Inexperienced politicians made Ministers should attend management workshops

 Over the years, my experience with different ministers teach me an important lesson that will help the sitting prime minister have a cabinet of ministers who can problem solvers, rather than those who are only kaki bodek. 

I won't mention names but I want to show that, if if ministers are selected from people, whose entire career is in politics, they are not good problem solvers. 

There are of course, some exceptions, I would say especially those who have a heart for the people, who would look for a solution, regardless of what. 

If they do not any management experience, frankly, I think they should attend workshops on management, if the Prime Minister wants to have a cabinet of problem-solvers. 

Three Bad Examples

I will only mention two bad examples so that politiicians can see and learn from the way how things were done by them, compared to say, something a good manager would do to solve a particular problem.

A few years ago, I remember having to deal with one minister of education who was making all sorts of suggestions for schools. From white shoes to black shoes, and oposing that all school children must learn swimming in school, 

To us as parents, at that point in time was to deal with the principal of a Chinese primary school who was bullying our children, to the point that one of the girls was called several times to the principal's office, causing her to break down and cry. 

The principal put subtle pressure on teachers to tell the children that every year parents should buy workbooks for the children. This being a Chinese primary school, it is a more common problem. It is not that parents disagree to spend up to RM200 every year for each child, but the number of workbooks that the children bought they were unable to finish the exercises therein. It ended up by the end of the year, the children were given homework to do 20 pages in a day, or else, many pages in the workbooks would be left empty. 

My son who was in Standard 3 had 27 workbooks, including the few that were given by the ministry of education, while another girl who was in Standard 5, had about 45 workbooks! 

When I personally complained to the minister of education himself, he never assigned any of his officers to look into the complaints. He only gave a deaf ear to the complaints. Finally, we managed to arrange a meeting with his deputy, who listened to our complaints but nothing was done to solve the problem until much later, after I decided to pull out my children from the Chinese school (and totally withdraw them from the national schools) that something was done : the prinicipal together with eight other principals from other Chinese schools were removed within  24 hours' notice -- only to be placed in another school elsewhere. 

But it was already too late. Although then Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail "responded" with the help of her special officers, I no longer had faith in our public school system. Plus, if my children were already struggling with Mandarin, later when they enter into secondary school, they would be struggling with Bahasa Malaysia; thereafter, when they enter into university, they would have to adjust learning everything in English. 

So, I decided to put them in a private school where they were going to at least feel comfortable learning everything a language they were already comfortable with. As a result of this decision, although my wife and I had to fork out quite a substantial amount of our savings, I do not regret it as my son was able to achieve 7A's and 1B, which is only short of two marks for the subject, English as a First Language. 

The minister was apparently clueless about management, and to think of him being placed in a position as important and entrenched in its own archaic culture, his appointment as Minister of Education, a decision made by then prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, to me, it was a most "disastrous" decision for the nation. 

More Recent Example

Recently I encountered problems with two staff of KTMB regarding the booking of their Electric Train Services (ETS). I was of course not happy that I was charged the full fare, when I should be enjoying the senior citizen's fares. 

There were many issues when I tried to contact its customer careline, from a line that was still on its website although the phone line had been discontinued. Please, if you don't believe me, try the number +603-27671209, and you will understand my first frustrations. 

Of course, being a bit more savvy than most other senior citizens, I googled for another number, and finally found one which I just clicked on an icon, and it automatically called the other number. 

The rest is history: but I was so disappointed that I decided finally to give up on the minister of transport, despite telling him how bad was the kind of response I received from KTMB's careline staff. 

I was told by the two staff it "was your fault"; therefore refund would not be given, because you did not click on the box with the line, "I am travelling myself" we cannot process your refund now. I told the customer relations person, "Yes, I admit that I did not click on the box, but it's because I did not see it; otherwise, I would have clicked it. The reason why I am calling is because I had paid the sum in full, as most of the time, I take it for granted that there is no problem, and usually, I would make my payment rightaway. After all, I do things very fast."

If I did not encounter a problem, why did I call in the first place? Instead of solving the problem, the conversation with the two customer careline staff within a couple of days - which actually lasted for hours - and on top of that, I made it a point to document everything about my experiencewith KTMB services so that I could just refer to it when people asked me, "Why the frustration?" 

Since I am writing about the quality of our ministers, I will not elaborate on the problems I faced, but on the minister's cold response, compared to those who were good problem solvers or managers. Of course, I did not expect to be treated like a VIP (very important person), but a problem like this is not really that difficult to solve, if the minister himself had some experience in management. 

Having dealt with customers - including very difficult ones - my experience would probably help this minister to learn a lesson next time. All he needed to do was to advise KTMB's Chief Excutive Officer -- and that is what will eventually drive the develpment of a better corporate culture in the orgnanisation that eventually learns to focus on good customer relations. During workshops we have always learnt this phrase, "One complaint can go to some 20 other people. If you do not handle the complaints well, 20 other people will get to hear about it." 

