TRANSCRIPT

Leaders Journal EP07: Are "Paper" Generals In Singapore Any Good?! (Feat. Samuel Myat San)

*Text taken from YouTube captions*

[Music]

welcome everybody to another episode of

leaders journal and today we're going to

be discussing uh one of the very

interesting topics in singapore

and it's really called the idea that

these generals that we have from the scf

actually go to different

government agencies and we want to

discuss this idea of leadership

but when i was thinking about this i

wanted to discuss it but i wanted to

understand a little bit more about how

we can discuss it fairly so i invited

one of my buddies samuel and samuel is

online with us here in the podcast and

samuel you want to introduce yourself

hey jason thanks for having me on uh hi

everyone my name is sam i'm a well

school mate of jason so we go way back

um and i'm actually a professional right

public speaking and debate coach i'm

working with clients mainly in the

education sector like anglo-chinese

junior college

raffles institutions in margaret's in

addition to private clients on the side

prior to this i was a civil servant with

the ministry of law the ministry of

foreign affairs a short stint to the

ministry of defense as well and then in

my part time married with uh married

with two cats and

i'm also

in i've just finished my reservist very

recently actually just came out i am

serving as the officer commanding of a

rifle company in god's battalion

and it's great to be here

yeah great great to have you sam um so i

know sam from a long time ago when we

were in acjc and i remember that he was

super into debate last time and actually

now he's still into it so when i was

thinking about this controversial thing

about

leadership whether or not generals

being put in positions of power in

government link agencies uh we wanna

this i want to discuss whether the pros

and cons of each one so samuel we're

gonna be discussing today um this idea

that

ah what are the pros and cons actually

when it comes to this idea of them

putting people who have retired from

the army and their generals and we've

seen many different examples in

singapore so one a little bit more

negative example would be smrt sometimes

you see that

there are different generals that

actually took over um one

interesting one recently was this whole

uh mr umbrage right

he also also was general then he took

over as ph as the leader so i want to

hear from

you that what's the best way to we can

actually discuss this kind of topics

that means the both the for and against

the pros and cons how do you actually do

that in debate

well the most important thing in debate

which is actually the more mundane stuff

that even some of my debaters are a

little bit reluctant to do because

that's not really the uh part that gets

them excited intellectually

those are the arguments

it's very important that we have a very

clear common understanding and context

of what we're talking about

so i mean some of the listeners here may

not really be aware of the entire

structure of the saf and like how you

know who these generals do you want to

take that jason like how was structured

yeah in the saf

yep

yeah so um

like you i'm an officer but uh i was a

very

different no actually

i'll say that uh

my time in the scf uh was extremely

structured so it actually came across

for me uh and the strengths that i have

um i didn't really fit very well as an

officer i did try my best and all that

but um yeah i think the idea of being an

officer and a general i think for them

um they go through the ranks and most of

these generals are actually scholars so

they either have a scholarship with the

singapore government

and

or an scf scholarship then they are

earmarked for basically greatness right

all the way up and the interesting thing

is that

i think the scf has actually a

retirement age and early retirement age

usually when we look at ceos and all

that in the mncs they don't have that

around that 45 47 so the one of the

people that we'll be talking about is

this guy who is a 47 year old

and he actually is going to

he actually um his name is mr tan chiwi

and he used to be a general and he's

actually moving to hit uh this

organization uh called e

uh agda so ecda so early childhood

development uh agency

so i think in general um

uh

the the army they would they will

actually rise up the ranks and do very

different portfolios until they reach

that level and they kind of need to be

retired

uh and so

after their retirement what is next for

them and i think that then one of the

next steps is actually going to hit a

different department uh in the

government

yeah so either they will be you know put

in charge of government uh statutory

boards they may actually enter

ministries as well

usually at a fairly high level we're

looking at director level at a deputy

secretary level as well

and of course some of the examples you

highlighted as well will include

generals who have gone to

government-linked companies like smrt as

well as singapore press holdings as well

so that's where i mean that's the sort

of like the the overall context right

that we're talking about we

i i'm not terribly familiar with uh

examples of individuals who were ex-top

military leaders from the singapore

armed forces who have gone to purely to

the private sector so maybe there's a

little bit of a gap in knowledge from

there but they haven't exactly made the

news of the same degree either

yeah

yeah yeah so they haven't yeah

so

yeah so when we so when we think about

