Bubur sudah jadi nasi.
Our fundamental weakness is our analytical and problem solving skills which can manifest to conflicts and eventually to a serious crisis such as this. There were many tell-tale signs that we chose to ignore and now suffer the consequence due to our ‘tidak apa’ and ‘not our problem” attitude.
STORY
BY
khairie@kinibiz.com
In
all honesty, we have not handled the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight
MH370 perfectly. But really can anyone? Regardless, Tiger thinks the incident
offers invaluable lessons that Malaysians must not miss.
The national tragedy that is MH370’s disappearance has turned into
a crisis management test for Putrajaya and Malaysia Airlines (MAS). But it has
not been an encouraging showing.
In the jungle the apex
predator (namely Tiger, thank you very much) has certain expectations to meet
when it comes to handling major issues affecting its kingdom like dried-up
watering holes, filthy air choking Tiger’s food sources to death and
brushfires. These expectations include giving clear directions and providing
consistent, accurate information.
Most of all, there must be strong leadership that translates into
swift action. That has not been evident for the past 11 days since the plane
went missing.
There were contradictory
statements from the start which caused confusion. Agencies which should be
scrambling to share information with each other with all haste appeared to be
doing so lethargically. The military’s apparent lack of alarm over unidentified
aircraft passing through national airspace is alarming.
And as the pilots face trial
by media in absentia this week, MAS had not leaped to their defence with
vigour. At the very least MAS should have attempted to protect the pilots’ good
reputation until such a time that they were found guilty of anything.
Tiger does not intend to
dwell overly long on the things we did wrong — there are plenty other reports
outlining those amid the endless speculation. But Tiger cannot help but be
particularly disappointed with how we have managed information as far as the
MH370 incident goes.
After MH370 went dark and was
announced missing, there should have been an official compilation of confirmed
facts that the media can work from and which the public can refer to for
factual information, constantly updated as new information materialises or is
verified. All speculation must be acknowledged and followed-up on as either
true or false, perhaps tagged as unverified in the interim.
There should also have been a
single spokesperson to provide updates and take questions. But there was no
such factsheet as far as Tiger is aware and no single spokesperson emerged. The
result was myriad figures commenting and providing information in different
capacities, sometimes contradicting each other.
This lack of proper
information management added to the apparent slowness on our part in analysing
and cross-checking our own military radar data with secondary radar to affirm
where MH370 headed towards after going dark in the Igari area.
End result: Speculation
spread like wildfire and confusion ensued as myriad information came out via
press reports much faster than from official sources.
Not to mention that we had
sent several neighbours’ assets on a wild goose chase in the South China Sea
when it appeared that we could have determined the plane’s last known location
— either one of the two corridors west of the Peninsula —much earlier.
Little wonder then that a
narrative of lethargic incompetence had emerged about Malaysia’s handling of
the crisis, painted by and propagated by foreign media, especially those from
China. By all accounts along this vein, Putrajaya, unused to heavy scrutiny, is
wilting in the face of international criticism
“The Malaysians deserve to be
criticised — their handling of this has been atrocious,” said Ernest Bower, a
Southeast Asia specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington to Reuters. “They have no maritime domain awareness and it
doesn’t look like they have a strong command and control structure and they’re
not well coordinated with friends.”
To some extent, Tiger concurs
that we have not given our best showing in terms of managing this disaster.
However Tiger thinks there is
a runaway train heading towards Bash-Malaysia Station and there needs to be
some objectivity in assessing how we performed.
It bears repeating that
MH370’s disappearance is unprecedented. There had been no directly comparable
incident such as this and we are pretty much in uncharted waters.
Couple that with the fact
that we have not had much experience with crisis management and there were
always going to be slips, confusion and mistakes, especially in the early hours
of the crisis.
“Most of the local guys are pretty darned good … The problem they
have is, they don’t do it a lot. We do this a lot,” Thomas Haueter, a former
chief of air safety at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told
New York Times.
So to Tiger we haven’t really
dropped the ball, although admittedly we are fumbling. Our slips are
inexcusable but certainly understandable in the face of an exceptional crisis.
The important thing to pursue now is to push our authorities to do better, not
pin blames and nitpick relentlessly.
As an aside, it is also
interesting to note that as a narrative took shape saying that Beijing should
and need to take control of the situation — which it cannot, since the
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) protocols dictate that
Malaysia has jurisdiction and must lead efforts — another narrative has been
noticeable: that the US is quietly in the driving seat.
The emerging taste in Tiger’s
mouth is of Malaysia being caught in a subtle contest of influence at a time
when all thought should go towards finding the plane.
In any case, above all, this
incident should be our lesson in crisis management. Pray we never need to call
upon what we learned this time around ever again.
