A father friend shared this interesting story with me. He has 2 boys, 7-year old twins. One evening one of them misbehaved, let’s call him Kakra. For his punishment, Kakra was not allowed to sit in while daddy dramatized one of their favourite Ananse stories to Panyin. In the middle of the ‘drama’, Kakra walked in and begged to be allowed to sit in for the rest of it. Daddy, feeling his boy must have learnt his lesson by then, allowed him in. Just then mummy walks in, and asks Kakra, ‘What are you doing here? Comm’un, out!’ When daddy attempted to intervene, mummy held up her hand, to say ‘No!’ With his head bowed in shame, Kakra walked out. At this point, Panyin looks at daddy straight in the face and goes like, ‘If you do not make him face the consequences of his actions, how do you expect him to learn about accountability?’ Daddy’s jaw dropped. This lesson, so confidently vocalised by 7-year old Panyin, actually influenced my choice of Leadership subject for this month’s issue.
I found myself wondering about all the other valuable reasons for which we dole out punishments, and the value that is derived from punishments; and further wondered why these basic timeless values are so lost on many of us. In our leadership positions at home, in the office, whether public service or private business, in church and at the national level, our effectiveness as leaders is grossly weakened when we fail to effect due and appropriate discipline. I guess I can use the help of 7-year old Panyin to drop some more jaws.
When will our shame come to an end?
Almost every passing week, a fallout of a government action or inaction gives rise to new embarrassment to country Ghana. At one time it was the Woyome Judgement Debt scandal, at another time it was the infamous GYEEDA saga, then it was the turn of SADA; after which came the Ghana Black Stars’ pathetic exploits at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and related matters; now it’s the revelations coming out at the Commission of Enquiry set up to investigate what led to our shame in Brazil; and the list goes on. Now we don’t know where to hide our faces any longer!
The above examples are no different from what happens in private businesses, at home, in church and elsewhere. A general manager of a private business gives an employee the sack for gross insubordination, and after 2 weeks, the managing director asks the affected staff to come back to work; a female staff in another firm shows open rudeness to her boss in a team meeting, and nothing happens to her; in church, a chorister attends choir practice at will, and is still allowed to sing at Sunday church service anyway. Motorbike riders flout every conceivable traffic regulation in the presence of the Police, and life goes on as usual.
During his public lecture on the state of Ghana’s economy at the Central University early on in the year, one-time Minister of Finance for Ghana under the PNDC/NDC regime, Dr Kwesi Botchwey, likened Ghana’s worsening economic situation to a ‘race to the bottom!’ My contention is that all the embarrassing incidents mentioned above in both the public and private sectors are contributing to an even bigger ‘race to the bottom’; that of our national pride and reputation! They are all a result of our failure to exact due punishment or follow through on punishments; and these are costly.
You can’t be an effective leader and not discipline (by punishment)
Entrepreneur and author, Emanuel Jim Rohn wrote that, ‘…we must all suffer one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons’.
And I believe that leaders understand this full well. For the avoidance of doubt, my take on this quote is that, in order to avoid future regrets, we must endure the pain of due, prompt and appropriate discipline today. If we opt to suffer regret later, the consequences are dire!
For a father, such pain of discipline may be the need to forgo certain luxuries today to save for a child’s tertiary education in future; for a small firm, it may be the need to tighten their belt at the end of every month to meet mandatory statutory obligations in order not to face the brunt of the law. For a government, it may be the need to keep its expenditure within budget, no matter how tempting, in order to avoid an economic crisis.
It may also be likened to the popular Christian scripture which says, ‘He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly’; (Prov.13.24 NKJV).
Whether we like it or not, at some point in time, a person in your organization will break the rules; a worker may sometimes consciously defraud the organization for selfish gain; a child may stray from family norms or regulations; a public official may sometimes take advantage of his position to amass illegal wealth. When such breaches of the law and regulations occur, they have repercussions for the health of that institution. And like any disease, unless promptly checked (sanctioned) with the right medicine, it could lead to a cancer?
After a short consultation with Panyin, with daddy’s permission, I came up with the following noble reasons why we dole out punishment;
- For the culprit to face the consequences of wrongdoing; that is why a murderer is sentenced to life imprisonment, or an armed robber is jailed for years on end.
- To recover what is lost; that is how come a fraudster is made to refund the stolen monies or face imprisonment when he fails to refund same.
- To restore the culprit to normal life or good behaviour; rehabilitation helps to correct wrong behaviour and get the criminal re-integrated into society again
- To deter others from doing same; prompt and sharp punishments have been found to be most effective in deterring the repeat of such breaches in society; and its effective use explains the relative control of crime in certain societies.
- To bring order to society; it is important that a distinction is made between the jungle and civilized society, as such, punishment is applied to remind man that he cannot behave anyhow, as if we were in a jungle where it is survival of the fittest
- To send out a message that the law indeed works! It is in the nature of man to cut corners when no one is watching, and so exacting sharp and prompt punishments to breakers of road regulations, for example, is a sure way of sending out the desired message which will go to serve most of the above purposes.
In my estimation, the above reasons for punishing wrong are justified and honourable, provided they are exacted with good intentions and on principle. However, in the last 12 months or so, as the embarrassing incidents highlighted earlier unfolded one after another, the people of Ghana cried in anguish, and their cries were rewarded; sometimes by the setting up of a commission of enquiry, and in one case a prosecution by the Attorney General’s department. Sadly enough, that has been the full package of our reward! No more.
And so why don’t we punish wrong?
But why did we have to stop there? What about the need to suffer the pain of discipline today? Or we rather prefer to suffer the pain of regret by doing nothing about these breaches? I tried to rationalise why leaders would shy away from meting out punishment, which in turn encourages the dangerous attitude of ‘anything goes’.
Panyin couldn’t imagine why dishing out punishment should be difficult, so I had to work alone; and I managed to come up with the following begging reasons;
- They are guilty of the same crimes, and since this is known, they have lost the moral right to take others on.
- They are part of a cartel to loot state/business property or funds, and so they cannot punish an exposed member of the cartel.
- A way of compensating the ‘boys’; as it were, it is payback time for those ‘faithfuls’ who worked hard to bring the leaders into power.
- Pressure from extended family, friends and cronies to forgive and spare their own.
- The lack of guts to confront and deal decisively with bad nuts.
Kindly help me with other reasons (no, excuses) that can be added to the above. And I would need a very confident protagonist of the above excuses to come face to face with 7-year old Panyin to convince him about them.
Let me quickly share this incident with the protagonist, for whatever it is worth; in a recent CitiFM morning show program, the public was invited to call in and celebrate their favourite teacher. After about 10 call-ins, the radio host said, ‘Hold on! What’s happening here?’ Why, because every single caller had selected their teacher who disciplined them most! Think about that.
If we can’t face Panyin, then we’re not effective leaders!
While I am confident that Panyin will win the intellectual debate pants down, the sad reality is that these are mainly the excuses why our leaders will not punish! But seriously, if upon all our education and training, our love for work and country, 30-plus years of character building, our exposure to great examples of firm leadership, we cannot convince a 7-year old who cannot boast of any of these accolades, about why we fail to punish wrong, then we are not effective leaders!