debating we talk about the context and

we talk about the background okay so the

next thing is that well we'll usually

have if we're talking about two sides

right they will take a position very

broadly speaking one side will be saying

that well it's a good thing that this is

happening and the other side will say

this is not a good thing that this is

happening

very adversarial right and often with

both sides not really wanting to give

ground and

that itself is quite controversial

because after all we're trying to find

the truth what is the best way and what

really is the way to go about finding um

complete information and knowledge and

the hope is that when we have two sides

arguing as strongly as possible for

their position

all the individuals listening will be

able to synthesize the arguments on both

sides and get that middle ground

but

for the individuals involved in the

debate

they kind of have to take some of their

extreme positions

they may be less willing to accommodate

the views from the other side as well uh

makes us a little bit more aggressive in

terms of personalities that's why like

debaters have trouble getting dates

sometimes right

yeah but that's also the basis for our

legal system right because um our legal

system essentially uses an adversarial

system as well where the prosecutors and

the defense are pretty much uh trying to

win 100

so if there is information that is the

truth but doesn't help their case

they're not really going to be willing

to share it that much um to a limited

extent that's how our political systems

tend to work as well so this is a

tradition that we inherited from the uh

the westminster system which is the

british system right and uh and that

doesn't have to be the way because there

is a slightly different type of legal

system um some call it a more

inquisitional uh process i know it

sounds scary like like the spanish

but it really is more of a search for

the truth right without having this idea

of combat so that the hope is that uh

the individuals involved in the process

don't end up suppressing information and

arguing just for the sake of arguing as

well yeah

yeah

that's a good point um what's

interesting about this is that before

talking to you i actually did talk to

some people

some

offices in the singapore armed forces

and a lot of the things that they say

are actually very much how they can be

right

so um i when i was asking them these

issues about leadership is it contact is

there even a need for contextual

knowledge or is just your leadership

skill is enough um i did get very skewed

um

kind of like

findings from them

they didn't really say

much uh if not they will say things very

politically correct and um

when i was going through uh

some of the people uh so these are maybe

gen uh

left and kernels kernels level and um

they're actually very uh it's almost

like um

oh yes right and it's that kind of feel

so it's it's difficult to get through

and um so

from this from one side on

so i think taking a very balanced stand

today to really try to figure out and we

want to be able to understand this idea

of leadership it can be right it can be

wrong but we want to know that uh

nobody's suppressing the truth uh we can

actually talk about it in a

very plainly um and we can

see both sides and see them yeah jason

that's a great point that you face

because um sometimes when the debaters

are coaching are told you have to take

this certain side it's amazing how after

the debate is over you know you can just

shake hands with your opponents and walk

off but they now have locked themselves

into that side and this will continue to

be their side until the next debate

occurs and then they are assigned the

other side as well and this notion of

tribalism actually informs not just how

we articulate our views but even the way

that we think we kind of end up tricking

ourselves into thinking that's my

identity and now every single piece of

information that i get it's kind of

going to be distorted even in my own

brain to fit my narrative

and uh i think we've seen that somewhat

in the us where the politics is just a

little bit more vocal right that when

the moment you've decided that i am a

democrat or i'm a republican every

single piece of information that you

seek that you now get is interpreted

through that particular lens making it

very difficult to change your position

so

i want to try to avoid that and debate

it's supposed to teach you right how to

look at it from both sides

yeah

yeah fantastic i think even as leaders

when we debate and negotiate with people

who have very different and opposing

views there's something that we can

we can almost uh have that

uh mindset of not taking a side but

really just opening ourselves up to

both sides of the coin and then coming

out of the decision one additional thing

that we will then ask the debaters to do

is kind of come up with what we call a

yacht stick but generally some sort of

criteria because if we're going to try

to assess

this particular phenomenon that we see

where

top military leaders are often

parachuted into top positions in

government companies and agencies yeah

when we say is good or bad

what are we trying to use as the basis

for good or bad are we looking at those

companies are we looking at the saf

itself are we looking at just very

broadly singapore but if that's the case

then what's the criteria

our economic output are we talking about

political stability so it could be a

number of things as well it's kind of

tricky

yeah it is it is so when i'm thinking

