The Ostrich Phenomenon and Burial of Engagement

Vice President Hamid Ansari wants to defer live telecast of Indian Parliament proceedings, to prevent the world watching the unruly and unparliamentarily (softer word for uncivilized) behaviour of its members. Can deferred telecast make our parliamentarians better behaved?

In response to the brutal rape of the 5 year old girl, our home minister says that such rapes happen everywhere! Is this the solution?

Indian railways have announced that it is introducing personalized SMSes and wake-up calls for its passengers. Addressing issues like clogged website, making ticket booking a herculean task, poor travel experience, stinking toilets, unsafe trains and unruly daily local passengers making life hell for 'reserved' passengers, would have been prudent before introducing frills. Will frills solve the 'chills' of our railways?

Ostrich buries its head in the sand and assumes that since it cannot see anyone, no one can see it as well. This is called the ‘ostrich phenomenon’. 

Do you see some uncanny resemblance in the above paragraphs? I am not surprised!

Organizations trying to address problems through interventions (often cosmetic ones) fail miserably. The solution lies in impacting the design. Fundamentally if the organizational design is flawed, then problems will linger and become more acute.

Design, whether of the organization or the society cannot be altered till there is an intention to do the same. Intention is sadly missing in most of the cases…Ansari, home minister and Railways are just expressing the lack of the same!

Lets bury engagement!