Choice of problems

Questions we ask ourselves matters. Do we base our decision on the answer to “Is this good enough” or “Is this the best”? The result can deeply influence our ability to make other choices and commitments. I’ve been pondering about our power to choose and the manner we ought to exercise it.

Like I’ve said many times, our education system haven’t done enough to encourage questions compared to seeking answers and if we think life is a series of finding answers to problems thrown at us, then we have it seriously wrong. Yet that is what our system continually encourage us to think. Life do throw problems at us but we can choose which ones to solve and which ones to deal with first, or later. We are doing that continuously by procrastinating or neglecting certain problems we face.

Having to account for yourself or suffer the consequences of your choices does not take the power of choice away from you. So all the more we should be exercising the power carefully. The myth is that we can do it all and enjoy the set of consequences we want. The real world is more interesting than that.

Presenting differences

Having studied overseas and been exposed to a variety of cultures, even within Singapore, I came to recognise more so in workplaces and social environments the culture’s ability to tolerate differences. In reality, there will always be differences amongst individuals but some cultures require more appearance of conformity than others. Typically, these culture thinks that uniformity is the same as unity.

But uniformity and conformity is so different from unity; there’s a lot more in terms of spirit, morale and emotional connection that matters when it comes to unity. So different cultures requires that differences be presented differently. Confrontational cultures might be more accepting of being upfront with ‘I disagree’ – but for the less confrontational cultures, try saying:

  • I don’t understand this perspective, maybe you can explain [the point]…
  • Let us review the objectives of this exercise…
  • Have you considered some alternatives?

Power to choose

Did you choose the job you are in? Or the course you’re studying? Or the friends you have around you? Or the spouse you’re married to? How many were your choice? Which were results of social expectations or pressure? Whose wishes are you fulfilling in one choice or another?

Often, even when we have the power to choose, we willingly give up this power. It could be because we are unwilling to take ownership of the outcomes or that we feel unequiped to take on the mental load of making a well-reasoned choice. We default to some social expectations or conform to some kind of norm.

That can be a huge mistakes as these commitments can accumulate and affect subsequent options and choices. It is not going to be one-off but a continually-unfolding situation. So what will encourage you to take up your power to choose again?

Integrity or incompetence II

So some lawyers cheated in Bar exams in 2020. It is all the more ironic and shocking that one of the papers involved was about professional ethics. I’m afraid professional exams and papers including materials on ethics and conduct have descended into a mere tollbooth or barrier to entry rather than serving its meaningful purpose of qualifying the right candidates.

As a culture, we have gradually focused more and more on measureable attributes especially such as competence, at the expense of character. And because character wins out only in the very long term, in a society where speed, convenience, showing immediate results are important, attributes like integrity takes a big hit.

These incidents call to question whether taking exams on code of conduct is sufficient. And whether character is built upon knowing some kind of moral code vis-a-vis believing and practising them.

I’ve an inkling, but no research to back me up, that the prevalence of family breakdowns, rising rates of divorce and dysfunctional relationships can in themselves be traced back to this failure as a culture to invest in and bother with character attributes. Relationships, personal and family are the ones that have to really withstand the test of time unlike a job, a business traction or a year in school. These would naturally suffer more when our view of character has come so low in our thoughts about what makes a successful human being.

Losing options

Fresh graduates from JCs or Polytechnics are thinking about degree programmes and university choices. They are thinking about their career options that comes after. There is a thousand voices and considerations blaring at them to go one direction or another.

Having a choice is such a powerful thing we may refuse to give it up. And often that can mean not making the choice. Because retaining the power is more attractive. Making a choice involves actually discarding the options which were once present. Going to law school means not being able to study medicine, and choosing to study locally means you may not get to build an overseas network during your college days.

When making a choice, are you focused on what you’d gain or what you’d lose? Because if you care about loss like the way you’ve been taught by the education system to, then you’ll never make the choice. And it is a shame. Keeping your options open does not necessarily make you better off.

On the ground

I grew up with a diet of Chinese dramas about emperors and nobility or the martial arts world. Often, an emperor or noblemen travels incognito in their own territories. Or a martial arts expert who blends into the cityscape as just a beggar. Great and amazing people who turns up as ordinary. And that kind of being on the ground was actually celebrated, and seen as a positive form of leadership. It was something admirable.

Yet when I’m grown up we don’t seem to be taught to feel this way about being on the ground. Or about being management; there’s always images of cushy offices, well-stocked pantries, brainstorming rooms, being in meetings. Do MBA programmes teach their students how to be on the ground? Or even the benefits of all that?