about this um

maybe we can actually go into that uh

but when i was thinking about these two

parts

there are really two uh main things i'm

that one side is for example it's uh

right for profit that means there is

like you know smrt as ph does the bottom

line is the bottom line so there's a

results that you see uh quarterly and

yearly that's one side that means based

on his leadership what's going to happen

but the other side can be a little bit

more gray

so like early childhood development uh

agency um you might not see the impact

under that child

exactly 20 years old

so it's it's vague um it you don't see

that results you will see different

initiatives come out so i'm not sure how

do we actually how would you think that

we could actually structure that or is

it just like that that means there are

some that's okay uh smart the profits

are going down based on leadership the

other one we kind of we kind of they can

be almost like um

um

hiding behind the clouds and that clouds

can be the 20 years of a child's

development

any other way that we can so that's one

way to look at each independent actor

and then just decide well this is good

in the short term or the long term but

then as i was mentioning earlier there's

also a

more micro right analysis of was it good

for the agency but we're also looking at

the entire structure of government and

then like is it in general right good

thing right in general a good thing

right do you have these generals

because we might also want to consider

well what's the counterfactual all right

so what would have been the system if

this was not put in place and then what

would have been the outcomes um again

looking at broader uh impacts on our on

this particular country right um looking

perhaps at some of the other countries

in southeast asia our closest neighbors

i know it's very difficult to do a

direct comparison because singapore is

very unique right so many ways but um

it's a good basis of comparison to see

like well how how different might that

be and whether that would be good or

bought on those broad macro yastings as

well

it's a very good point so if i see

singapore as the singapore in corporate

and i see them as like business unit

leaders i kind of just moving them

around so that's a good mindset and if i

if i want to say that okay so if this is

not the way or what is the other way it

could be that

we lose them singapore and corporate

loses them to

the private sector and uh would

which might not be beneficial which

could be worse um and then of course

this is assuming i think we're coming at

it from business leaders and all this so

it's still very you know econs minded

looking at the bottom line etc which is

a fair way to assess things but um in

terms of the the government going all

the way to prime minister himself

they may have like non-economic outcomes

that they're concerned about as well as

i mentioned earlier uh political

stability right uh and all that as well

so those two which are a little bit

harder to assess which makes it very

challenging as well they have this sort

of debate

yeah

okay yup i totally agree so let's go

into the details but i'm gonna frame the

question and see whether that question

is something that we can achieve for the

pros and cons on it so the question is

should generals be put in positions

outside of the military just based on

leadership

rather than the industry knowledge

so industry so that's the question um

let's do it this way um let's go for the

pros

why is it good why is it good for the

singapore government why is it good for

uh even my organization usually um at

this point we'll probably come up

my teams will be brainstorming and say

hey let's try to find all these

arguments that can be as persuasive as

possible

a number of ideas come to mind as well

right which is that um when when they're

trying to find people

who are going to be coming in

into agencies in singapore and singapore

inc has always prided itself on being

able to transform

change right the way that they operated

necessary

and one of the downsides to having

individuals who rose to the ranks is

that

one they haven't really seen outside of

the particular agency

and

they may be a little bit more used to

doing things their way and not

being at the forefront of change

and

in general when we're talking about

bringing someone in from the outside

they bring a fresh perspective already

they have a basis of comparison between

the old organization and the new

organization

the interesting thing is and this may

come as a surprise i think but i mean

this is just again a very colloquial

understanding of the sef way above my

pay grade but

the singapore arm4 says it is a fairly

complicated right um organization in

itself and the individuals who reached

the top were not simply just infantry

men who have been doing bayonet drills

for the last 30 years they've been

handling a very complex uh organization

that is

constantly upgrading its uh you know

policies as well as this technology and

the infrastructure is constantly

changing as well it's actually very

dynamic and so they're already used

and they have moved from department to

department as well and those are very

big departments that were handling right

uh a single division that they were

handling in the military might be bigger

than the agency that they're heading now

as well so

they have that basis of their parents

and to have that ability to do uh uh

pros and cons of being able to compare

and they're coming it coming at this

