What has modern capitalism brought forth to us? Choice is one of the big important thing that the market grants us. But for most of the period of great growth in the decades prior to 2000s, the choice was mostly about new things that could be consumed which previously did not exist.
Fast forward today; we might have a tad bit too much choices that new products and services might be there to restrict or reduce choices. Freedom to choose becomes less of a relished freedom when we become compelled to make so many different choices. Do we really need to choose from 1000 available options for our bathroom tiles? Do we really need to have 5 apps for streaming shows?
Are all of these choices making our society, culture and people better in any ways? When capitalism rewards the people who entertain us more than those who bring clean water to more lives, do we want to allow the system to grow without bounds? Should we allow more markets to be regulated and more activities to proceed without profit motives driving them?
Today marks the 11th anniversary of the death of Dr Goh Keng Swee. People closer to me would be aware that he was a major influence to my choice of studying Economics, and particularly in the London School of Economics & Political Science. And he passed away about 4.5 months before I’d commence my BSc Economics at the LSE.
Ironically, I had in my youth, developed that aspiration to share the same spaces, breathe the foreign air and perhaps share in the magic of London city that Dr Goh had experienced so many years ago. It was a hope that I may come to share in a small slice of common academic pedigree and taste a bit of what went into his observations and thoughts in the days of nation-building in Singapore.
And I worked hard in my youth towards this aspiration. Eventually, I earned a scholarship from International Enterprise Singapore just a couple months shy of my matriculation. A year prior I had already secured my place in the LSE to be on exactly the programme Dr Goh did as part of his undergraduate days.
Even today, I continue to marvel at the mind that came up with Jurong Bird Park, GIC, CPF, EDB, National Service, Sentosa, Jurong Industrial Estate, the decision to continue the currency board system MAS manages, our export-oriented strategy. Lest I ascribe too much credit to him for the fruits of these ideas, I think it was also the time he lived in, the allies he had which helped to push through all of these and made the modern Singapore a reality.
But all those were early days of nation-hood; that nostalgia should only serve to motivate us to move forward. The context of our country both internally and externally have become much more complex – and we need to find a reason to progress that fits our current context and stage of development. A new narrative for the new generation is needed.
Having a good teacher who is appropriately empowered in the classroom can make a difference to the lives of students. If he or she stays in education, generations of students can benefit. The good teacher is not able to make the same impact on many more students within the same amount of time. It doesn’t scale.
But we always think we can scale these things; we create curriculum, syllabus, scheme of work. We think we are scaling good teaching, schooling through creating systems of learning. And then we enforce mass education; and allow it to grow into bigger and bigger parts of the lives of our people.
What exactly are we scaling then? We might not be scaling the good things we are trying to grow; in fact as I write, good teachers are being driven to frustration by the system; good teaching is being sacrificed at the expense of needing to standardise things. We are scaling frustration, suffering and misalignment with the original intentions.
What do you do when you don’t have anything on? Do you drift into thinking about work and try to make yourself “productive”? Only to subsequently think you spent too much time on work?
Or do you fill that time by scrolling through social media and going through motions of curiosity, envy, judging, outrage, and so on? Then on reflection think that you spend too much time on social media?
We have trained ourselves to default to some really poisonous habits when we feel bored. And we get upset over ourselves after that. Changing that default is so important. And it starting with awareness of that boredom default, helps.
In the latest Annual Shareholders’ meeting for Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett and Munger came together to trot out their wisdom for the shareholders and the world as usual. One of the point that came out was about CEOs or leaders in general – but I think more broadly, it is a warning about the narratives or messages that are crafted for the public.
And of course, so they go on every couple of months, and they repeat certain things about their company, and it becomes part of, sort of the catechism. And nobody’s going to go on two months after the CEO has said one thing and say, ‘Well, actually, that really isn’t the way.’ They’re not going to contradict themselves or change course.”
There are many organisations, not just companies that constantly bellow messages about themselves they want others to believe. The Berkshire Chairman is warning us against the danger of crafting myths that will get perpetuated. Leaders who defines goals for their organisation but do not take time to understand the truth about it will end up being cornered by journalists or media somehow blurt out something positive and aspirational but simply not a reflection of where the company is at.
The company and its staff will then be forced to window-dress the firm to align with what was spoken rather than focusing on the core value-drivers. So if you’re a middle-manager, or more junior, how are you going to respond to your bosses’ myths. How can we confront them gently and guide the organisation back to truth and its core?
Energy storage have been in existence for a really long time even before the rise of solar panels, wind power and electric vehicles. In fact, batteries has been a very core enabling technology for us to go wireless, to have sensors in places which are inaccessible, and to have any operable portable gadget at all. Batteries have transformed the concept of portability and its advancement have allowed for that. In most cases, the needs in the development of other products is what drives the development of batteries rather than the other way around.
And because of that, the economics of batteries and battery technology tend to always lag behind actual products and services. That means that if you have a product, such as EV that really needs good batteries to work well and serve the right customers, then the customers you serve must be willing to take on the price point with the costs derived from battery costs. And in order to improve your product, you have to dive into battery technology. EV is the best example of how the vehicle companies have to team up with battery manufacturers or get involved in improving the batteries themselves so they weigh less, can be more compact, delivers more power and can be charged quickly. One could say that most of the capabilities, convenience of the electric car comes through the improvements in battery technologies.
