Kevin Low

Was looking at the short video featuring Ray Dalio’s views on Lee Kuan Yew and a bit of history about Singapore. And he interestingly pointed towards the notion of good citizenship that contributed to the manner he built up Singapore in the early days. The fact that Singapore’s people responded to the policies and mixture of sticks and carrot in those days to eventually fulfil Lee Kuan Yew’s vision should not be overlooked.

Of course, to be able to develop one great vision of Singapore as an oasis in the region is powerful; to act in concert and rally the crowd matters. But there was a population of motivated, hardworking individuals who were so used to just doing their own things to survive. Now they had to sign up to a dream about the country. There was little to lose by way of wealth other than the fact this is something completely new for them in their lives. They moved from ghettos and kampongs into high-rise public housing. They changed their way of life completely. And they formed our defence force, they helped to form the core labour in the facilities that the MNCs invested into.

As a country, we determined to invest into human capital in the deepest form. Not just mass education but really changing the way of life, how societal affairs were conducted. Those were deep changes not to be taken for granted. But now that we’ve the fruits of those changes to enjoy, do we not recognise that the new era we ushered in requires a new kind of good citizenship we need to arise to be?

I had a recent chat with a teacher who shared with me an issue he face in school. He had students who disagreed with certain school rules and do not comply with them. In some cases, it could be about sleeping during the reading period for example where they are supposed to be reading a copy of newspaper that day. That seemed mild enough and the rules only state they are not supposed to sleep or work on anything else except to use that time to peruse the newspaper.

He realises that some students are involved in so many activities or busy with many other things in school and hence would naturally be sleepy or tired during that time slot. So it seemed pointless to go around classrooms waking these students up. He had the chance to speak to these students but they just generally don’t believe that time slot was going to be helpful to them and hence rather take the time to ‘rest’. He asked me when the students do not accept or align themselves with the intention of the rules, how should we get them to comply?

I suggested the following analogy: If you visit your friend’s place and they take off their shoes before entering the house, do you keep your shoes on and enter their house just because you do that at home yourself, and disagree with their practice? And the reason for you to be doing that is because you do want to maintain your identity as a friend, and receive the benefits of friendship and the house visit you’re taking part in. Likewise in school, respect for the rules comes with the privilege of being able to attend the school.

If, even after explaining such and giving the student (in his/her teens) to digest it, then it makes sense to mete out punishments. The problem with an approach to just get students to ‘follow the rules’ without clear indication of the intent is that they would only learn superficial compliance. But the even greater challenge is when they are resentful about being ‘forced’ into that compliance if they don’t buy into the intent. Then, the principle is that of privilege and responsibility. Something I’m not sure we emphasise enough in schools.

I recall the days back in school when I’d spend hours in the library in this small reading cubicle doing my homework, studying new topics, doing research. In fact, after the age of 16, I never really did school work at home anymore. I did almost all of my work in school, at benches or in the library cubicle. I found the same kind of cubicle in the library of Hwa Chong, and then LSE, and then NYU.

Then I graduated and started working. It’s funny how since I started working, I spent hardly any time in the cubicle. Granted, I never really had one because my first workplace embrace the open concept. It was a bit messy, disruptive and can be stressful when I need to do focused work. But I got used to it. I’m not sure if I could have produced better quality work if I had a cubicle but most of my work requires lots of collaboration so it was just as well.

And now, I’ve been working from home a lot and for more than a year. I begin to rediscover the importance of the cubicle. Which essentially is the boundaries we want to set around our work. If we allow interruption, if we do work outside the cubicle, we need to know how far we want to let it go. As the society marches towards a mental health crisis, I wonder if it is important that we revisit the older model of salarymen (and women) who recognises that work is there to support us to live the life we aspire – instead of work being the life we aspire.

On this National Day, I pondered over my own ‘heritage’ and background as a Singaporean and how my aspirations for myself has been deeply rooted in one of our founding fathers, Dr Goh Keng Swee. I went to study Economics at the LSE because of him; and joined the public service of Singapore, focused on the economic sector because of him. In fact, during the most challenging times in my stint in government when I was helping to start the new office, Infrastructure Asia, I revisited his speeches and thought through the fundamentals of how we wanted Singapore to be positioned. I asked myself what are the economic factors and practical considerations he would be thinking about.

Today, I have moved out of the public sector, hoping to develop deeper expertise in Energy Transition and Sustainability, an area which I deem an important part of the future that our country and economy will be stepping into. I continue to ponder over topics of business, economic strategy and human capital development. This is after all, the cornerstone of Singapore’s development strategy. We always say that people are our only resource, given that we have hardly any natural resources nor sufficient land. It is the brain power, combined with the culture we create for this nation that will steer and determine our future.