My feedback to the minister was simple: "I am a senior citizen, and I should be getting my ETS tickets at the senior citizen's rates. What's so difficult about it? Reversing the ticket to senior citizen is not a big issue, it 's just a matter of doing some paper work, and as a manager, if I were to handle the case, I would do some paper work to resolve the issue." Period. 

After all, if the auditor were to asked why I approved the refund, the answer is straightforward: "The IC indicates clearly that this is a senior citizen. His mistake is not clicking on the box that says he is travelling himself." 

It is not about how many other people will encounter the same problem and demand for the refund, but it is about your system, which I also pointed out to the two KTMB staff. So I elaborated to them which they refused to listen; instead, one of them started to talk out of the context of the one sentence. I will elaborate here: 

After all such thing can happen, if a senior citizen who is not savvy, for example on IT matters, and he asked his son to book the ticket for him. This is what will happen because of the line that you expect them to tick on. When the son had completed the form and he saw a sentence that read, "I am travelling myself," very likely, he will not tick on it (unless he knows it is meant for senior citizen's discount); after all, he is only booking the ticket for his father.  He is not buying the ticket for himself; or is he eligible for senior citizen's discount. But in KTMB's e-ticketing system, not clicking that box is your fault; if you do not click the box, the system would not calculate the fares based on your status as a senior citizen. After all, who knows that it needed to be ticked if you wanted to get your discount?!! I took time to explain to the minister, that the sentence should have read, 

"I am a senior citizen and will be using this ticket myself. By ticking this box, I acknowledge and accept the senior citizen discount, and agree that this ticket is valid only for my personal use."

Period, but the KTMB staff told me that "everyone knew that they have to tick the box, and you are the only one who did not do it. Sorry, we cannot reverse your ticket." She was adamant, which is why the matter became an issue for me.

When all these things were elaborated to the minister concerned, all I received was just a cold shoulder -- or put it simply, my impression is I do not think he even knows how to best resolve a problem like this, despite his executive position. 

He is given the authority and mandate as a minister to intervene in matters related to his ministry, but he did not do it. 

A simple solution would be to send a short message to the CEO of KTMB: "Here is a problem experienced by a senior citizen. Please read the complaint and attend to the matter urgently. Once you verify he is a senior citizen, just carry out the paper process to reverse the refund." Period. 

This is what a good manager would have done straightaway than for the complaint to go far and wide.

A third example happened a few years ago, when someone told me that her brother-in-law had passed on in Thailand. Her nephews are not educated, and both of them had to go to Bangkok where there was a language barrier and their mission was to retrieve the body, and repatriate it back to Penang for a proper last rites.

What was worse was when the Malaysian embassy in Bangkok could not be contacted. The only way was to get in touch with the Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time, whom I had known before earlier when he was only a deputy minister in the Ministry of Higher Education. In fact, I had invited him as a guest-of-honour, I knew he was very responsive in his communication via Whatsapp.

I took all the trouble to send him the relevant documents as proof that the decesed was a Malaysian citizen. I told him that the embassy could not be contacted to help these two young men who were stranded in Bangkok not knowing the procedures how to repatriate the body. They could not speak good English, and the Thai officers could not understand Malay or Mandarin. 

At least 30-40 messages were sent, but there was not even a single reply from him like, "Sorry, I am busy." It is either he was no longer approachable after he became a full-fledged minister, or what, I not know, but what I now know he is totally a nobody, even in the Opposition bench today, after the government he served in, "tumbang" (using the very word  that he used on an MP from Segambut). 

Because of this experience with him, I honestly felt he was one useless minister, who did not know how to help two fellow Malaysians who were stranded in Bangkok. 

If he were a good manager, he would have told his junior staff to contact the embassy and give the staff the two sons contact numbers. Period, and problem solved, but the fact that he did not even know what to do, till today I am telling people what he failed to do just to be used as an example to teach others to serve the people well. 

When I met him as a seminar, I did not even want to greet him, and eventhough he remembered my name and mentioned it in the seminar, to me, he was not worth the salt. He had totally lost his credibility as a minister, and now, as a member of the Opposition, he is a nobody, not even the Opposition leader. I can only say, may this be a lesson for others who think they are someone today, because tomorrow, they may be a nobody. Most of us will only respect those ministers who served well. Some ministers I have known in the past even helped to solve problems referreed to them, through the help of their successor. I give credit to Dr Fong Chan Onn whom, after I emailed him, responded back to say that he would contact then minister of human resources, Richard Riot Jaem. Following the intervention of Richard, the problem was solved amicably, and the organisation concerned continued to contribute SOCSO for all its staff. Prior to that, they did not even understand the implications of not paying SOCSO. Most people think that only those with a lower income bracket needed to pay SOCSO, but those with a higher income, only paid EPF. 

Dr Fong Chan Onn

No one is perfect; therefore, if the sitting prime minister does what my former managing director did for us a great favour by sending us to all sorts of management seminars, it would really help boost the management capability of our cabinet ministers, some of who are driven by their own lack of experience to run a ministry that is archaic.