Advanced countries often have career development plans for their workers in both the public and private sectors.
While I was attending a military course at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, I had the opportunity to meet a senior military officer. It was 1972, and nominations were being made for the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for US forces, the highest military position in the country. I asked the officer who the US president would appoint to the post. He named a number of prospective candidates and I asked what the criteria were for being selected. He responded that selection had occurred some 30 years earlier. I was naturally surprised, and so asked him to explain.
He told me that there was a career development plan approved by the Defense Department for military officers. The top 20 or 30 graduate officers from the US military academies every year are especially trained to hold the most responsible military posts, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When the term of a joint chief of staff ends, usually four years, his successor can thus be appointed without any problem. The new man will be well-qualified to take up the post and this is the secret of the development of American military forces, which are the strongest in the world.
This principle of a career development plan might also be applied in the private sector. Every company should train its best employees to take up leading positions by providing on-the-job training as well as by conducting workshops and seminars. This would help a company change its senior officials without adversely affecting business. This again is one of the secrets behind Western progress.
The Saudi Cabinet is scheduled to be reshuffled within a few months, as is customary every four years.
I wish the higher authorities would establish a career development plan and a special panel to nominate ministers and deputy ministers in order to select society’s best to serve the Kingdom, its people and its religion.
I have no doubt about the loyalty of the Saudi people to the state. We have no political parties or groups to undermine this loyalty. The Qur’an directs us to select the best people for responsible jobs. We should see their trustworthiness, management capabilities and knowledge as necessary criteria, to be applied when we appoint people to top posts, especially at this time of political and economic crises when our rulers need strong, sincere and trustworthy people to run the country’s affairs.
I hope and pray that the Almighty will guide our leaders to select the best and most qualified people to run the country. We should implement career development plans in both our public and private sectors. I wish that the Institute of Public Administration and our universities would hold seminars and studies on the significance of career development plans. We should also redesign our academic curriculum from primary to university levels to produce a new generation capable of taking the country to new heights of progress and prosperity.
Arab News From the Local Press 16 February 2003