agency a little bit fresh and so they

have the ability to initiate change

right from the top and say no the the

way that we've been doing it um is

actually

kind of wrong and we need to change it

and let's experiment with something new

so that um so that you know we can move

forward probably some sort of personal

benefit as well to show that hey this is

my legacy and this is what i want to

leave behind i'm sure every leader has

that but at least they bring that extra

capacity that someone who's been inside

the whole time might not be able to

bring

yeah good that's a very good point um

the idea that

if you just bring

somebody from another industry to your

industry they will see

what they can actually bring and support

that industry yeah so fantastic sure i

have one point um

this is the idea of uh you know in

singapore armed forces we do the uh what

do you do that we do that oh yeah

which are the end of our pledge we have

the officers creed yeah okay yeah no no

yeah not obviously so so we have uh

yeah yeah the seven chord values right

yes it is now values like movement

yeah

yes yeah

safety is the last one really added i

think it was seven in our time yeah

right so the last one one of them that i

i it really really resounds for me is

the idea of loyalty to country

right so um

one of the things if i'm able to

actually bring somebody who has already

been there uh in the singapore armed

forces for such a long time and that

their career probably would start for

guys around uh 2021

and then when they retire at 47 45 it's

almost 24 to almost 25 years

um that you you know that hey they they

actually stayed on all this well and

um the idea that if i wanted somebody to

run one of my government links agencies

one of the things i actually want to

know is that actually do they um this

quality of loyalty to singapore and the

love for singapore and the love for the

progress that they want singapore to see

so that's something that i feel that

actually is also another pro

so and just to well just to add another

pro right as well so uh well we could

just pile on all the pros at this point

we can consider some of the cause okay

let's go for it um is that when when

you're bringing these individuals in i

think

what we also have the ability to do

right is i mean we only see the fact

that they're coming in right i mean who

else is moving around at the same time

and so that's something else that we

have to uh and how it impacts the other

actors as well right but so

it's surprisingly refreshing i believe

when someone you comes in and of course

they have to be good and willing to

learn as well

but when someone new comes in it's

actually a chance

for that organization

including your subordinates to get to do

a do-over right a new boss is coming in

and this is actually an opportunity for

me to provide my feedback and my input

on the way that things should be done

and if the incoming ceo is willing to

listen as willing to take the advice of

the subject matter experts and they're

more willing to take the advice of these

subject matter experts because they know

that they haven't got that expertise so

they're more willing to defer to some of

the individuals within the various

departments and divisions and listen to

them so this could be an opening that is

provided for subordinates individuals

who might never reach the top

but you might not get that chance if it

is going to be someone from within the

system who already have their ways fixed

and they're not willing to listen

further to troops on the ground as it

were whereas one of the practices and i

do see

to be honest the generals practicing it

as much as possible

um care for soldiers one of the core

values right and now safety

living condition you have to talk to the

men on the ground

yes it will always be some sort of

filter right and the men will always be

hesitating to say tell you everything

but they will tell you stuff and i think

is this understanding that you might be

a little bit cut off from the

individuals and you can't just rely

purely on the chain of command you

should listen to your you know if you're

if you're a general you should be

listening to your kernels you should

listen to your majors but you got to

work your way down right two captains

left it in your sergeants and all the

way down to your privates right that

came out wrong all the way down to the

corporals right okay and this is where

uh

that practice i have seen right within

my civil service time that the generals

are willing to take some time and say

explain to me as if i'm i'm completely a

novice which you know they are and

it also made some of these individuals

like sort of explaining the system

realize that this doesn't make sense why

haven't we doing it this whole way and

and

a particular military practice which is

um um what they've called it uh no aar

par after action review or post action

review

you don't do a lot of that uh sometimes

because you're just so busy in agencies

just get it done just get it done we're

not thinking strategic and you're not

thinking long term as well so every time

someone who comes in you feel very

frustrated i've got to explain

everything again to this person

but that might not be a bad thing you

know and you know to get the chance to

be a little bit more critical and look

at your own structures and organizations

and say right i'm giving you a blank

slate now how would you redo everything

if you could and that's not a bad thing

for agencies either

what's interesting is i actually talked

spoke to somebody uh from acta

