Kevin Low

In my day job, I work with regulators often. I take on a more outward promotion role but I need to coordinate with counterparts from regulatory offices to improve our promotion efforts. Countries with reputation for good, sensible and wise regulators then to do well in terms of perceptions by investors. Of course, the past two decades of global economic trajectory may have altered this slightly (as the sheer momentum and weight of the emerging economies take hold more so than reputation of regulators); and as a consequent, countries which were “well-regulated” realised that they ended up falling behind because regulation tend to preserve status quo better than markets do.

Regulation needs to increasingly keep up not by just suspending rules or simplifying them. These actions are often needed and review processes need to be radically reduced for regulators to adapt to the volatile world quickly. More importantly tolerance or intolerance of mistakes must stem from an enlightened understanding of operations being regulated so that the spirit of rules rather than just the letter is being complied with.

Political leadership to such change is of paramount importance. Regulators are normally bureacrats who relies on political leaders to give them cover and even directions. Leaders who are too easily shaken by public opinions and populists tend to do a bad job supporting regulators’ work because of the generally negative perception associated with them. On the other hand, a publicly popular regulator may not necessarily be a good sign of a job well done. This tension has to be well balanced.

In a recent chat with a colleague, we were reminded about how our schools tend to make the best school team train the hardest in every sport – while the second teams or backbenchers are often treated with more laxity. “Shouldn’t the poorer-performing teams be working harder? That way they can get better! And in fact, it’s easier for them to get much better by training harder, as opposed to those who are already good!” I exclaimed. I am basically suggesting the possibility of diverting resources from the best, and propping up the poorer ones – very controversial. Too much ink have been spilled over (see RI boy’s support for elitism and Middle Ground’s comeback) the whole equality vs equity argument and whether elitism is in itself good or bad. I want to consider a very different perspective on the very same issue.

The germination of the ‘winner-takes-it-all’ attribute in sports has bred fixed mindsets. Schools are giving off the impression that if you are no good at something, don’t even bother trying. And the poisonous combination of meritocracy with such a fixed mindset creates social immobility and entrenchment of inequality. Is that the right message we want our students to pick up? Is it true that even for winner-takes-it-all settings, it won’t be worthwhile to strive?

Kids today are smarter than they ever were at the same age – but they have also been brought up in a manner that attempts to get them to ‘play it smart’. Admittedly, when one’s resources and potential are limited and close to its limits, playing it smart is wise. Yet for one who is young and with boundless energy, perhaps learning how to channel those energies correctly would mean a difference for all of life ahead. Are we satisfied with merely selecting students who had shown themselves to be ahead early on in life only to lose out the vast human capital locked in everyone else? In fact, are we destroying the human capital potential of everyone else in perpetuating a system like that? That is something we should think more deeply about than just be stuck in considering whether elitism is good for society and then move ahead. The construct of that elitist culture matters.

Let’s take a detour and consider grit. When writing about mavericks’ attitudes, I actually wrote about the importance of encouraging grit and persistence. I probably had a little inkling that a lot of life and learning is not about being smart but having the stamina to go through the hard stuff. Growth mindset essentially is about structuring good inner conversations that allows one to encourage oneself in times of difficulty; in many ways it is a belief – not necessarily in oneself but in values of persistence and a faith that it would all eventually be worth it. Angela Lee Duckworth’s talk on TED would probably convince you that we have to look more deeply into this. Our only chance at nurturing a more robust future generation would depend on it. And in some sense, it means devoting more resources not in selection of any individuals or any pool of them but nurturing that overarching culture and framework by which individuals strive and thrive.

Is our society investing in grit or forsaking it just so we can have short-term gains in sporting finals of students in teenage? Or for just the sake of being able to select the small handful of ‘future leaders’? In fact, is the thought of someone being a ‘future leader’ merely a manifestation of the fixed mindset we have inherited?

Some questions to reflect on.

