MCTP - Follow up Workshop - Hyderabad CC's Initiative
UNDER the Mid Career Training Programme (MCTP), recently 30 senior officers of the CBEC of the rank of Commissioner and Chief Commissioner were sent on a two weeks training at the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad followed by a two weeks tour of USA. Most of the officers who were sent for this pretty expensive training are to retire next year or in 2015 - and you call it Mid career Training; maybe it should have been called career ending jaunt. What are these officers supposed to do with the rich experience they have gained by this training?
"Give back to the Nation at least a part of what you have taken from it” - this seems to be the goal that motivated the Hyderabad Chief Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise, BB Prasad who was one of the participants in the MCTP, to share what he has learnt, with his junior colleagues.
After returning from the US, Mr Prasad organised workshops in his zone for the Group A officers of the zone on the papers discussed/circulated during the MCTP.
He asked five of his Commissioners to present the MCTP papers on
(i) High Performance factors
(ii) Do Better at Doing Good
(iii) An Introduction to Marketing
(iv) Promise-Based Management
(v) Putting the Service - Profit chain to work
The Focus was on how these ideas can be applied in tax administration.
The Chief Commissioner Prasad presented the paper on “ The Sisyphus Trap".
Sisyphus was a character in Greek mythology. As the story goes, he was condemned by the Greek gods to arduously roll a boulder to the top of a mountain, only to have that boulder return to the bottom. This ceaselessly unending task he must repeat for eternity. Nevertheless, with each passing attempt, Sisyphus regains his strength, in the hope that the boulder will remain at the top - one day.
Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Like the mythical Sisyphus, those in government face a daunting uphill fight. Too often, policy makers believe they can achieve results simply by devising the right strategy or passing the right law. They miss the critical ingredient of success because the problem of getting big things done in government isn't merely a systems problem. It isn't merely a policy problem. It's a human problem as well. Though understanding the systems of government is critical to successful implementation, we also need to understand the people rolling the boulder up the hill, particularly how their behaviours are shaped by the culture in which they toil.