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Self praise is hollow; Back patting banal; Collective congratulations crummy. 

Prime Minister Gilani praised his outgoing caravan of ministers, congratulating them for doing a heck of job! In sum: he was praising himself for he was their leader. Are we condemned as a nation to hyperbole? Are we never to have a voice? Let the public evaluate the PM and his army of seventy plus. The real worth of a manager – be it a president, prime minister, service chief, chief justice, chief minister, minister, advisor, federal secretary, chief of a political party and head of a corporation is the report card he gets from those he supervises.


Most power horses currently managing Pakistan would flunk were they to allow a ‘360’ on themselves.
I did not know what a ‘360’ was until a CEO’s wife told me. We were at a dinner in New York where her husband was being honoured for running an efficiently managed corporation. In his acceptance speech he mentioned that he was a firm believer in getting a ‘360’ done on himself and his managers. Medals and speeches over, I walked across to the couple, very curious to find out what exactly a ‘360’ entailed. “A 360 is done by an outside agency or individual not connected with the organisation and its people” said the good-natured wife. Adding, “It’s therefore an independent, neutral person.”

I still didn’t get it. By that time, others around had commandeered her husband. Sensing my confused look, the wife patiently continued: “Questions or interviews are done with people that work under you, above you and your peers. From personal assistants/secretaries to board members, and from people that report to you, like for a CEO his Chief Financial Officer. The evaluation includes open ended questions so there is positive and negative feedback.” As she explained, my mind wandered off to our political ‘dynamos’ who treat Pakistan as their personal play ground. Boasting of a “people’s mandate” bequeathing the seats of power to them, additionally backed by ‘democracy lovers,’ they are accountable to none!

Lost in Pakistan; a different continent, a different world (make it Third) with a different mindset of managers ruling us, the wife gently nudged me back to the present moment. “My husband’s criteria for promotions, salaries and future job promotions or demotions are based on evaluations. He even looks for areas where people can get outside counseling to help them do their job better.”

The ‘takeaway’ for me that evening in Manhattan was that this particular CEO never shied away from putting himself in the dock and allowing his subordinates to air their opinion of his performance via a questionnaire prepared by an outside organisation. The questions related to trust – whether they trusted him; whether their views were valued by him; whether they felt confident to air their heartfelt opinions; whether they felt they could win; whether he would reward them for their hard work, creativity and thinking outside the box.If a CEO of an American corporation can turn his company around and be applauded for it in the press and the public, why can’t the CEO of Pakistan follow the same rules and volunteer to be rated by the intelligentsia, media, party men, ordinary workers and his ministers? Gilani’s sacking of his cabinet should have preceded by a ‘360’ on himself. He’s not above accountability. Nor is the president above the law to enjoy ‘presidential immunity?’

Instead of collecting a melee of political pin heads around a table as announced by Zardari, he and Gilani, along with the Sharifs, MQM and ANP chieftains should do a ‘360’ on each other and allow the media and the initiated public to do an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) on their past and present deeds. The report these politicos would find on their tables regarding their performance would read more like a white paper, a sackful of damnation.

The only ‘progress’ made in these three years is the “mobile service.” When I asked the vegetable vendor if he came to our street daily, pat came his reply: “Here’s my mobile number, call me and I’ll come.” Same with the key maker who sits in the market square but is never around. “You have to call him to make an appointment,” a helpful passerby told me. Five years ago, I mentioned on these pages how Boota used his cell when called by housewives to clean their clogged gutters. Shaukat Aziz, the then PM, lifted my column to tell the corps commanders and the military brass in a meeting, taking full credit for the mobile phone revolution! He said guys like Boota were benefitting and thereby fuelling the engines of growth! [This story was repeated to me by someone sitting at the meeting.

So, will PM Gilani too credit himself for the vegetable vendor and the key man conducting business via their mobiles?

Things have gotten so rotten that the heads of national and multinationals have moved (why now?). Mian Mansha, #937 on Forbes list of billionaires, the only Pakistani to make it, is one of the movers and shakers in the Pakistan Business Council (PBC). Under Asad Omar, President Engro Corporation, this council of wise men, wants a dialogue with the government on “inflation, poverty, unemployment and crime.”

Give me a break! Such ‘dialogues’ have been done to death by past masters. Worthless words like “corruption;” “bad governance”, “law and order”, “poverty” and “inflation” have straddled since doggone days. They are a rip-off parroted by the mindless. Let’s ban them unless accompanied by irrefutable proof that even the brashest brayer in government falls silent.

If you have proof of corruption by an individual or collective entity (it takes a second to find out – just drive past their mansions and count their Prados; checkout the voluptuousness of wealth pilfered by their sons, daughters, close relatives and partners-in-crime stashed abroad and then pull out your pocket calculator to tabulate their net worth and Presto! you’ve hit the ‘magic’ number.

Captains of industry like Mansha and Omar, partnered by the empowered must demand a ‘360’ on every autocrat in power today; the youth must lead to agitate for accountability of dictators of sham democracy; the reverberations from the streets must ricochet “Hold your head up high. You are Pakistanis.’’