The construction of neat narratives might be a necessary feature of modern life, particularly that of corporate slaves. I would say that is probably a result of the tyranny of rationality and science in modern management. There is always a need to rationalise success, or failure for that matter despite the fact that market forces reign so strongly over the fates of business units, divisions or entire companies. And ultimately, most of these rationalisation are tinged with hindsight bias of the uttermost naive kind. Nassim Taleb puts it another way about the misconception behind derivation of knowledge:

So, in the corpus, knowledge is presented as derived in the following manner: basic research yields scientific knowledge, which in turn generates technologies, which in turn lead to practical applications, which in turn lead to economic growth and other seemingly interesting matters. The payoff from the “investment” in basic research will be partly directed to more investments in basic research, and the citizens will prosper and enjoy the benefits of such knowledge-derived wealth with Volvo cars, ski vacations, Mediterranean diets, and long summer hikes in beautifully maintained public parks. – Nassim Taleb, Antifragile

And it all started in school when we are taught to weave neat narratives to describe life, experiences, make arguments, and communicate. Clear communication is important but often, that can also stand in the way of clear thinking or obscure the ability to grasp the complexity of things. But how then do we teach kids? I described what we do right now as teaching closer approximations of the truth to kids as they grow up. So we begin with descriptors about the world that are sufficient to the layman but not perfectly accurate and then we force people to unlearn those to pick up increasingly accurate picture of the universe. That, is essentially, stylising facts or concepts to help people learn – which isn’t wrong. The only challenge is when the stylised version of things becomes regarded as truth.

There is an alternative route and I have a proposal. Teach knowledge-discovery rather than knowledge. Teach questioning rather than answer-giving. We all know how pesky the questions of children can be; and perhaps thats why we don’t encourage their ‘whys’. But those are great opportunities to teach knowledge discovery; curiosity and the nature of their hunger to learn is why kids often ask ‘why’ – but they need to realise that answering these questions is often more than about just checking in with an adult. We don’t show them the process of knowledge-discovery enough. Instead we try to feed them with endless knowledge, things we declare they should know. Stop.

How about schools? What are some practical changes possible? Take the introduction of Science in Primary school for example. I recall in Primary 3, the first thing I was taught is the 5 sense. Senses was how we perceive the world but then the focus went on to the various parties of the body that ‘staff’ these senses and then we move on to the topic of living things and so on. How about we ask questions instead, ‘how do we experience the world?’ or ‘how do we know about the world?’. These questions will mean different things for a person at different stages of development but just as well – they are prompters to introduce means by which we acquire knowledge. And we can then use that to talk about how we use our eyes, nose, ear, tongue, skin to discover the world at the most primary level. The key syllabus objectives should not read ‘knowing what are the 5 senses’, it should be ‘being imbued with a sense of wonder about ourselves and our world’.

If our children are not ready for the future; how will our companies, industries or even the nation be future-ready?

 

The Economist recently ran an article on HDB and the public housing in Singapore. They are generally critical of government controls and the lack of liberty though they clearly admire the Singapore system. The one interesting criticism that I picked up however, seem to be quite an important perspective on the socio-political landscape in Singapore.

[E]xtremely high rates of home-ownership have helped make Singapore’s electorate unusually risk-averse.

While the example has to do with threats of upgrading projects being delayed or reordered – which I personally don’t think features that strongly in reality – I am reminded that reducing risky behaviours (which can ultimately manifest in the form of social unrest) was one of the reasons to push for home ownership. That one owns an asset gives one a stake is true. Of course, in the case of HDB, it is not the truest form of ownership but it got close enough and the ease of achieving ‘ownership’ compensates for all the strict controls in place.

As a matter of fact however, the housing policy and drive towards home-ownership does indeed having behavioural-modifying characteristics that transcends the socio-political landscape. It has affected the economy in that entrepreneurship by the lower strata of the society is curbed. Where regulations are strict and means of livelihoods needs to be officiated (eg. registering for a license, obtaining relevant approvals, renting a stall formally, etc.), the poor becomes ‘priced-out’, or ‘hassled-out’. Then comes the orthodoxy that getting ownership of a home is good combined with a rental market that is made hot by external capital, whatever capital one has left is ploughed into housing. The social leveller of entrepreneurship is hence restrained.

Education, which once was a bit more of a leveller, is close to losing its role. Once there were scholarship programmes to improve social mobility and give most students access to equal opportunities. But as learning becomes more vibrant with project work, the need to tap on resources and networks beyond the school, being from privileged backgrounds allows one to shine disproportionately. The growth of the tuition and supplementary education industry is a testament to the way financial muscle has made its way into disrupting education as a equaliser.

Risk-taking is important in the economy (not just for the lower strata but upper echelon as well) and even conservatism can be rightly channeled towards certain areas. This is where a new model of thinking about economics needs to find its champion in a city like Singapore where we’ve done well in being different in the globalised market economy.

Just musing.

