The year end evaluations are round the corner and it seems like the mid year appraisals were just here. The system is the same like it was in school, you get evaluated on each project you do and then all projects add up and you mix it up with certain tit-bits that you have done around the office during the period and ultimately boil it with the rapport that you have with people in your group and your boss/career manager/your GM and wait and watch what happens at the end. Well all this is simple when you compare it to the yearly evaluations system that the
Indian Army has.
There was this coverage aired on a news channel titled "Measuring Success at J&K" throwing some light on how the army's efforts are measured and how the different units performance is measured during the year on the J&K front in order to decide which unit is better among the best and deserved the award at the
Republic Day. Considering that new channels have become more of a entertainment zones these days this story grabbed my attention and I stayed on.
It turns out that
General Joginder Jaswant Singh, after assuming command of the Indian Army as the Chief of Army Staff on 31st January 2005 made an announcement the very next day that the performance of the army units will now be measured not based on how many militants they killed during the year but based on how happy and satisfied the people of the village are in which the unit operates. Hearing this all the jargons that I had come across during the 2 years in MBA started coming to my head - 360 degree feedback, customer satisfaction etc. and it seemed a bit weird. I mean how many of us have actually thought about hows the jawans efforts are evaluated or how they are rewarded?
I started wondering how they must have done it before and my questions were answered as the story went on. It seems that in August 2005 General J J Singh thought it best to go back to the earlier system wherein units were awarded points based on how many militants they killed, how many men they lost etc. It went something like
Points for killing a Militant.............4
Additional points if he had a Gun.........3
Points if he didn't have a Gun.............1
Points get deducted if the unit loose men
On loosing a jawan......................(10)
On a men in the same unit
killing a fellow jawan..................(20)
If a suicide takes place................(30)
Points were also deducted if a Human Rights Violation occurred - Rape, harassment etc. but only if it was proven and the men were convicted but the opinions of the villagers were not considered at all. As the General mentioned - If the villagers have a problem then they will complain on their own (don't know how that is supposed to work). Surprisingly the story reported that there were no negative points on incidents like mistaking innocent villagers for militants and killing them and let alone the bad will thus created. At the end all the points are totaled up and the winner is declared.
The first few comparison that crossed my mind was the one of the traffic police trying to meet their quota of chalans as the month end approaches and of some of my batchmates who start pushing applications to the credit department as the month/quarter end approaches with the hope that it will be 'passed' and they will be able to meet their targets and get their bonus at the year end. But the same thought process might become a serious issue when it is the army instead of my batchmates and its killing militants instead of disbursing loans etc.
Disclaimer: All the views presented in the above post are just based on the news clipping that I saw on TV. They have been taken on face value (it was just a news clip afterall, God knows how much of it was true). The post is in no way meant to degrade the systems of the Indian Army or their efforts and sacrifices. Hats off to the Army. Borrowing from the dialogue of Col. Nathan R. Jessep
(Jack Nicholas) in
A Few Good Men - We need men like them to stay out there protecting us so that men like us can sit in front of their comps and have the luxury to post stuff like this on blogs.