And it continues to be so; which is why I continue my work of mentoring youths pro bono through the network that Advisory.sg has and also coaching young professionals.

Singapore may be small in terms of land space but when you actually do come to Singapore and experience the country, it will feel like anything but small. There are a lot of spaces built up and designed to be big – often it is through stacking, use of underground but also, there are tricks employed such as placement of elevators, escalators etc that requires you to walk a lot more in order to get to a location where the displacement from your original position isn’t that much. Likewise, sometimes public transport routes are convoluted so it takes much longer to get from one place to another than if you were to just take a cab, ride a bike or walk.

And maybe because of that, we seem to have a lot of signages. To point towards different directions, to make sure you know how to take the convoluted path to get to where you want to get to. And when the paths are diverted, it becomes frustrating quickly, especially when signages are wrong or obsolete as a result.

A recent trip to Changi Jewel was insanely frustrating for me. I walked towards Terminal 2 (according to the signages) from the MRT station only to be told that I had to go to Terminal 1/3 side in order to get to Jewel. Then, I was looking for a place where I could call a Grab to pick me up at. I was told to go to the taxi stand but the doors which are usually for Grab pick up are closed because of Covid measures. And I kept going between B1 and Level 2, figuring out where to board the Grab.

A signage is actually a design flaw because if things are well designed, it should be quite intuitive where to go for what and roughly how to go there. Relying on signages is a result of poor or lazy design. Yet when we do fall back on a sign, we need to be careful about the investment we make towards the sign – how permanent it is and how responsive it is to changes. We need to make signages serve the people rather than the development.

I’ve been thinking about practising calm objections; as I grow older, I begin to see how we’ve been somehow conditioned by our culture, by the fast-paced modern life to think that objections must be done in an impatient, loud, angry manner. At the back of our heads we seem to think that otherwise our objections will be disregarded, or mocked as trivial and we would lose our chance, and the tide of whatever we are objecting to will just sweep over us.

How many times did that really happen? And how often does an angry objection really help us be better persons, build stronger relationships and make our work more meaningful. None. Being able to disagree calmly, without drama and then proceed to lay out your objections is a very important ability.

Staying calm and not rubbing off others in the wrong way sets you up to influence others and to win hearts over. Learn to be assertive and firm while doing so calmly and without being caught up with the emotions of the objecting.

We are all people with high standards; and very often, we want things to be perfect. And we would accept nothing less from ourselves. So when we know we can’t get things perfect, we decide not to do them. What is the point of getting in-between results? You penalise yourself twice: first when you produce imperfect work, and second when you get upset with yourself for producing it. And then maybe even a third time when you realise you could have spent all that time and resources just dwelling in the realm of ‘potential’, of possibly achieving the perfect result. Now you’ve just burst your bubble.

Except you don’t. Except that when you take that first step and produce something imperfect, you’re making a statement to yourself that you’re capable of starting. Of taking the first step. And you get out of the identity of being a lazy perfectionist, of just being a dreamer. If you take a larger step to collect feedback on your work – worthy feedback that is – then you could learn even more, and grow towards the potential you’ve been dreaming of.

So stop relishing in the thought that it is effortless to gain perfection when you are the right kind of person or with the right kind of mastery. That is a myth. There is no magic to perfection or achieving high standards beyond working hard, and consistently. Forget about others, work on yourself.

There is a big difference between problem spotting and problem solving.

John C Maxwell

I would like to think of Singapore as a nation of problem solvers. But the reality is that a small group of people are the ones focused on solving while the majority are just spotting problems and trying to broadcast them. Why have we generated such a culture? This is in part because we have somehow given ourselves a social compact that the government will solve problems and the job of the people is compliance.

And this implied transaction plays itself over and over again when people complain about various different things in society and yet simply sit back and wait for things to happen. There’s this sense that “I’ve played my part, I’ve complied by the rules of the game and so now can you please give me my share of the [fill in the blank] that I deserve.”

So problem solving becomes someone else’s responsibility whereas our responsibility is to comply with the ideas that eventually comes along. One can see how this narrative disempowers us all and sucks the life out of us. Little wonder our mental health takes a big toll. Same on the end of those who are holding on the heavy burden of problem solving. Part of the challenge of this mental health crisis we live within will involve dealing with this culture of problem-spotting we’ve generated.