emails

For those who follow politics, the Duffy Trials have resulted in the introduction as evidence the e-mails among the PM’s Chief of Staff,  some of his subordinates, legal council for various parties, senators and Mike Duffy himself.  The emails convey the steps taken by those parties to try and resolve the issues Mike Duffy was facing with respect to residency and expenses.

To date, I have read Volumes 1 & 2 of the emails which include the famous “good to go” quote from Nigel Wright, as well as his intention to cover the expenses himself.  

What is also interesting is the overall storyline and how they go about dealing with issues (or crisis) management.  It’s a story of incremental steps which for various reasons fail to complete as expected and then the counter measures to respond and get things back on track.  It’s easy to see how each step in itself may be inconsequential (although there may be some individual decisions that were consequential) but when looking at the beginning and the results it is considered to be a problematic outcome, as suggested by the fact there is a trial underway.  

This outcome does suggest the importance of a separation of responsibility between those resolving the issue and those governing the progress and decision making.  From a management perspective it reflects a gap in one of two ways: [1] the chief of staff should not have been so closely involved so as to maintain his perspective and ability to govern or [2] if the situation required his involvement (which it could be argued this was the case because of the people involved) then he should have ensured the governance responsibilities were clearly assigned to a “non-combatant.” It looks like that did not happen.