That has some spill-over effects: people are eyeing grid-scale batteries as another means to improve grid performance and provide some kind of insurance against the intermittency that solar and wind have in the system. The problem with this market however, is that there is no clear market. Projects in Australia has demonstrated that it is necessary for multiple revenue streams and yet if from day one, batteries are relying on electricity markets, or ancillary services markets to recover their revenues, it probably won’t work.
For one, most grids which can even afford to have grid-connected batteries would already be stable enough, with sufficient competition in the markets to provide those services that a battery can provide. Grid connected batteries are multi-purpose assets which find competition in all the different services it can provide.
If you really consider the economics of batteries once again; it has to be a derived demand. There are some other products or services that must really be able to fetch that price point. Traditionally for batteries, it is paid for by the portability it brings about, then for EVs, it comes from the desire for clean mobility. For the grid, is there some equivalent draw that can compensate for the cost of batteries? Better to require it of variable renewable energy owners contributing to the intermittency to bear the cost, or to simply put the responsibility on grid operators (who can be free to lease the storage capacity from third parties). Without clear assignment of responsibilities, you mute the demand for batteries.
While people are making fun of SPH CEO bringing the somewhat archaic lingo back into mainstream, I think the real reason is that people are taking umbrage at what was announced about SPH. There’s generally a sense of socialisation of losses as the media substance of SPH is being packaged into a CLG to be held by the government.
I guess that move simply make the “state ownership” of the media outlets involve a little more explicit per se. The listed status is probably problematic but I’d think there is no need to cave in to investor pressure. The company itself is unique being regulated by special laws – that should already warrant it special status and allow shareholders to self-select. There is no need for them to compete with others for capital. In fact, 99.9% of the company is in the hands of public shareholders and they themselves signed up for it fully aware this is a regulated company by the government. Maybe the regulated status made it hard to innovate its business model?
Nevertheless, that is not an excuse to get a bail-out. Imagine a bank who says they can’t compete because of the central bank’s capital adequacy ratios and hence will transfer all the non-performing loans to a vehicle which will be guaranteed by the government. Hmm. Being regulated does not mean the public can be made responsible for losses.
What is for sure about this move though, is that it takes a loss-making business out of the hands of CEO Mr Ng. The same thing happened when NOL was divested to CMA CGA under Mr Ng’s leadership. Perhaps like NOL, the business may come back to turn a profit when it is led by someone else.
At some single-digit age I came to enjoy books, and stories. And at the age of 6 when I was in a mini-bus that was driving in and out of the Pinnacles Dessert in Australia, I spent hours telling stories to an attentive 4 year old friend I got to know in the tour group. I still recall his name was Marcus.
I seem to enjoy telling stories since young. Teachers repeatedly described me as talkative in class though I was certainly not the extroverted sort. It was also because I had attentive parents who gave me time, aunties and uncles who listened to me, undistracted by phone screens.
When I grew a little older I had a lot of opportunities to listen to the stories of other people because I started doing a lot of community work with the elderly folks. That was when I begin to discover the importance and power of the stories we are weaving, which we tell others and more importantly, ourselves.
Being able to tell positive, powerful and encouraging stories about our lives can make a difference to it. That is why I started working with people to ponder over their story and to discover how they want to write it, tell it and use it to achieve their desired careers. Head to my coaching page learn more about my coaching practice.
Not another piece about jobs and companies. Rather, I’m thinking about friends, the company we have in our lives. And the important of good company. Friends are the people around us that we technically can choose. Often we might think it boils down to some chemistry and circumstance. True to a certain extent; since for example, the friends you make in the first few weeks of university tend to be the ones you end up sticking to for the rest of your time in university and potentially even for life.
As we grow older, it becomes more challenging to make that same kind of friends. It feels less organic perhaps than a school environment though there are still clubs, associations and other opportunities to network but friends made with the intent of collaborating for a project, or for business gains just seem different from friends made in school, or joined by some other kinds of common interests.
Yet all that doesn’t mean we can’t be in control of the company of people we are in, and we can’t choose ‘good company’. It is more important perhaps to choose good company than to try and work for a good company because the people around you can shape your thinking which in turn shapes your capacity to strive and achieve.
I chuckled when I saw the quote ‘You can’t change the people around you but you can change the people around you.’ I laughed because I got it. Did you?
The only kind of failure that is permanent is one that terminates you. Or the one that you choose to keep you; because you’ve allowed it to terminate you. In Chinese, there’s the saying that failure is the mother of success. And that is the acknowledgement that more than being polar opposites, failures are building blocks of success.
In fact, life really isn’t about attaining successes. Ultimately, in our hearts, we are after the things that comes with success, perhaps the recognition, the sense of being loved. And we all know that success, like failures, are temporary too. We can only be successful ‘so far’. Introducing the time dimension helps us see that success or failures are not part of our identity but merely experiences that we go through as part of our growth.
When one ponders over failure, do you think about actions you regretted, not taken, or do you consider what are the new aspects of reality that you come to know through the process? It takes humility to say ‘I was wrong about this’ rather than to think ‘I knew it should have been so’ – but this humility is rewarding because it turns the temporary failure into a lesson, one that can be used as a building block. The arrogant ‘I knew it’ only turns the failure into regret and bitterness.
