Kevin Low

I’m not sure about you but when I was young, I always wanted to grow up more quickly, to have more independence, to be able to decide things for myself rather than have the adults call the shots. And even when I am grown-up, I never quite regretted, as intimidating as the big decisions of life might be, I wasn’t too worried about ‘adulting’. I’m not sure if I’m last of my kind amongst the millennials – whom I don’t naturally identify with though by most definitions, I seem to fall into that generation.

The thing about being in the education system, following the mainstream, you’re like going downriver, the currents keep pushing your boat and you’re just trying to catch up with sights and sounds of both shores before they pass you by. And we all go through the various milestones almost naturally. From toddler to young child, you learn to see, hear, smell, taste, feel, then walk, talk, dance (albeit badly, in my case), relate to others. And then there’s school, subjects, outdoor activities, friends, rivalry; there’s science, arts, religion, politics, economics. And huge aspects and domains of life just opens up to you when just a while ago they seemed to all just fall into a single category: ‘things the adults would talk about’. There’s then the adulting stuff: jobs, finance, mortgage, marriage, careers, etc.

I realised though, I was a bit more deliberate about picking up the ‘adulting’ stuff and that it didn’t just come by as naturally as other things did. When my subjects went from ‘Science’ to ‘Physics’, ‘Chemistry’, ‘Biology’, it seemed natural and like a progress just flows. But to be honest, there was much more effort to go from ‘saving my pocket money’ to ‘managing personal finance’ or jumping further into things like mortgage, insurance, taxes. On one hand I think our education system made knowledge acquisition easy (though as kids we might think it was almost a chore to learn things); but on the other hand, it also didn’t prepare us for the non-linearity of the real world (this is a topic I intend to revisit again some day). That means that whilst we were in school, things had more clear-cut ‘right answers’; and we were more focused on learning answers than on learning the questions to ask.

When we were in school, the teacher throws up a series of questions, and we figure out the answers as we interrogate the body of knowledge we’re given to master. Teachers, study materials, and resources around us will be put together to help us answer those questions. We learn to engage those materials to answer the questions. But in life, we need to identify the questions and figure out what we’re trying to solve. This is because of the greater dimensionality involved in life, and the interplay of more factors (ie. no more ‘Ceteris Paribus’). More than half the battle is won by asking the right questions.

To take an example from insurance, we ask the questions like: ‘What is the best insurance policy? How much do I need to cover myself for? How does the coverage of this policy compare to another?’ Those are good questions, but they only deal with solving the superficial question of ‘which insurance policy should I get?’. There are other problems present – for example, isn’t the insurance agent just going to try and push me to select something that earns him the most, and which I’d most likely buy? Won’t he obscure any information? I realised it is more important to see the problem as ‘how do I get my agent to really work for me?’, bearing in mind that beyond optimising within your choice set, you’ve to solve a principal-agency problem as well. You need to flip the choice around and ask ‘how do I get the agent to sell me an insurance policy that works best for me and not himself?’

Examples of such questions I’d ask are: ‘How are your commissions aligned to my premium payments? How much of the money I’m paying goes into distribution costs? What are the mechanisms for the insurance company to return funds to the insured when the claims fall short of what you provisioned for?’ This is because, within the choice set you’re offered, there will always be a nudge towards some option that benefits the party offering you; getting the best deal is not always about just choosing between the options but questioning the choice set itself. Nevermind if your agent doesn’t know the answer to those questions, it challenges them to recognise conflicts of interest and to tread carefully, elicit greater empathy. In any case, if he tries to hand-wave these questions away, you should start doubting his sincerity about helping you.

I have had to be more deliberate about growing up now that I’m grown-up because the system doesn’t help me with knowledge acquisition anymore. In fact, the economy has a myriad of incentive misalignments that encourage parties to obscure information from one another, generate false ‘knowledge’ to influence people. Realise now we’ve passed the river delta and reached the sea; the flow of the river is no longer pushing you along, now you have to adjust your sail and watch your surroundings. Where you want to sail towards is up to you. But sail you must, or you’ll be stagnant. Or you’ll be just going the way of drift wood, get beached or shipwrecked.

Age itself may imply more experience, but the worse thing that can happen is that age passes you by and you failed to grow. We ought to be more deliberate about our growth, deepening our thinking about what problems and challenges we are really trying to solve in our lives.

Without being too conscious of it, the 3-month period of working from home has fostered a period of greater reflection. Rather than the melancholy that people might tend to have experienced during this exceptional period, I seem to have experienced a break which I had been needing for years now. Perhaps it is my introversion finally having space to express itself, and I finally have more space to ideate and think about things that the world needs which I can contribute to. For the longest time, this side of me seem to have disappeared and life seems always about execution, manifesting activities.

It is also a period when I have much more time to think about Ikigai which is a concept I’ve come across rather long ago but failed to spend more time thinking through. The ideal confluence of ‘What I love’, ‘What I’m good at’, ‘What the world needs’ and ‘What I can get paid for’ seems almost elusive on first glance. But I think we’ve been so conditioned, so influenced by the society, the Singapore-education’s linear approach that we’ve created some false dichotomies and choices in life, seeding our own misery.