Neil Irwin recently penned an article in New York Times’ Upshot blog which really made me think about the whole discipline and profession of economics though I must say that the article is as much about policymaking. Taking the perspective of policymakers then, is about what are the ‘evidence’ or research you can point to in order to justify your policy. The bulk of economic research especially in small-scale empirical-based policy evaluations actually works out the marginal effects of policy interventions and this gives policymakers the language and the tools to push through the interventions they hope to.

I have myself seen way too much policymaking at work and the influence of evidence goes as far as to justify rather than motivate a policy. Therefore, the role of disciplines like sociology or economics can only influence policymaking at any point of time through the ease by which these disciplines’ findings can help push through policy recommendations. Neil is right to say that:

If the White House Council of Social Advisers did exist, one of its great challenges would be to convert some of these findings into actual policy proposals that might help. Part of the ascendance of economics in the policy-making sphere comes from the fact that economists tend to spend more time looking at specific legislative or regulatory steps that could try to improve conditions.

And trying to solve social problems is a more complex undertaking than working to improve economic outcomes. It’s relatively clear how a change in tax policy or an adjustment to interest rates can make the economy grow faster or slower. It’s less obvious what, if anything, government can do to change forces that are driven by the human psyche.

But he concludes rather disappointingly by suggesting some vicious cycle at work and the onus is on government to ask for advice from the sociologist. I am from LSE, where there is a relatively strong culture of social activism in place with the school being founded on Fabian roots highlighting social justice. My training in economics at LSE grounds the systematic study of economics upon moving towards social justice rather than ‘mere’ prosperity. Overall, I think the UK does a whole lot better in incorporating a diversity of views in their policymaking – including a strong element of sociology. No one says it’s easy, but progress have been so starkly lacking in this area in America.

Singapore too, is at the cusp of change when it comes to thinking about policy. Budget 2017 came practically without any big surprise and isn’t anything more than honing our government’s belief in incrementalism. The expectations for more has created demand for greater social activism. The recent passion-filled speech in parliament by Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Kuik Shiao-Yin was both refreshing and courageous for its use of non-traditional indicators to justify policy actions and directions.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMDekDJOZLU&w=560&h=315]

The disappointing conservatism that suppresses great ideas and creates ‘missed opportunities’ will only serve to generate frustration in policymaking (even within the civil service) that seeks new means of justifying what we already know we must do. Not only that, peering into sociology and other disciplines (alongside its other indicators) will allow us to refine, enrich and better tune our initiatives to serve the target rather than someone else’s political or economic agenda.

Precisely because Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat isn’t known for being radical, we now know we need more Kuik Shiao-Yin in Parliament. At the working level, many more civil servants will need a courage greater than hers to stand up to political office holders and say ‘social trust’ is more important than ‘value-add’ and the sense of being supported by a society and community that cares is more than ‘jobs added or transformed’. Having experienced decades of ‘mere prosperity’, it would be silly to continue striving for it mindlessly. From here, let’s start thinking about the harder problems of a prosperous Singapore that strives for greater social justice.

*Note that all opinions in this article is personal and do not reflect the views of any organisations I serve in.

 

We are certainly less optimistic about the future nowadays than our parents’ generation. I was somewhat taken aback by our own Economic Development Board’s prevailing marketing about ‘future-proofing’ business, industry or even the economy. Of course, to ‘future-proof’ is to prevent obsolescence and typically used in the context of business. But in today’s climate, it is almost implying that the future can only turn more gloomy. In any case, obsolescence-prevention often isn’t about just doing one thing, or taking on a single strategy and being permanently on an execution phase of it. It requires an overhaul of our impression of the word ‘future-proof’ – in other words, it needs to embrace the future itself!

In Singapore, I sometimes wonder if it is the government that needs to future-proof and do so by embracing change, appreciating radical ideas, abandoning incrementalism, in times like that. And I think the marketplace of ideas is what helps future-proof our ecosystem. Letting the wrong kinds of businesses die and improving the quality of manpower and talents through refocusing the education system on mastery rather than grades – these are things that will future-proof ourselves. Hanging on to old systems, and old ideas, rehashing the same old paradigm even under new guise, does little to help one remain relevant. Someone had commented that the government is more strategic than tactical and as a matter of fact, it puts our leaders slightly out of touch with the geopolitical realities of today. Being open means we continue to be easily affected by the headwinds around us but if we don’t have a bag full of tactics to stay on the course of our strategy, how are we going to remain relevant?

