This is the bane of all organizations. We fail to give any credit to anyone who has done anything anytime in the past. Instead we put all the blame for the present day problems on our predecessors, ancestors or whatever.

We refuse to even think about the constraints with respect to resources, technology and circumstances the poor predecessor had to face during his time. It is happening all around us and the latest to face the music for this ‘My predecessor was a twit’ philosophy is Alan Greenspan (Wow, even the MS Word dictionary recognizes him).

Alan Greenspan

18 years, that is the time he was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. No one thought about it at that time. Three years back he was given the obviously unsolicited crown of the ‘greatest Central Banker who ever lived’. Now at 82 years of age he is being blamed for the mismanagement of the US economy. Mind you, he retired in 2006. Two years, no one talked about it. They did not blame him even when the first signs of the bubble bursting were noticed. It is only when the situation spiraled out of control that everyone including his colleagues and friends who swore by him a couple of years back, started looking for a scapegoat. And who better than Alan Greenspan to pull down.

Even now the man commands millions for speaking at functions, his memoirs (The age of Turbulence) have sold a million copies. Things may change after the dust of this blame game settles. But some day these very people, who are now in power, will face the heat of whatever it is that they do to improve the situation

Ungrateful louts, that, is what we all are.

But notwithstanding what I have said above, MY predecessor was really a Twit.