.
Some of our civil servants are even being called upon to provide training to public services in foreign countries.
Surely they can do a gap analysis in order to devise programmes to align the values of the organisation to those of its individuals. This will perhaps help reduce cases of `betrayal of trust’ in the civil service.IN the last two weeks, we have been inundated with reports of criminal breach of trust or CBT involving employees of the public service; a deputy public prosecutor with the Anti-Corruption Agency convicted of accepting bribe, several members of staff of the Home Ministry falsifying travel documents and permits of foreign workers, a soldier using an M-16 rifle to threaten civilians, a few police officers charged with gang robbery, and the list goes on.
These cases were aptly described by an officer of the court as, harapkan pagar pagar makan padi, a Malay proverb that literally means “the fence gobbling up the paddy it is supposed to protect”.
Although the above incidents are considered as major aberrations from the norm, hence by no means reflecting the state-of-the-art of the
Malaysian public service, there are however, other cases of “lesser” betrayals of trust committed by a small portion of those in the service.
True, sometimes these may not necessarily be a betrayal in the actual sense, rather an inability to carry the trust through on the part of the civil servants.
These include intentional or unintentional acts that reflect ineffectiveness, inefficiencies and, worst of all, apathy.
It is true that some of the irritations that one has to endure when dealing with the public service may seem too trivial to mention, but the effects of such irritations can be quite devastating and debilitating to those who end up as victims.
It is, therefore, not surprising that Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi again placed emphasis on the need for government departments to rise even higher to meet greater demands from, and expectations of, the public who happen to be their principal clients.
The most simplistic hypothesis as to why “betrayal of trust” occurs is that people lack a basic understanding of religion.
Hence, about 10 years ago efforts to inculcate noble values in all civil servants were begun. Many programmes have been organised since then. Much energy and money have been spent on these.
All sorts of speakers, especially those with religious backgrounds, have been invited to explain to members of the civil service how to operationalise values into their work place and processes, hoping that this will stamp out unethical behaviour.
Although reasonable success has been achieved as far as inculcating noble values in the public service is concerned, nevertheless sporadic cases of “betrayal of trust” continue to haunt the service.
Thus, the problem may not be due to lack of religiosity on the part of some members of the civil service, or insufficient value-enhancement programmes. So, are we tackling the issue using the correct strategy?
In trying to provide solutions to the bigger problem of enhancing integrity in the civil service, are we perhaps missing the forest for the tree by relying too much on talks by religious scholars per se?
The problems of “betrayal of trust” can normally be traced to the incongruity between individual values and that of the organisation’s.
Sometimes an organisation’s values change suddenly in order to respond to external challenges. But this change is not simultaneously disseminated to individual workers.
While the organisation promises services and products to customers based on the newly acquired values, employees continue to provide them within the ambit of the defunct values.
For example, while organisational leaders are talking about doing business in a knowledge-based environment, those in the lower rungs may not have a clue as to what is happening.
The other possible source of incongruity in values is perhaps due to the change in individual’s values without a similar adoption of these new values by the organisation.
Most, if not all, civil servants have gone through at least one training course. The budget set aside for human resource development as well as building training centres for the civil servants is quite substantial.
In addition, many more regularly attend seminars, conferences and workshops. Having gone through all these, one must have acquired abundant knowledge. And this would also include new values.
But why is it that the new knowledge and values picked up or discovered during seminars or training sessions are difficult to incorporate into their work? Why can’t these be disseminated to the home organisation?
Many civil servants would lament the lack of interest on the part of their superiors in the new values and knowledge that they have brought back from their training stints. As some of them lack assertiveness, they’d let the matter go, hence forever being caught between their newly found values and the out-of-date organisation’s values.
Consequently, they’d end up “betraying the trust” rather than rock the boat. Some bosses do not even want to know what the subordinates have gathered from the seminars or courses.
These bosses do not realise that substantial leadership commitment and involvement are required to change dramatically and quickly to the impinging challenges. They will have to change their perspectives and styles.
As leaders they need to scan multiple environments actively, plan for new realities, as well as create a sense of separation from the past.
This is quite different from the old perspective of public sector managers to scan only their immediate environment, plan according to incremental changes, and adhere closely to the past as possible.
Therefore, archaic values that hinder progress will have to go. Scanning becomes more important in turbulent environment. Shakespeare once noted that all captains navigate well in calm seas; it is in the stormy seas that great skills are exhibited.
Understandably, due to its sheer size, it is almost impossible for the civil service to be free of the black sheep. On the other hand, perhaps size may be converted into an advantage, if the minds of the one million or so civil servants are maximally tapped.
To do this they must take pride in managing their people, who will increasingly become knowledge workers or professionals, motivating them to adopt new values, and share them with their peers on a structured basis.
Civil servants in this country are generally well regarded. Many of those in the higher echelons have had the opportunity to study at top- notch universities.
Some of our civil servants are even being called upon to provide training to public services in foreign countries.
Surely they can do a gap analysis in order to devise programmes to align the values of the organisation to those of its individuals. This will perhaps help reduce cases of ‘betrayal of trust’ in the civil service.
