Category Archives: Careers

We create systems because they allows us to create some semblance of predictability, and there is consistency being generated along some dimensions. This creates efficiency, and when the system generates value this way, and serve a broad base of people, it scales.

But a system wants things to fit in, to be ordered by it so as to process and get things through. For example, there’s the system of prices and money, debt, some unit of accounting that is used to substitute more complex network of promises. It is incredibly successful and it wants to be able to allow just about anything and everything to be purchasable with money, and can be sold for money. We almost believe that to be the case, when people claims everything has a price to it. So when people don’t accept a price, and some things cannot be bought, they are considered an anomaly, a defect in the system.

Then there is the education system. It tries to grade everyone, and everything. And now it is being scaled into all skills and knowledge. Training and certifications have proliferated for just about anything and everything. And if you don’t perform, can’t get the right grades, you’re defective, because the system process you to be so; because the system can’t accept your reactions to it. They’d think you didn’t stay in line.

But what is the real defect, you or the system? Or maybe, if you can find the right perspective, the system is for some people, but not for everyone. And it’s good what the system might be doing for others; but can you get that same good from somewhere else?

There was a debate at work about what is a good measure of progress. Is it the work you’ve already put in versus the total amount of work you’ve to put in? Or is it the time already spent over the total time that needs to be spent eventually on what it takes to get to the level you are hoping for it to be? Or it is based on a performance benchmark?

Objectively that means very different things for people at different role. For a theater actress or singer, what is her progress towards completing her show tonight? Does the progress bar start only when the show starts or when she first starts rehearsing. How about the blacksmith making an axe? Does it start when he starts the furnace or when he first strikes the hot iron? How then does the prior years of work, mastery factor into the progress of this one piece of work?

What about a caligrapher who wants to reach a certain level of mastery? If we are accounting by the total time or work spent, then he might seem like a great pro when he’s actually only halfway to being a master because the tail end bit of perfection takes a lot more work and time. But we won’t think he’s only half of a master, do we?

How do you think about measuring progress? Especially to your goals and life?

The industrial complex needs incompetent people. It takes unproductive people but creates a context and environment for them to produce and then pays them at the marginal rate which their next best alternative pays them so as to generate margins for the owner of the system. It is the ability to utilise and make productive these people that allows for profit.

But then you’d be stuck; there’s no need for greater competence than your place in the machinery. There’s no need for a cog to be different at different points of time. He or she just have to keep going. Ideally his or her emotions does not matter to the system nor affect its productivity.

So how do you get out? Do you need to become more important or less important? That all does not matter. The only point that matters is; do you want to get out?

Someone I was coaching was given some new responsibilities at work. And she was worried. About being inexperienced, and causing trouble or making mistakes. I don’t think this is unique to her and we too often think we are imposters.

First we have to recognise the sense of being an imposter never goes away. And second we want to see that organisations should not be valuing us for the outcomes which may or may not come from us; rather, they ought to see us for the process we bring, the leadership and attitude. Things may not be done “right” but that can only be from hindsight. And hindsight is possible because you survived.

So I’m writing this next couple of blog posts about some general approaches towards problems. It can involve framing the problem, the way to examine it, or eliminating it through perspectives. Stay tuned.

Many people were ‘stuck’ in their jobs before the pandemic. Where are you still here? Because you are worried you can’t come back after leaving? But why do you want to come back? Because it is an iron rice bowl? What is the story you’re telling yourself about your relationship with your job if you’re thinking about the iron rice bowl story? Why do you need an unbreakable rice bowl if you don’t know how to grow and make rice for yourself?

The story of an ‘iron rice bowl’ starts with the notion of commoditised labour; that you are replaceable and that you’re a cog. Anywhere and everywhere. And when you get some kind of job with lots of benefits and it is hard for you to get fired, then that security is worth your being a cog. And so you’d conform, comply and keep the machinery going. It is not because you are irreplaceable but because the machinery is designed to keep you around, even if you’re just in a bag of spare parts, you’re still making a living.

