But then, on a faithful day when the Dean of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy gave his lecture about secrets behind the success of Singapore, once again I heard this term. Meritocracy. But this time, I think I quite understand the meaning of Meritocracy itself.
So, basically it's a method where you give people promotion based on their merit or how high their achievements are. That's quite a different concept that mostly civil service in any country uses. In Indonesia itself, I think, it's mostly seniority over merit. But the Dean says that Meritocracy is one among the three secret-success recipe of Singapore success.
He then gives examples of meritocracy is like playing soccer. So in soccer, of course you're gonna pick the best person for certain position and not based on seniority. Why? because you need your team to perform at its best.
But then again if I look into this Soccer thing, there's more to learn than just a meritocracy. We actually can learn a lot about leadership style from Soccer. Yeah, actually in Indonesia, we call it Football, but then again, Football can have different meanings in several countries. So lets just use soccer instead of Football.
I think, in soccer there are 4 part of job you have to do. First is front liner, who will do mostly of the attack, second is the middle part who can be front liner or going back in the defense line depends on the situation. The third is of course the back liner or the defense line. Lastly but not the least is of course the Goal Keeper.
I know that the captain of the soccer game is sometimes not the Goal Keeper, but for the sake of this blog, lets assume that the Goal Keeper is the leader, and I will tell you why.
In old management system, leader has to be lead from the front, leader has to be the highest person. But in the modern management system, they always picture modern leadership with a picture of people doing Rafting. The leader actually can command from the back side and it actually good. Because the leader can have a broader vision and he also can supervise all team member while giving the command.
Okay, let's back to the soccer. The first lesson is really is about meritocracy. If you can see a potential in your team member to be part of the front liner, then why did you put that person in the defense line? the key is to put the right person on the right place. But in order to do that, we have to know the potential of every person we've encountered. This is where I think this meritocracy thing is a bit cruel and emotionless.
Why? because we asses everybody's potential and then based on that, we decide what fate will they have in our organization. The one thing that I have issues is the tools to measure the potential. Are you really sure that the tools are really the best? Because time also have some role in this formula. Along with time, people can change and actually it works for both side. With time, you can be better or worse. I actually wonder where time plays role in this meritocracy world.
But then again, nevertheless this issue, We still learn that to get the best result is to place people in the place where their potentials can bloom to the maximum point. The second is if a Leader really can do this, then basically all the leader should do is just giving commands, then he can relax. hahaha. Now, if the formation of the game is good. The front liner works well and the defense can also do well, basically he just wait and guard the goal.
It reminds me of how my friends told me about there are two types of leader, first is the leader who is good because he/she really possess a great deal of leadership and the second is a leader who is good because he/she got a great deal of support from those who work from him. Basically they're good because of everybody else's great job.
So if you are a leader, basically by boosting the abilities of your team member and pick the right man on the right place, you can minimize your work in the future. Now isn't that fun? hahaha....
In seniority style of career path versus meritocracy, it's like two opposite of the poles. The one is ignoring the role of merit and the other is ignoring the role of age and time. Maybe you just look at your leadership style like a soccer game. At the beginning of your play, you may select person based on their merits and achievements, but then along with the time, you don't just asses the player's capability once, you keep on doing assessment periodically to see how time have effect on the player's capability. Maybe some people will stay the same as their first assessment, but there will be some people who'll be able to develop their skills as time goes by.
I think things like this is not a dead thing. Management is a living thing. It evolve during time, and that's why we should keep asses thing according to its proportion and never based our judgement based on "first impression". People change aren't they?
Actually I have a lot in my mind when I start this blog, but then I forget. hahaha.
But basically, we can learn much from soccer leadership to apply at our management style. and not only soccer but also another games. We also can learn that every style of leadership or management style is might be have a similar basics but at some point, it has to be different. Everything has to adapt to the situation where the style is implemented. We can look to the best practice there is, but we still have to adapt it to the place where we implement it. People say that management is a combination between art and science. The Science part is something undeniable and static. But there are the art part where will always keep on adapting and changing as the time keep on moving.
I'm not a Darwin's fan, but nevertheless Survival of the fittest is quite true. If we want to survive in this keep on changing world, we have to adapt and prepare for the change it may bring. Keep on learning is one way to adapt.
-----------------------------
image source : http://polsonyouthsoccer.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tampa-2.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment