Empathy required from the Civil Service
By Bakar Jair

"The Civil Service should not consider the public a rival but instead consider them as good partner. It is from the public that civil servants are able to find weakness and shortcomings in the management and the government administration."

This was the Titah of His Majesty the Sultan, during the 10th Civil Service Day held at the BICC, on Oct 4.

The core message in His Majesty's Titah is the requirement for the Civil Service to have "empathy" which according to the dictionary means "the capacity to understand and respond to the unique experiences of another"

"Good citizens deserve a good government with the latter depending on the mechanism. All parts of the civil service are government mechanisms. In this respect, civil servant must be determined, honest, transparent and forward looking" stated His Majesty.

"Contributions from the public do not cause authority and credibility of the public service to diminish.the procedures and conditions applied to the public including foreign and local businessmen should always encourage an environment for growth and healthy and quality entrepreneurship."

There are many who would regard the "titah" as mere reminders for the civil service to do better. Very few would look at the "titah" as criticisms of the "Civil Service". And yet very few would regard the "Titah" as a signal to an organizational "crisis" that requires immediate attentions and remedy.

The core component of His Majesty's leadership is that of "care" and there have been many occasions where he has been branded as the "caring monarch". "No one should be unduly concerned because our public service is transparent. It has been put on a pure and true track, following the teachings of Islam" The good teachings of Islam that that places demands on us to build an "ummah" where "empathy" is the main essential ingredients and values. The "caring monarch" projects the visions well articulated by Dr A Ciaramicoli of Harvard Medical School as follow:

When we are empathic, meaning that we are capable of understanding each other on a deep level, actually feeling the emotions and understanding the thoughts, ideas, motives, and judgments of others. Empathy is the bond that connects us, helping us to think before we act, motivating us to reach out to someone in pain, teaching us to use our reasoning powers to balance our emotions, and inspiring us to the most lofty ideals to which human beings can aspire. Without empathy we would roam this planet like so many disconnected bits of protoplasm, bumping into each her and bouncing off without so much as a how-do-you-do, awake but unfeeling, aware but uncaring, filled with emotions but having no means of understanding or influencing them

By increasing our awareness of other people's thoughts and feelings, empathy shows us how to live life fully and wholeheartedly Empathy is primarily interested in that process of becoming, enlarging, and expanding, or in truth that's what empathy is--an expansion of your life into the lives of others, the act of putting your ear to another person's soul and listening intently to its urgent whisperings. Who are you? What do you feel? What do you think? What means the most to you? These are the questions empathy seeks to explore

This is a good passage on empathy and reflects many of the essentials in the Islamic "ummah". The ideals of "persaudaraan" the ideals of "neighbours or jiran" are all encapsulated in the passage. There are very many programmes and procedures in the Civil Service that focuses on working together in teams. There are many projects that looks at the problems and provide technical and procedural solutions but there are few that addresses the "empathy" or the caring aspect of the administrations. The "caring" values for people. The "ingau ku" for people. The "ingau ku" for the public. The "ingau ku" for the success of your business.

There are officers who defines the caring administrations are those related to the work of Pusat Dakwah, and the Welfare Departments in providing care for the unfortunates and the displaced. Providing homes for the fire victims, collecting charities are all that represent good governments. They may not consider good customer relations and good customer cares as the foundations for good governance. They are wrong because there are many unexpressed frustrations, there are many minor crisis, there are many more temporary loss of income and many more discomfort and hardship that can be averted through "empathy" in the front lines of the administrations.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin