Richard Boock: spare us moronic meddlers

THE LATE management guru Peter Drucker once said: "There is nothing as useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." Never had the chance to meet the bloke myself but, in terms of outlining the perils of unnecessary meddling; of fixing the unbroken and justifying the unjustifiable, his point seems as applicable now as it was 30 years previous.

In other words, give a man a job that doesn't need to be done and you can be sure he'll have a crack at it anyway, or at least to the best of his ability. Carry On Regardless. That the results may range from a complete waste of time and money to an Orwellian abuse of power is neither here nor there. A chap has to do something, after all. There's an entire industry made up of people who dream up solutions for non-existent problems, and then set about trying to implement them.

We were reminded of this only last week when the Sunday Star-Times exposed the dangers faced by members of the New Zealand Police Special Investigations Group, who have recently been risking life and limb spying on lethal dissidents such as battery chicken farm protesters, anti-vivisectionists, Iraq war protesters and climate change activists. One can only imagine these SIG officers' anxious WAGs as they farewell their brave men each morning, uncertain if they'll ever see them again.

Of course, spying might be overstating the case a trifle, for real spies tend not to end up with their mugshot or name splashed across the front page of the national weekly, as was the case last week. New Zealand intelligence officers (now there's an oxymoronic thought) have been struggling to restore their credibility since the day one of their number left (on a fence near Parliament) his notebook of observations on various targets, together with a packet of sandwiches and a copy of The Listener. Welcome to covert surveillance, Kiwi style.

Nevertheless, this was still a pure Druckerism; a group of cowboys charged with protecting national security against genuinely seditious dissidents, despite a complete shortage of genuinely seditious dissidents. Not a problem for most of us, perhaps, but clearly a conundrum for those responsible for weeding them out. Former Australian television presenter Clive James, who never missed a chance to send up our national insecurity complex, could have made an entire series out of this one: "And now we cross to New Zealand, and the hunt for their imaginary terrorists ..."

But Drucker would have at least understood. With no sign of Al Qaeda-type forces on the horizon, special forces have been forced to turn their attention to much more dangerous missions, such as monitoring Greenpeace members and keeping a close watch on opponents of the pig-farming industry. It is frightening and dangerous work. Foot and Mouth bacteria is an ever-present threat. Mites, ticks and fleas lurk around every corner. There's even talk that SIG representatives have been forced to infiltrate the offices of the Green Party. No greater sacrifice has ever been made.

One could only rush to earnestly agree with police minister Judith Collins, who last week batted away critics of the operation with the comment that: "Most New Zealanders would find it reassuring that the police are out there keeping a watch on the whole community." Hear, hear; who couldn't possibly agree with that? We can't find any Al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiah connections, but we've at least been able to rattle the cages of a few trade union organisations. Thank goodness for the SIG.

The good news for these courageous folk is that, should they find themselves out of work in politics, they'll have no problem finding new opportunities within the professional sporting industry. The International Cricket Council, adept at setting up all sorts of ad-hoc positions, irrelevant task-forces and vague committees, will appeal as the first port of call. Their all-powerful group named the Cricket Committee remains a monument to Drucker's initial observation.

Formerly headed by Sunil Gavaskar, one of cricket's most cynical characters, this is the collection of individuals charged with overseeing the game, considering its state of health, and suggesting ways of making it more interesting and exciting. Cue the mercifully rescinded substitute rule, the still deranged free-hit no-ball, the ever-changing powerplays, and the half-witted idea of giving the replay screen to the players, rather than the umpires. It was only a last-minute scramble that prevented the introduction of the double-play.

It was much the same in 2005 when New Zealand Cricket introduced "agent-of-change" Ric Charlesworth to its organisation, in the hope the highly-qualified Australian might be able to find a magic formula to accelerate the fortunes of the national side. True, Charlesworth did recommend a well-overdue overhaul of the High Performance Centre, but the rest of his contribution, and especially his views on unsettling and inconveniencing the older or more established players, led to a general exodus that is still impacting today.

Still, even if our hard-working SIG types find the doors to the ICC closed, they should always remember that the New Zealand Rugby Union remains a fertile ground for needless trouble-shooting and unnecessary evaluation. Quite apart from the nonsensical world cup review, the NZRU recently bore out Drucker's theory when it extended another reprieve to the Tasman union, despite months ago completing an investigation that recommended the Makos (and Northland) be jettisoned from the top provincial competition.

It makes you wonder what sort of fruitless pursuits might be commissioned next year. A committee to study netball's influence on global sport, perhaps? A panel to examine the secret behind the success of beach volleyball? Maybe a task force to consider more rule changes for rugby union? Ah, well, as Drucker always insisted, there's nothing like a job that doesn't need doing.

- © Fairfax NZ News