Failing to plan is planning to fail

The ‘problem‘ at the Kadaster highlights another problem we have here in St. Maarten.

The fact that it is so hard to find qualified people for the various (top) positions here on St. Maarten, that we have to bring back people from retirement or bring in people from abroad to fill these positions, should make an alarm bell go off by someone in education, if not the Minister of Education himself.

We need to start making assessments of the positions that need to be filled and start selecting and training candidates to fill these positions on a timely basis. Even if it means planning from as early as when students graduate from secondary schools and have to choose a career.

If government is granting student financing, the least it can do is grant financing for only positions that will be needed to be filled the coming four, eight or twelve years.

Long term planning is filled with uncertainties yes, but having no planning at all is the most uncertain situation to be in, period.

After all, as the saying attributed to Benjamin Franklin goes: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.

The ‘problem’ at the Kadaster has shown that adagium to be very true for St. Maarten with no succession planning in place to fill the vital and crucial management functions within that critically important organization for our island’s economy.

The Kadaster organization now has to resort to a short term solution to resolve the problem for the notaries, real estate agencies and their clients. However, in St. Maarten short term solutions have the tendency to take on a permanent character and thus nothing really ever gets solved on a structural long term basis.

Why?

Because we don’t plan.

Therefore, failure is a given.