Thursday, November 1, 2007

If Sri Lanka Was A Company

Or should that say "If Sri Lanka Were a Company"?

I'm unsure.

But, a friend said this to me recently and it's got me thinking. If Sri Lanka was a Company it would be on the brink of going bust.

It would be run by a megalomaniac purely for the benefit of himself and his family, even its shareholders would be struggling for any sort of control.

Other Companies would be wary of doing business with it unless they could make a quick killing. It would have massive union problems and the management would pretend that the unions are nearly fully under control. It would have some fiercely loyal staff, some of the most brilliantly beautiful buildings and offices imaginable, often visited and admired by many.

Most of the management, and there'd be more of them than in virtually any other Company, would be self serving and corrupt anyway. The few good and honest ones would get ousted by the unions or sacked by the dishonest ones.

The really good quality staff would be leaving the Company in droves, to head for other corporations in which their talents and intelligence would be appreciated and rewarded. Many of the high quality people would remain there out of loyalty and commitment but the amount would continually reduce.

Talented workers from other Companies would turn up now and again, full of good intentions. Some would hang around and continue to try to help the Company, often receiving hatred and scorn from the existing employees. Many of these workers would be opportunistic and greedy and would only serve their time there to have fun and to benefit themselves.

If things carried on as they were then the Company would go bust or get swallowed up by a bigger concern. The existing management might, just might, manage to salvage the Company through its crude and unpopular methods. But the Company would be barely worth saving, its assets will have been stripped and most of its good people will be gone.

Yet underneath it all would lie a Company that has inspired people over the years, a Company that has some kind of intrinsic beauty and calls out to many. Despite all of its problems it would have the inexplicable ability to draw people in, to make them fall in love with it and yet hate the fact they love it so much.

Everyone knows all this though, the question is what can be done to fix it before it's too late?

Oh, and the canteen would serve the very best food in the world too.

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