A MONTHLY SUPPLEMENT OF RAKAN SARAWAK BULLETIN (People, events, activities and programmes which make for a total quality-managed Sarawak Civil Service) ISSN 1394-5726

Online Publisher:          Contents provided by:	Message from Editor-in-chief Datu Wilson Baya Dandot Deputy State Secretary for Planning & Development TOWARDS BETTER COMMUNICATION AND DECISION - MAKING IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE How often do we hear at meetings the almost standard reply, "I need to refer to my headquarters first before I can act on the matter" or, "There is no decision yet from headquarters"" Such replies demand serious attention especially in the context of minimizing bureaucratic red-tape. Communication lies at the very heart of any organization, let alone the public sector. Communication here refers to the process of transmitting data, directives and decisions within and outside the organization as well as the different modes of communicating. Spanning nine divisions, twenty-eight districts and thirty sub-districts, and comprising of almost one hundred and twenty government departments and agencies, the Sarawak Civil Service is therefore confronted with a mammoth communication task and hence poses a serious challenge to the administration. Some would attribute this phenomenon as the 'tyranny of distance". Hitherto, distance has created the infamous "headquarters syndrome" - where decision-making is considered as the exclusive turf of the Permanent Secretaries and Heads of Departments from Kuching and their relative proximity to the Dewan Undangan Negeri and Wisma Bapa Malaysia. How then can we address ideas and information effectively" In today's world of IT and high speed communication, this headquarters - outstation divide is one of the potential bureaucratic pathologies of the 21st century. With the advent of new modes of communication like the e-mail, teleconferencing and other virtual realities made possible by Information and Communication Technology (ICT), travelling costs and unproductive time will be drastically reduced in the future. Corollary to improvements in communication, decision-making is expected to be decentralised as ground officers are more familiar with the local milieu and scenarios. Once divisional and district heads are in control of these information, data and knowledge they will be expected to make rational decisions for their clients. In control of information is one thing but the ability to analyse, interpret and translate these information for decision-making purpose is another. It requires the acquisition of other sets of skills. Knowledge management and issues analysis are therefore the keywords in effective decision-making. Policy-relevant knowledge has to be searched, acquired and communicated. In this day and age, rationalization has taken over the antiquated "muddling through" style of decision-making. Public servants have to jettison the headquarters paradigm simply because the muddling-through is almost always "not yet through" at the headquarters. Effective communication, whether written or otherwise, must be carried out in the client's terms. The mode or style of communication ought to be relevant to the specific client who demand either formal briefing, reports or presentations or any combination of these. As a process, communication is often complicated, convoluted, truncated and even distorted. Effective communication can lead to promotion or demotion, to acceptance or rejection of one's ideas, to success or failure and making the right or wrong decisions. Communication is not just passing on information. It also requires the submission of written reports. Such reports will convey ideas explicitly and thus help to promote trust and confidence between the transmitter and the receiver. Without mutual trust and respect, effective communication will not happen. Effective communication is therefore the prelude and a precondition for public sector managers to make rational and biased-free decisions.
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