Gordon Robinson | Nation building is a team sport

Every credible expert at betting elsewhere than casinos (only masochists bet in casinos) knows motivation is the most important factor in sports wagering.

In horseracing motivation is important but in a different way. My friend The Terrible Tout keeps telling his students horses are people too. So they also need motivation. Trainers’ most important task is to keep them happy. Or to know what training technique or style of headgear will increase their focus.

My close friend, the late, great horseracing legend Wayne DaCosta, was exceptional at treating horses as individuals. Eons ago, he trained a horse named Pax Te Cum (owned by Derrick Smith) that suffered a bad injury and endured an enforced vacation. On his way back to the races, he wasn’t trained on the track. The equine pool hadn’t yet been conceived. I’d watch every late afternoon as Wayne saddled Pax Te Cum in full tack; threw up a jockey; and walked that horse for miles along the stable area’s bridle paths.

So I asked him what the devil he thought he was doing. He said he had no plan for this horse to have injury (or fear of recurrence) on his mind. Also he wouldn’t risk re-injury other than in a real race where a purse was at stake. On his race track re-appearance Pax Te Cum won easily.

In human sports, the Coach’s number one job is to motivate different players differently. The hardest job is that of coaching a team sport because talented, often headstrong individuals must be motivated to put team success above individual achievement. In that regard horses are superior to humans because they instantly react positively to what’s good for them. They speak a different language. And only talk to their caregivers. A sports team can commit no worse offence than to badmouth an opponent. That becomes what iconic NFL coach Bill Belichick called “bulletin board material” for the opponent to post as motivation. The best recent example of this was the years of calumny tossed indiscriminately at Sha’Carri Richardson by Jamaicans from all walks of life. This made her the most motivated runner at the recent World Championships and a mouth-watering value bet to succeed.

Nation building is the largest and most difficult team sport. Motivating a team of three million members where diversity of talent, experience, culture and attitude is unending is extremely demanding. However this is the number one obligation of every Government in every Country. If badmouthing your opposing team is counterproductive imagine what happens if you disrespect your own team.

The current Finance Minister is earning kudos for his economic management which he fully deserves. But, for me, his obvious technical skill alone isn’t enough to generate sustainable growth at the required level. Unless and until he also develops the ability to motivate the overwhelming majority of Jamaicans, he’s doomed to fail.

No Finance Minister can generate sustainable, significant growth in a demotivated society. We the People are Jamaica’s most important resource and what generates growth. When a citizenry is highly educated in diverse skills; when investment opportunities are easily, equitably available; and where leaders lead by example, a country can produce sustainable growth.

Jamaica is failing on all three counts hence motivation to put heads down; noses to grindstones; build small businesses into big businesses; or excel at jobs to ensure team progress is sadly lacking. Instead, individualism, as exemplified by scamming; gang warfare; embezzlement; and political chicanery are preferred routes to “success”.

One of the most de-motivating instances was the recent massive salary increases cabinet recently awarded to political leaders. Economists, my idea of a societal plague, all agree that the amount of money being paid out won’t affect macro-economic indicators like inflation and fiscal targets.

Yawn.

They won’t. But what that scandalous, selfish, self gratifying process has ensured is that team Jamaica’s motivation, especially in the public sector, is at an all time low. The iniquitous amount of undeserved increases to politicians is psychologically damaging by itself but worse because:

• The process by which increases were awarded was as transparent as cardboard and as fair as the Spanish Inquisition;

• Politicians paid themselves huge salary increases while bullying public servants into accepting comparatively paltry sums;

• Merit was a stranger to the process which was based on an arbitrary, possibly unconstitutional tradition linking politicians’ salaries to Permanent Secretaries’ salary scales.

After politicians pocketed humongous increases for jobs with unspecified descriptions or deliverables; after they kept public sector salaries as low as they could; the BOJ Governor, who supported the political salaries as being of minimal macroeconomic effect, advised private sector companies to practice wage restraint to protect BOJ’s projections on inflation

Well, BOJ can kiss my red, wrinkled, rungus kungus mi nungus! It’s not private sector’s job to make BOJ’s politically convenient inflation predictions look good. It’s BOJ’s job to evaluate all factors, including worker motivation, and come up with predictions that offer value to those willing to bet on them.

Jamaicans don’t give a flying fig about BOJ’s projections because we visit retail outlets weekly. We KNOW and FEEL real inflation. We spend more every week to keep up. It’s bad enough to intimidate public sector workers into kowtowing to politically-motivated macroeconomic indices. How dare you tell my private sector bosses how much to compensate me for my hard work?

The Deputy House Speaker, seemingly another chronic sufferer of foot-in-mouth disease, proved you should never say it can’t get worse. Worse always wins that challenge. She was widely quoted as saying MPs’ new salaries are now “a little closer to a liveable wage”.

Liveable wage? LIVEABLE WAGE??

Really? SERIOUSLY? Twelve. Million. Dollars. Per. Year? How more disconnected from constituents’ reality can political leaders be? I see defenders of the JLP faith on social media struggling to justify this egregious insult with absurd arguments like:

“Liveable wage is theoretical. It would be different for many folks. What’s basic for you is not basic for others. It’s an entirely different concept than minimum wage.”

My friend, a liveable wage is the same for EVERYONE. For sure the minimum wage isn’t and has never been a liveable wage. “Liveable wage” refers to a notional income level that’s calculated as allowing individuals or families to afford adequate shelter, food, and other necessities. That’s “necessities” with a capital “N”! If your idea of “liveable wage” involves being able to use that wage (plus perks) to buy or demand luxury cars (plus free upkeep), apartments, watches, diplomatic passports etc then there’s a wellness bench at Bellevue upon which I recommend you spend some time.

One Million Dollars per month plus perks still not yet a “liveable wage”? One million dollars per month still doesn’t allow you to acquire life’s necessities? And for what performance are these salaries being paid? How many Jamaicans, educated to the tertiary level, earn one million dollars monthly plus Close Protection Officer; driver, criss car? How many Jamaicans educated to the tertiary level have jobs with vague job requirements except to jump around constituencies promising utilities and infrastructure that never materialize; shouting crude nonsense at political rallies; and absenting themselves from the workplace then blaming a sub-committee chairman for members’ truancy?

If Deputy House Speaker wants to know what a liveable wage is she should ask a medical technician; or constable; or teacher; or nurse; or her driver; or any member of the working poor (a group identified by the disparity between Government’s employment and poverty stats).

One last thing (said Lieutenant Colombo). How many MPs gave up their day jobs? How much do they earn on top of MP salary? How many have been awarded government contracts in one form or another validated by routine passage of a simple parliamentary motion?

This concept of do as I say not as I do must be the worst job of motivating a team known to humanity. It’s not entirely this Government’s fault. This supercilious, better-than-us attitude has been branded into politicians’ brains by 61 years of Westminster indoctrination that allows absolute power in the hands of a series of Prime Ministers who have never been forced to account to anybody for anything.

If nation building is a team sport, sustainable growth is the team’s mission. Neither can be achieved by Government alone. For us to act in the team’s best interests, we must be motivated. Only more democracy, accountability and leadership by example will motivate the Jamaican team.

So betting on Sha’Carri to succeed in Budapest was an enterprise offering plenty value. Betting on Jamaica experiencing sustainable economic growth? Not so much.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com