It doesn’t look good.

Posted by & filed under Editorial.

This week the Minister for Emergency Services in Victoria is being criticized for going to the tennis on Friday night while a bushfire burnt Western Victoria, because “it doesn’t look good”.

The same thing happened to Christine Nixon a few years ago when she went for a short dinner during the Black Saturday bushfires, because “it didn’t look good”.

So I’m wondering, what does look good?  Would it have looked good if the figurehead was out on the frontline fighting the fire?  Would it have looked good if the figurehead donned a hardhat and took a photo opportunity?  Would it have looked good if precious resources were being used during a crisis to help, protect and inform the figurehead?  I think not.

There is such a grey line now between strategic and tactical and between planning and reacting that we expect everyone to be the thinker and the warrior and if they can’t, “it doesn’t look good”.

I wonder when we will start to let people perform the role they are best suited for, when will we stop worrying about “what looks good” and start being concerned with “what works”?

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Written by Lisa Smith

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Lisa is a professional thinker dedicated to helping people unlock their innate creativity and to empower them to think differently – for themselves. She is passionate about building innovative cultures and about harnessing and engaging talent to create thinking communities. Lisa holds an MBA, specialising in organisational change and innovation, which forms the nucleus of her work. She relishes opportunities to share the Minds at Work thinking strategies with government bodies, socially responsible corporate, educators, community groups and farmers, helping them to turn their big ideas into realities.