It doesn’t look good.
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”?