uh about this whole idea of um mrtan

chiwi coming in he's gonna be taking

over the 15th of december and but he did

have a session with them

kind of like a conference bus so that is

that it's like almost like the very

first time the the general comes in and

then addresses everyone and one thing he

said um um was that uh

don't call me sir anymore call me by my

name right or in the military and um uh

the things that

that um that the person felt was that uh

he was actually down to earth which is

actually your point if the person is

willing or if the general is willing to

listen to the people on the ground

it might be a really good fresh start

for them to to to actually throw away

some of the sacred cows that's been

there for years so one thing

that the person i spoke to an actor was

very interested in and also hopeful is

that

the idea of

the

him coming in and he actually mentioned

that he's going to come in and he's he

has done a lot of strategy which

generals do and if the plan doesn't work

we kind of like you know move on to

something else which sometimes like like

what you said that if somebody's too

deep into that sector

it becomes no more as a need that's

being served but more as a tradition

that cannot be broken

so

that person is actually hopeful that

when the general comes in that if really

some of the things that we've been doing

is not working

his ability to listen to the ground and

change it is something she's very

hopeful yeah

yeah

but i think we have to be fair as well

and this is another tool that we use

we must always be careful not to

generalize

again right and assume that every single

person who is ex-military is the same

right i mean we have to recognize the

individual and so i always tell my

status consider a spectrum of actors

right because yes we can have the type

of individuals who are very

um motivated to learn who are willing

right to let everything go extremely

humble they feel very secure in their

positions

i think we also have to account for the

fact that there may be individuals right

who kind of can't let go of the past and

um

may be

prejudiced into thinking that everything

that worked within the military

necessarily need to come over and all

them as well so this is just a small

caveat right to keep in mind as well but

if um if they are able to come in right

with this fresh perspective then that's

that's not a bad thing and especially

since we have to consider

how much detail do you need to be able

to make

those big decisions because after all

you're not joining as a fresh officer

you know on the ground you're

essentially being brought in

paid fairly well to make very big broad

strategic decisions and

if you were to ask ceos out there in

major companies and you ask them what

the average person like let's say you're

at amazon and you ask jeff bezos like

how is box a getting from here to

another location he probably doesn't

know anymore and there is something very

wrong if he knows that because that

means that he's not spending time

thinking of the big picture as well

right and so yes i i do think that

sometimes right the lack of knowledge

about that particular industry can be

overplayed as well yeah in fact chasing

by i mean more of your area i think um

ceos move around a fair bit these days i

think they're kind of like the

superstars i mean yes would they

normally be necessarily from the same

industry so are they

coming in from companies uh which

appears to be a bit of a mismatch as

well

yeah so there's a good point um

we have seen uh superstar ceos like elon

musk being able to actually go through

three um

very different diverse uh companies that

he he leads right so for example tesla

and spacex totally different

um so we have seen those i do see that

in terms of ceos

or even leaderships

inside the organizations they do jump

around in different portfolios

and the premise behind jumping around is

to get them

almost get their feet back in almost in

some of the different

disciplines or divisions so that when

they actually

go there go up there the key is to be

danger to know enough that you are

that you are dangerous when it comes to

somebody

yeah but not so much that you know the

nuts and the bolts so i so that that is

one

um that's one area that's one way of

looking at it that means even in ceos

and uh in c levels or in mnc leadership

there is changes in portfolios as well

yeah

yeah

all right so uh any other pros how many

would you like yeah i got tons of bikes

like um

as well so i don't know whether you want

to hear even more pro so we can start

going a little bit more pros and cons as

well

yeah i okay so yeah one interesting

thing is that um when i was talking to

this person from agda she said that when

the news first came out she's like oh no

it's all my children i'm gonna do left

right left right

so i think the general population um

would be fearful that oh my goodness why

is a general coming to talk about early

childhood right so i think that's the

very knee jet reaction

where they bring all the military things

and come in i did see that when during

the infamous

interview

of the

mr uh

okay

basically yeah the ceo of sbh and

and um they came it

there was a little bit of that um

uh this is my way follow me kind of feel

but i don't think every person is it's i

like what you say uh and i like the way

that you see it you call them actors

yeah yeah yeah they are right uh why

don't the vectors actually wow okay

i think it's just

it's more like

we use terminology to make the audience