As Seth Godin would ask, ‘why make a living when you can make a difference’. You can choose a different story about work, a story on being a linchpin; on never getting fired. It matters because if worrying about job security should not be in the domain of one who cares to make a difference, and is able to contribute a positive value.

When I started my career at IE Singapore, I worked in a team that deals with companies in the ‘Environmental Solutions’ space. We were broadly looking at companies that deals with 3 big broad topics: Power, Water and Waste. They interact with one another in the environment but companies tend to focus on some aspects of the trio which leads them to be classified one way or another.

In terms of the maturity of these different markets, they are vastly different. Power tends to be a national, regional sort of market where electrons literally zip around at the speed of light. Water moves around in pipes at far slower speed, water networks are expensive to build and maintain so they operate at a more local level. Waste is an even more local market since they cannot be easily conveyed around through pipes. Product logistics plays a big role in the reach of a market.

And so do product uniformity. Electricity takes on a single form, whether it is consumed by households or industries. Maybe the industries require high voltages but that can be dealt with more easily. Water is a bit tricky as water quality requirements differ even within households; potable water versus water for flushing. And with industries, some require ultrapure water, others just distilled water, and the wastewater produced are also of different quality so treatment is different. Waste takes even more forms.

Demand structures are also different. Energy generally enjoy network effects. And some kind of feedback loop. The introduction of electricity can bring about more productivity which buys more electrical equipment and encourage higher electricity demand.

I once stepped into a market in Ghana Central region and saw a vendor selling a charcoal iron beside the Philips electric irons. I found it strange why they would be peddling such a primitive gadget when the modern version is available. I subsequently realised that there were significant number of villages and households which were not electrified and of course they would ask for the charcoal iron. Yet the electrical iron is superior in terms of weight, convenience, and productivity. It was something to aspire towards. So when people around you use more electricity and bring in products that use more, it can encourage you to adopt them too.

Water does not have such demand loops. There is only this much water each person can use. And new devices are designed generally to use less water than the older versions of them. Beyond certain per-person consumption, it’s almost pure wastage. Water is a more fundamental need than power so it keeps us alive rather than give us much more productivity.

Waste is of course far behind in both the supply and demand structures. Understanding these bottlenecks in markets help us appreciate why certain technologies can solve some problems and not others. Why some business models work better in some markets.

Over the past 2 years, due perhaps to the pandemic, and also maybe stage-of-life, a lot of my friends who have been working overseas are relocating back. Most of them either have already married and are starting families or are getting married. It’s great to back home and looking to contribute to the society back here.

Yet it isn’t easy to settle back in Singapore after spending a lot of time overseas. I’ve personally gone through it myself and I’ve also found it strange why having had a prolonged overseas experience always makes us feel a bit like a stranger in our own land.

For one I think when you live in a foreign land for a long time, you’d have been relieved of the social expectations from family and friends you grew up with. Sure there is some degree of social comparison with maybe university mates but that’s all. When you’re back in Singapore, you feel the weight of expectations on your shoulders again. Weekly meals at parents? Or worst, staying with parents and having to update them wherever I go.

To a large extent though, the expectations are from ourselves, our understanding of the context we grew up in, and expectations of how we should behave. That burden is greater in our home country. Perhaps what we ought to do is to lay bare these stories in our head and decide if we want to keep them.

Living, working intentionally is important. But being intentional is not necessarily about having a plan and executing it. It is about mindfully making choices and seeing the results unfold without being caught up with the outcomes you’ve been expecting.

One of the difficulty with human’s mastery over nature and ability to manipulate the environment is that we fail to grasp how little control we really have.

If life could be somewhat on autopilot, would you prefer that? Do you enjoy the process of living life or is it only particular outcomes, achievements and moments you relish with most of the process better off discarded?

Is it not the variations, the serendipity and the surprises that makes life more of life? Life is precisely beautiful because we are not robots, not automatons running programmes and having things run in a predictable course.

From a single dimension, with all that complexity in life, efficiency and productivity is sacrificed. But from the perspective of the entire system, it is enriched. God made the world with its multiplicity, colours and complexity so we may appreciate it for all its richness rather than to boil it down to a single measure.