What must be done to fix our failing institutions ??

Human beings across the world right now are trying their best to navigate through this time of increased uncertainty, confusion and fear to the best of their abilities. The real story which will eventually emerge out of this pandemic is the failure of our global and local institutions. Local institutions such as our universities, governments and banks are not only failing us but often are creators of insecurity. Additionally, our belief in global institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund are on the verge of collapse.

So, how did we get here? The usual suspects are poor leadership, budget cuts, inefficient management, nepotism, corruption and everyone’s favourite, bureaucracy. All these have definitely played their part in slowly eroding away public trust in institutions. However, I believe there are three aspects that institutions must incorporate urgently in order to solve this crisis. 

These three aspects are:

1. Inclusiveness: 

Inclusive institutions are those that allow and encourage participation by the great mass of their workers and stakeholders and make the best use of their talent and skills. To be inclusive, institutions must provide a level playing field for new people, ideas and businesses to enter. Merit-based recruitment must once again replace network-based recruitment. We must reverse exclusiveness of our institutions and make them more inclusive.

2. Extractive institutions: 

Extractive Institutions are those that extract time, wealth and income from one subset of society to benefit a different subset. This can also happen internally in an institution. Today, institutions are exploiting their workers by underpaying a subset and overpaying a different subset. You can see this in the pay disparity of frontline workers vs executives. We must address this inequality within our institutions urgently.

3. Creativity: 

Creative institutions encourage entrepreneurship and take calculated risks in order to experiment with new ideas. This is extremely important. Institutions must provide space for creativity and emerging ideas to be tested and trialled. Without this creative space, institutions will not be able to adapt to the changing world over time.

As a society, if we continue tolerating foul play in our institutions then our chambers of power and economies will go bust and societies will further lose morale. Therefore, it is imperative that we go back and start looking at all our public, private, local and global institutions.