Any time there is a struggle between doing what is actually right and doing what seems right, then your ego is interfering with your decision. – Darren L. Johnson, American business coach, speaker and author.
NO, MS?CHARMING. Ms Miss The Point By A Long Shot. Ms I Did It My Way. Ms Hightail It On A Spring!
What is the pettifoggery between Member of Parliament for St George South Esther Byer-Suckoo and her personal assistant Alicia Deane doing in the public domain?
The firing of a political assistant is news anywhere, but the personal differences, if you would forgive the pun, do not have to be.
First of all, Alicia has been a devoted Democratic Labour Party (DLP) supporter and foot soldier for over a quarter-century. She has had the reputation for getting things done; she has been a veritable Gal Friday to several other MPs and ministers of Government too.
Could her boss have felt threatened by a personal assistant who was too perfect? Perhaps the boss wanted an assistant in awe of her?
Alicia’s capacity – and tenacity – are known far and wide. And since all roads lead to Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, Alicia’s skilfulness must also have been known to him.
More striking (some people would say markedly more poignant) is that Dr Byer-Suckoo is Minister of Labour, the one Sir Roy Trotman will eventually run to after he has felt frustrated by the other side and has seen the Chief Labour Officer throw up both hands in despair.
Mediation is as pointed a necessity at home in the byways as it is on the highways. I take no sides in the dispute per se; I am unaware who is right or wrong between the good doctor and her former political associate, or whether there was good cause or not for dismissal.
This much I know: it was definitely not kosher for Ms Byer-Suckoo to allow Alicia to be so legitimately aggrieved that the “mother of one” would have to come to the public seeking “justice”; seeking what she was “entitled to”.
Said Alicia: “I don’t want to be reinstated as her PA . . . but I want what is legally mine . . . . That’s all I am seeking.”
This cannot be happening in the purview of a Minister of Labour who at the same time has been piloting a revolutionary Employment Rights Bill featuring work laws and ethics in Parliament. It cannot be happening in the purview of a Government that has sold me on the notion that this country is not only an economy; but that it is as well a society.
Psychologists might give a million and one reasons – or excuses – for the behavioural circumstance between the Member of Parliament for St George South and Alicia. This miscommunication and disconnect between the two could give birth to a new set of heuristics: a whole bunch of fancy names for things our psychologists haven’t already known.
Clearly, Dr Byer-Suckoo distanced herself from the several nudges and winks of common sense from colleagues. Now she has become bait for all and sundry.
The redeeming thing is Esther Byer-Suckoo knows what to do. Swallow some pride. Not pretend the public fallout is not her fault. Say sorry to Alicia, the DLP and the Government. Use the experience as a how-not-to for other bosses nationally. (I know, a politician solving his or her own ego problems can both be not so very hard and really hard at the same time.)
If the St George South MP cannot bear to do the above, she should ask for a shift in ministry. There are a few other positions in Cabinet that require people of sterner stuff and harder hearts.
Former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell once advised that you should “avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it”. It is clear to see why.
But then, maybe, Esther Byer-Suckoo has need of spectacles, but is too vain to wear them.
• Ridley Greene is a Caribbean multi-award-winning journalist.