This is the reason we conduct surveys that forces people into a corner; but this recent woohaah also led to some good reflection. I recall the times when I gave up on initial hopes of getting into the arts (I dabbled with graphic design, film-making, animations during high school), thinking I wasn’t good enough at it even though I kind of enjoyed it. At the back of my mind however, I did feel that if I go down that path, I’d be a letdown to my parents even though they never forced me into one area or another. And the reason is that I shared the common view that an artist won’t be able to make money.

I’ve certainly gotten myself into a profession at the moment, doing something I’m relatively good at and can get paid for it. The fact that I love economics and my work is tangentially related to that helps. And for the longest time I did genuinely have that sense of mission, and that I’m making a difference. But gradually, service at church helped to fill that bit on the sense of mission, which perhaps made me less insistent on doing ‘meaningful work’ in my day job. Life can really ‘slip’ in this way when we just try to go with the flow. Or perhaps when the waves of circumstances leaves you without a choice of the direction by which to go.

I’m definitely going to be more deliberate and mindful in considering the concept of Ikigai. And may the Lord open doors towards more meaningful work that I’d find more passion in.

Teaching, by and large, have shifted increasingly from schools to farther afield. So those aspiring to teach; bear in mind that leaving education sector, or not being a ‘teacher’ altogether, might be a good choice.

I had always enjoyed teaching, and have a deep passion for education – which is why I tend to have so many commentary ultimately honing in on education reforms, changes in perspectives that would help to alleviate issues and challenges I observe in the society at large. I have a lot of interactions with teachers primarily because most of my friends became teachers, and having been married to one, new friendships with more teachers inadvertently forms a permanent part of my life.

Yet through these interactions, it is often the daily problem solving that occupies them and hardly any thoughts about dealing with larger issues in society through education, or their role in teaching. In fact, for teachers today, teaching is relegated to a very small part of their actual jobs – with admin, pastoral care, managing projects – and not forgetting marking – taking a lot more time.

“Real teaching” has gone on to tuition centers, enrichment and supplementary classes perhaps. Learning has also changed because many would say that what they learnt in school doesn’t apply much in their work or most of the rest of their lives! Though the academic qualifications they gained count towards something.

Because I love teaching, I realised that my work interactions, be it dealing with bosses, peers or juniors, I incorporate a lot of ‘teaching’ in them. Some would say it’s communications, which probably forms a more general part of the equation; but for most part, as the economy becomes increasingly knowledge-based and knowledge-intensive, teaching skills at work actually matters a lot. The ability to transfer and share knowledge meaningfully matters – whether tacit or explicit knowledge. And this applies not just downwards to juniors and peers but also to your superiors. A large part of this sharing, involves engagement to the extent of teaching.

In fact, sales, is generally teaching. And conceiving it as teaching helps me recognise better how to prepare a pitch, because what I am trying to do is no longer just merely trying to convince and persuade, but to do so through encouraging understanding. In so doing, I also clarify my own thoughts and don’t come across as trying to baffle the audience. This trustworthiness is an important reputation a salesperson ought to gain to be able to deliver consistently.

And over time, you learn to recognise the ‘good students’ from the bad, invest your time wisely to teach and gain rapport with the good students, try to reform the bad ones, and you’d realise, you’re a teacher after all! Whether in consulting, business development, sales, as an operations manager working within a facility – industrial, commercial, even residential – you can be the teacher you might have thought you had wanted to be.

My Dad, who had wanted to be a teacher when he was 16, was rejected for being too young. During those days, people did start working early but he was told to get more qualifications. He eventually went on to be a clerk in public service, shifting around until he became part of the tax department. That anchored him within the tax sector which he stayed within for the next 30 over years. He never became a teacher. But in many sense, within the family, in our interactions, he has always been one.

Singapore’s economy is going into a period of much less optimism and this of course is something that we are not alone in when we look at the global economy. As much as we’d like to think we are insulated from some of the headwinds or that we can mute some challenging effects with expansionary budget, the fact that we are an open economy remains.

The idea of a small export-oriented economy succeeding in the world and that being the right strategy finds itself more in the global context that the economy is in, rather than the inherent structure or nature of the economy. Of course, Singapore put in place policies that allows us to execute on the ‘small, open economy’ idea well, and we reaped its success but let us not kid ourselves with that inward looking view that our policies by themselves stands up well (as though they are inherently good and not made optimal due to circumstances).

I’ve been a champion of using closer study of history (some older pieces includes this and this) to appreciate and understand the global context by which an economy succeeds or fails. And as the world enters a phase of increasing trade tensions, nationalism, indulge in the folly of closing their economies, we too, need to rethink our ideologies associated with being able to compete, and consider how far we are going with our so-called advantages and whether we need to invest more deeply into them. Our traditional metrics of competitiveness, of targeting growth might need to change and this is a window of opportunity to shift people’s attention to some new ways of looking into diagnosing the growth of our economy and fruits of our labour.