The next bout of growth is going to come from a new source of value creation, it will take more than just extracting from our thin labour, capital and land factors. Land has been stretch so thin the market gravitated towards speculation at some point (notably involving foreign investors). Capital domestically seem to be composed more of short-term, foot-loose sort that is conservative and not capable of being channeled to where it might be needed. Labour is in a bad shape structurally and will take a lot of time become more robust, having built our former base from striving for optimality in sync with industry rather than being built for robustness. The sort of agencies that continue to try and ply these traditional inputs and stuck on old metrics, fostering variations of the old kinds of ‘investment’ is not going to ‘future-proof’ our nation.

Embracing the future takes an enlightened view of considering the power of international markets and their ability to be transformed through knowledge and innovation, adding on to the inputs which they already have in the markets. It involves being selective about where we want to place accumulated capital to soak up the labour and land resources to generate and pull back value into the economy. It takes a transformed view of thinking about what domestic labour really mean and how they serve as units to generate and capture value in the international markets. We need to go beyond thinking about creating good jobs – but to consider, how our people should have access to boardrooms as capital owners, how people can contribute their slice of connections, know-who, relationships and networks to further our ability to generate and capture value from the international markets. Traditional notions of employment and units of individual businesses needs to be discarded if possible. Our leaders are hopefully enlightened enough to see how to drive this forward using new vehicles and new tools, discarding old vehicles and irrelevant tricks in the process.

The whole notion of developing growth mindsets appears to be somewhat in vogue with Microsoft focusing on developing it in employees; and Harvard Business Review picking it up following on from something they have written about quite a bit recently, and in the past. This is something important for the Singapore’s education system to grapple with. We have had one or two generation of ‘productive’ workers who helped to bring the country from third world to first but unfortunately perhaps as a consequent of bad parenting, brought about new generations with extremely fixed mindset.

And this is why corporates are now taking over the responsibility of developing grit in their employees instead of this being a virtue that used to be developed through parenting and schools. In a recent article on Straits Times featuring an interview with our Minister for Education; he actually said:

Parents may have the best intentions, but imagine if this is aggregated over 10 years, until the child is 16 or 18. The child may not have had the necessary experiences to know how to bounce back from failure, a tenacious attitude to overcome obstacles and succeed in life. (Minister Ng Chee Meng, ST)

And this comes at a point where the country is facing some of the most difficult structural issues with our labour composition and manpower capabilities. We have come up with some pretty interesting measures, taking the form of Skillsfuture, which was praised by The Economist over a few articles captured in the recent Special Report on Lifelong Learning. But more effort will have to be made at the beginning of school and also as a culture of education to help students develop growth mindsets which will allow them to be more malleable in terms of their subsequent lifelong learning, and also better employees for any industry that we are going to develop in Singapore.

The question is how? We could learn something from the research by Carol Dweck which she shares over a talk on TED:

Rewarding processes, endurance, encouraging grit, creating persistence will help students develop a growth mindset and this isn’t just about getting good grades. It clearly is about changing of attitudes and perspective towards the system, in fact any system. Singapore has become so established and settled in upon our structure that we have started taking a rather negative view of it – the rigidity, the bureaucracy and ‘that’s the way it is’ attitude. These all points to a fixed mindset populace. Education is our chance at changing the course of our country’s future, more so than merely instituting a lifelong learning system. Sal Khan has another great talk that is about operationalising education to develop growth mindsets as well (though he doesn’t put it that way).

In a time when the public service has to be rejuvenated with what is considered ‘maverick’ ideas, I personally think that investing in an overhaul of the education that develops growth mindsets would radically alter the course of our descent into mediocrity. If even entrepreneurs-to-be are asking the government to try and cushion them from risks and asking for protection from failure, then it is no longer a matter of economic policy. I’d vouch for our government’s commitment to doing more for the economy directly. Yet for the long term good of our economy and society, let us launch radically, practising more of a maverick approach towards our education system first before we ask these of the entire public service.

Chanced upon Simon Sinek’s episode on Tom Bilyeu’s Inside Quest – the Millennial Question segment and I decided to watch the full episode. Learnt loads and also went through both of Simon Sinek’s TED talk. I think when it comes to some of the themes related to leadership especially how emotional intelligence, just plain being human, Simon is really spot-on what people are looking out for and how they respond to genuine leadership.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldh8E6LCLhM]