George Wilson: Character assassination is far too common on the reservation

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Character assassination is a favorite tool of the corrupt

By George Wilson
Native Sun News Today Columnist
nativesunnews.today

I have written before on what I consider to be the greatest problem we have within our Tribal government and that is an acute lack of management experience, knowledge, and capability. I posit that the OST is a wealthy tribe, we have enormous resources and potential, but we are severely handicapped due to a lack of quality management people.

I do not mean to unfairly criticize the individuals that are charged with managing our many programs and activities, it is not their fault, but I place the blame squarely upon the Tribal Council----people we elect to serve our people and our communities. These elected officials are not elected based on their skills or qualifications----it is basically a popularity contest and most are elected because of their status in their communities and often the numbers and status of their relatives.

Many of these council reps, current and past, have been friends and relatives of mine and I have worked for 48 years at the highest levels of management in my tribe and other tribes so I will make a claim for having hands on knowledge. Most of these officials truly care about the people and most of them work hard to provide the best services they can but they are often unsuccessful due to the deeply rooted corruption that is built into the system. By that I mean there is so much money and so much power and way too little restraints or accountability.

My first management job in Indian Country was Business Manager/Controller for the Lummi Nation in Washington State which was the cornerstone of my career and the lessons I learned in that job which I held for 3 years was invaluable. The first and most important lesson was – if you don’t know what you are doing find someone that does and listen to them.

Our council reps do not believe in that lesson, they get elected, basically in a popularity contest, and they (most of them) instantly believe they are experts in everything. They do not seek experienced people to manage, they seek sycophants that have no choice but to agree with the bosses if they want to feed their families and pay their bills and most importantly they learn to keep their mouths shut.

In our tribe if you speak up and try to make a better life for the people you get blacklisted and slandered. Character assassination is a favorite tool for the corrupt and powerful and they are very good at it.

George Wilson. Photo courtesy Native Sun News Today

I worked for several tribes in the Northwest and consulted for many tribes and Indian organizations across the country and the successful tribes all had one thing in common, they demanded that their employees serve the people and provide the services that they are paid to provide. It isn’t that hard to do.

These successful tribes also understood the need for management skills and Ted George, a Suquamish tribal member, who worked at the Administration for Native Americans, and I developed a program for a Native American Management Institute in Seattle. We enlisted top management people from major corporations like Boeing and AT&T to set up internships for our tribal members to learn hands on day to day management practices. I really isn’t that hard to do IF the council wants good management.

I was Business Manager/Controller and Acting General Manager for a large corporation in Seattle from 1967-1970 and my boss was an “old school” manager, in that he did things by the book---no shortcuts and I learned a lot from him. He had a yacht and he liked to cruise around so he delegated much of his work to me which I gladly welcomed as it helped me learn and achieve.

I was 26 years old, eager to learn, and I was fortunate to have that opportunity. In 1969 a new book was published, it was The Peter Principle, and it was eye-opening to say the least and I read it from cover to cover in one sitting. The thesis of the book was that an employee is promoted upward based on his/her success in a previous job---and again promoted---until they reach a level of incompetence. This relates to our tribal management and again I do not blame the employee(s), it is a result of failed management at the top level, the tribal council and its committee structure.

In Pine Ridge, if you keep your mouth shut and do exactly what you are told, often you get promoted to a higher position and eventually become a manager, or director, and find yourself in a position where you are incapable of doing the job. This happens all the time and the people suffer because of this Peter Principle in action.

Our tribal programs, most of which are PL 93-638 programs, were originally designed to assure that 85-90% of funding went to direct services to the people. I am sorry to say that this intelligent program design does not work here on Pine Ridge. The direct services are minimal and the reason is the budgets are cut to the bone for direct services, not to serve the people but to serve the master---the Tribal Council.