For a start, considering the structure of the economy in terms of demographics and how income, wealth and government’s revenue structure from various socio-economic groups in the country will matter. Next, looking at our connections with the rest of the world in the form of Foreign Direct Investments, Direct Investments Abroad, net Direct Investment Abroad, Imports, Exports and scrutinising the network of our Double Taxation Agreements and Free Trade Agreements will help. Finally, we can consider vibrance of community life of our citizens – be it civil society, or religious activities’ involvements.

When we were younger, our parents gauged our growth based on physical parameters like weight, height; then when we grew a little older, they looked at our behaviours, and the intelligence we exhibit. As we enter teenage and adulthood, our growth became more based on social parameters and maturity. While in some sense, those attributes manifest themselves imperfectly through grades, salary, job positions, etc, we need to acknowledge that as one grows, we ought to look at different and new parameters that indicates genuine growth.

Likewise, in an economy, if we are still stuck with looking at GDP and having policy or resources responding to that, then it would be rather immature. Yet at the same time, we ought to realise that those figures/quantities that represents the concepts behind them, are often flawed and we ought not take them too seriously to the extent of assigning them 100% weightage in reflecting the reality of matters. Finally, the global context we reside in must inform our actions and allocation of resources, investment into different areas. A man do not grow inherently or inwardly, he grows because external circumstances forces it to – if we often just think about insulating ourselves, then we may even insulate ourselves from the need to grow.

Clinical psychologist Sara-Ann wrote a recent piece on CNA about young people burning out in life and work (especially work); it relates somewhat tangentially to my not-so-recent musings on prestige careers. Strangely, she decides to spend more of her piece empowering the individual, listing 5 points that the individual can do to combat burn out. Nevertheless, she tucked in the piece a very important statement we should delve more deeply into, as a society:

[T]he onus is on organisations to recognise the importance of workplace health and build workplace cultures conducive to their employees’ physical and mental health.

There is a need to put this responsibility back to organisations; and one of the difficulty of doing this, is perhaps the misconceived notion which Sara-Ann herself perpetuated by saying:

Indeed, organisations should tread cautiously and strive to achieve a balance between increasing productivity and deleteriously endorsing a hustle culture.

This is ultimately an issue of balancing short-term and long-term priorities for any organisations. To me, the only perspective worth taking is still the long-term perspective and anything that is used to deal with short-term issues must not detract from the long-term perspective. The lack of worker engagement, endorsement of hustle culture, always asking for ‘more’ (which might involve cutting corners to create capacity to deal with more) as oppose to ‘better’ (which could involve questioning practices, eliminating inefficient or unnecessary ones, so as to create capacity to do more important things), reflects an organisation that has lost sight of the long-term perspective.

I think organisations, leaders, need to assist individuals on all of the 5 points that Sara-Ann pointed out in her commentary.

1. Structures and leadership in place must be able to catch the warning signs of burnt out individuals – especially good-performing ones
2. At risks of being paternalistic, organisations need to ensure basic needs of staff are fulfilled – work can never be the expense of physical and even (genuine, not perceived) psychological needs.
3. Companies and organisations must develop credos that emphasize clear sets of priorities and actively help staff resolve conflicts between these priorities so that each individual have a good sense of how to order their work to achieve the most for the organisation
4. Workplace health promotion and social activities can sometimes end up being additional obligations – take active steps to ensure that downtime for workers are genuine downtimes and encourage participation gently. Provide staff with time and space for down-time.
5. Create routines for engagements that are genuine, unpretentious and safe for staff to express their views, engage in meaningful debates on things that matters to them at work. Too often, ground views are suppressed in favour of management views, politics ignored or taken as given; respecting employees, down to the lowest level, is the

A recent book I’ve been reading, Enlightened Capitalists by James O’Toole talks about many leaders and companies who have sought to do all that, and more. Whether the small size and open nature of the Singapore economy allows for that sort of practices is another story. Too often, these companies are considered sui generis but given Singapore being also a bit of a sui generis itself – I wonder, if we could choose to take this lead in this part of the world to make a difference to the way our own country continues to develop, and the manner the region would grow.

If we are to do so, then our extreme meritocracy which Sara-Ann described would be the first place to start working on. In fact, Clifton Mark penned a piece earlier this year in Fast Company, which suggests that not only is the notion of meritocracy an illusionary ideal, believing in it actually do you little good. And that, is probably how our poor 26-year-old Dave in Sara-Ann’s commentary came to be where he is. To address this conundrum relating to what could well be one of our national ideals (another one, probably less mentioned now and peddled around only when necessary, is pragmatism), would be a great challenge.

The only means would be to identify other values to supplant this so-called ideal. It has to be compelling both in psychology, philosophy and also sustainable in its economics. And to that end, I think the virtues of care, and making sure that we can sustain caring, can be a good starting point to see what we can crystallise eventually. Just as people had thought that treating people as resources for a company rather than as the soul of the company (courtesy of Sara-Ann who used that description) made economic sense; we can rewrite this orthodoxy through learning from companies highlighted in James’ book: Johnson & Johnson, ACIPCO, Levi Strauss & Co, Lewis Partnership, etc.