SAPLING TO DEAD WOOD: FATE ACCOMPLI

Once upon a time in the last millennium (it literally was), there was a media overdrive by Indian Army to glamorize and showcase itself as a viable option for the young and adventurous. ‘Do you have it in you’ tagline worked wonders but was also ridiculed in house, with many a jokes ending with it. This millennium I guess there is a felt need to revive the tagline with a certain mutation; ‘Is it still left in you’ may be one of the options. One may wonder where am I going with this little harangue of mine. To put matters to rest and before you put down your digital media devices with exasperation, my concern is the latest buzz of age extension in the armed forces and the domino effect it may have on most of us still in service. I am not going to debate the financial (ill)logic or the other more contentious issues but try and fathom the effect on a sapling eagerly awaiting its transition to a tree but would be turned into deadwood. The Oxford Dictionary definition of deadwood is; people or things that are no longer useful or productive. Deadwood of the organization was not born dead, it is just the system and its machination turned it into one or did the person decide to become one, a classic chicken and egg story; what came first. Newly inducted into the organization the deadwood was also a willing worker but over a period of time started to work less and bicker more, (cribbing is healthy etc etc may not be true after all).

​Just for sake of an analogy, imagine going on a patrol in a dense jungle and the track has been reclaimed by mother nature and you have to hack your way through it and suddenly you come across a sign post saying, ‘NO APPLIANCES ALLOWED’; that is the frustration one may experience working for a Deadwood superior and an exasperated heaven ward glance to seek redemption would be the only escape. Deadwood bosses in particular have lost the capacity to grow with the time; they struggle to keep up and are happy in their cocoon. The attenuated half-life of knowledge, evolution of technology and operational paradigm at breakneck pace has left them always playing catch up and if they don’t, then the fall back plan always is a famous dialogue in a hindi movie which comes to mind; ‘Wadda Kaun’ paraphrased to English would imply; it’s my way or the highway. The reason may no stem from the fact that they don’t wish to but there is no motivation to do so while being held back against their wish with the leash of diminished pension making them extra acerbic and agitated. While we will find a lot of dead wood subordinates but the challenges with a dead wood boss would be more compound, convoluted and complex.

Deadwood either ways is going to be a big stumbling block in the future if this proposal goes through, it would not even need a DRDO scientist to figure out the rocket science of the challenges (pun intended) our organization may experience in the years to come and the effect for sure is not going to be transient but would exacerbate and exponentially create a pandemic of sorts (couldn’t leave COVID out) in the long run. The irony of deadwood in the organization is that they don’t even realize that they have become one or the system has pushed them off the precipice to become one. They are psychic vampires who drain the life blood of the system and create an aura of negativity around themselves a classic 101 on how things can’t be done.

Ipso facto, the problem is amply clear but what eludes is the solution, can this deadwood be made alive again or is it better to sequester it and cast it away. The present proposal brings to fore is a complexity when this deadwood doesn’t leave or is not allowed to but the talented ones can and do. Philosophically this extension of age is to retain the knowledge capital and in the corporate world a strong retention policy may be an apt tool for recruitment as well but not so in our case. The intelligent and smart always have the capability and propensity to excel but not the dead wood; why would it disturb the status quo, with guaranteed pay in the bank on the last day of the month with no linkages to performance, it is a dream come true, ‘do’ you are paid and even if you don’t you would still get paid the same. The deadwood would love to sit on its past laurels if there were any or create some, and they no longer see the linkage between a job well done and job security.

​The age of retirement for Colonels is not the end of the road for all but the start of another journey, the requirement to move on stems from the Maslow’s hierarchical needs to move beyond basic needs and look at higher order needs of self-worth which are no more forthcoming from the Armed Forces. Usefulness is a primary motivator, like I said in the first paragraph we took great pains to attract great people in the organization but once employed less attention was accorded to create an environment for people to stay and contribute, supersession is not about promotion but about not being heard, valued and acknowledged which makes people disgruntled and if the system cannot absorb such people then it would be criminal for them to be tied down to work which is no more a priority for them. While all deadwood cannot be categorized as useless wood, there is a marked difference between two types of people, one who have problems and the other who are the problems. Once on the cusp of retirement, an officer has disconnected and disassociated himself entirely and may vitiate the working environs as they have ‘no accountability, no responsibility and no intent’ to perform. He is the problem.

​While the dead wood would stack up on the top and the sapling underneath desperately tries to find his place in the sunshine where there is none. For them the system is not resorting to autophagy but more callously building a beaver dam with deadwood which would prevent flow of talent and ideas and do what dams do best, hold stagnant water. The domino effect on the sapling may also transfer to the seed who would seek sunnier and greener pastures to grow and finally bear fruit as a plough back to the system but alas we have told the younger generation, if you have it in you, then you are better off elsewhere, in case you do join us we will surely suck you dry till you have nothing left in you.

​The hullaballoo over lessons learnt from Operation VIJAY of having younger commanding officers and brigade commanders seems to have been inverted on its head and the organization would be allowed to age and mature but then it is the armed forces we are talking of and not wine. The zing and effervescence of youth has always won us the day and here we are trying to make sure that we tire, deflate and dishearten them. Seeking new job descriptions and more engaging challenges with enhanced intellectual capital and capability would be drowned in the cacophony of repetitive and mundane activities which one has engaged over the last 10–12 years with no light at the end of tunnel. The Nay Sayers may dismiss the exuberance of youth as a flash in the pan and seek maturity; sometimes usable as a synonym of laisse-faire. The evolving battle field challenges and hybrid nature of conflict demands ignited minds with a bright flame and not stoic, staid and patient minds, most of the times impatience may be a virtue rather than avarice to do more early; a euphuism quite umbilicaly attached to the millennial generation. They are truly a generation in hurry and a stagnation of three years may impact their work ethics and even the retention of their services for an extended duration, for one due to the delay in promotion avenues and secondly for serving for more than the required time under a deadwood superior for earning pension which may as its be curtailed in case this proposal reaches fruition.

​In essence, the seed which germinated 20 years back and after an arduous journey of trials and tribulation had reached the cusp of being tree which would be the scaffolding on which the organization could rest has been deprived of the sunshine it needed for the final metamorphosis and is being coaxed to become deadwood and more cantankerous is the idea of holding on to the deadwood not realizing that it has no buoyancy and would drag the system down rather than keep it afloat, a double whammy indeed and that too a ‘blue on blue’ while the alleged others(whose name cannot be taken) but blamed for all that ails the organization are gloating in epicaricacy.