We don’t hear such stories of management being on the ground in our modern day life often. The latest story I heard that is remotely similar is the CEO of Sheng Siong supermarkets going down to their Tanglin Halt branch to shelf food items when they were shorthanded. And he apparently does the ground work very often. There had been incredible stories about how Sheng Siong staff are cared for, and also care for one another. But if this was never a metric, why would the management bother? Shouldn’t we be challenged to consider being ‘on the ground’ as a metric or attribute leaders need to meet? As a culture, shouldn’t we redefine what good management should look like?

Frameworks & protocols

Some consultancies thrive on creating frameworks and processes and protocols. They sell, especially well to management. But the ops guys know some of these processes cannot be upheld. They are counter-intuitive, perhaps too onerous. Why is it so hard to convince the management to drop that sort of nonsense?

Because the management wants to believe that the operations are really so rational and systematic. They like to think that most of the things can be measured, quantified and put into a nice dashboard for visualisation. It is the same with a city authority, or even a government.

‘Statistics’ is derived from the latin word ‘status’ that means ‘political state’ or ‘government’. It was related to the ruler collecting data on the territories and the people in order to extract taxes, monitor their subjects, know how powerful their military is. Frameworks, protocols and all that stuff is naturally attractive to the corporate management, that derive most of its techniques from public and military administration. It should come as no surprise that managers who might think they are kings would love these.

Which leads me to ask, how did businesses and leaders learn to break out of that? To envision something entirely different, and to actually try to realise it in their organisations.

Minions’ questions

Is the responsibility of the sales team just to sell without interest of the client or regard for the claims that a product is making? To what extent does a salesperson have to perform sufficient due diligence on his/her own product before trying to approach clients or prospects about it? How convinced should he or she be? Is there a right or wrong when it comes to selling a product that may have been misrepresented?

What about following instructions of management? Especially in terms of instructions you may not agree with? Perhaps not because they are illegal or directly harming anyone in particular, but because you disagree with the management’s assessment of its effectiveness? To what extent do you exercise your own judgment to defend the interest of the company vis-a-vis your management?

What about following a policy; a company’s policy or even the policy stance of perhaps a ministry? The idea of a policy is really to reduce discretion and that is supposed to create some degree of fairness and predictability. But it can also serve to dehumanise the ones who are stewarding it because they are just ‘following the policy’ rather than being human, empathising with situations and recognising the policy intentions. As a staff, one should be free to question these; but unfortunately, if one disagrees and choose not to uphold, then one will have to answer to the consequences of it. Fully.

Can policy serve everyone?

A monopolist who practice price-discrimination actually allows the economy to achieve an allocative efficient equilibrium. The problem is that it upsets distribution severely. Yet economics have little to say about optimal distribution in the economy. Besides, it doesn’t give a clear indication of the specific identities behind who should receive more, or less. Social policy however, needs to care about distribution to certain extent. It promotes a sort of well-being that keeps the society together to be able to continue generating economic fruits.

Now the social policy that cares about distribution will need to treat people differently; that there has to be some kind of discrimination. And this discrimination is going to be rather subjective to some extent other than being able to articulate the set of criteria. Being able to say the criteria beforehand can give a guise of objectivity to it. And of course, being able to articulate who falls into which category and why will bring the transparency up a notch.

However, policies can’t be all case-by-case, even if we are able to articulate and explain why it serves one person rather than another; or even justify why a particular party should benefit more from the policy than another. But at the end of the day, a policy cannot possibly serve everyone; and in fact, any policy that is laid down basically has its own defined set of winners and losers. The hope is that the aggregate gain is more than the aggregate losses (in whatever mysterious way one might like to work out the aggregate). So then when we uphold a policy, when we force people into the ‘standard’, are we clear about why we are doing so, and who are the winners or losers? I’d challenge public servants especially in the frontline to be absolutely clear about this – that they may uphold policies with a clear conscience.

Integrity or incompetence

As I mentioned from previous blog posts before, I recently finished watching The Dropout and it dawned on me how our culture increasingly pitting integrity against the risk of appearing incompetent, or failing. It is precisely the desire to appear successful, smart, competent that led to an escalating series of lies. And it is not just Theranos, or Silicon Valley, but all around us.

In our bid to convince others of our competence, are we overreaching in terms of how we represent our capabilities? Do we give in to the pressure from competitors, from imaginary rivals that we have to claim more, aim higher, push further, and hustle? Are our actions adding to the culture or detracting from it? Why do we want to take action to fuel a culture we don’t agree with? Or maybe we do?

Window-dressing of accounts, creative accounting, greenwashing, and to some extent many PR campaigns are all corporate techniques at maximising the short-term at the expense of the society, or the consumer, or the longer term corporate selves. We don’t have to choose between integrity and incompetence, we should not allow corporatism and capitalism to force that choice upon us.