really appreciate immediately right that

there are individuals who are different

roles okay and the moment we use the

term actors i think it makes them

realize okay they're different actors

and different types of actors right so

that and they have their respective

roles to play it just

helps to ensure that they are not trying

to do something we call hasty

generalization meaning that from a

single example we will now basically end

up making a broad generalization which

isn't fair to the entire spectrum of

actors as well yeah

um yeah okay

it's very funny because we've heard all

these things uh you're gonna have to do

uh left march left right left right are

we gonna going to wait you know four do

we have to

wake up in the morning at 0 5 30 and do

5 p.m exercises and all that

which is also quite telling

our perception or the average

singaporean person reacting to these

being appointed yeah they're not talking

about generals

they're actually talking about your

lieutenants or even sometimes sergeant

because if you look at the rules now

these that where you're basically

drilling the man and you're exercising

everyone this is for

non-commissioned officers and for well

fairly low level officers like us right

to still be handling because yeah so

like we uh platoon commander has you

know the like 30 or so man and then i'll

have about 100 plus as a company

generals are not doing this yeah right i

mean where was the last time you started

general leading the ypx right

man let's go and do this right they are

doing much much more sophisticated stuff

and much more complicated stuff they

really don't have the bandwidth to do

that in fact most of the time a lot of

the generals are probably spent spending

their time in offices you know trying

and in

meetings etc very ceo-like stuff with

the additional

ippt requirement that the ceo might not

have right okay but so our our

perception of who these people are and

the way that they're going to be

behaving inside an agency is somewhat

colored right by a distorted view that

we have of this as well so um it might

be useful to just reflect on that and

consider whether we have the full

picture and trying to uh anticipate

right and sort of like a judge how these

individuals are likely to be behaving in

their new organizations

yeah

yeah so that's like the classic

generalization of the general is a it's

a person that uh knocks you down in uh

your first three months and they're

coming

okay so so let's move on sure

negative how about that uh so one thing

comes to mind and this is basically an

appreciation okay of the fact that

even if you don't focus purely on your

subject matter expertise

certain mindsets and cultures are

created within an organization

um based on the roles and requirements

of that particular organization the

information that you receive

the individuals that you interact with

begin to color the way that you see the

world

and

if you look at the role of the singapore

armed forces

they're not exactly there at singapore's

diplomatic arm if you don't like me

so

they have to always anticipate um

potential threats to the nation

which in turn ends up

coloring everything as potential threats

right and

that can be a little bit problematic at

times because when you already have that

particular notion that you know we have

to be as strong as possible we have to

be as robust as possible um

it's acceptable sometimes even if there

are collateral damage right or if we end

up having to fire people it's a

sacrifice that you're having to make and

all that and that's not wrong from a

military perspective

but

that can carry over into other agencies

as well and i'm sure even when you have

ceos coming over

from one company to another the way that

they did right

the practices are not necessarily

carried over but the mindset right will

often come back as well um

i'll give a small example because i'm

feeling the pain right now she said i

don't know where your allegiance is like

i'm a die-hard manchester united fan

right and um

one thing that of course we're all very

sad that the most successful manager of

manchester united's history alex

ferguson retired now he handed over the

reigns to david once who was the evident

right manager for the longest time

and

david moyes even after having spent

quite a number of uh

months and even one year at manchester

united he couldn't get out of the small

club mentality he was still thinking

that he's managing a small club

and he would often say things like oh

you know we're hoping to play at the

level of liverpool et cetera and that's

you know

inherently the fact that he couldn't

step out of his small club role right

was was there and when you carry over

some of the um institutional like

frameworks and the mindsets from the

military it might not always gel right

the expectation

that um individuals will just follow

your order remember without questioning

that's a bonus in the military in fact

it's often drummed into us that

speed is important you need to react as

fast as possible you cannot be debating

every single order that comes your way

from the top

and so they're not used to being

challenged to the same degree

but when you're out there right handling

agencies and all that it can then become

a point of friction when you're told to

do something you don't get the

rationalization that you are used to

getting from other ceos and that can

then become a point of

a point of tension right and potentially

a failure point as well

yeah

definitely um

when we think about

leaders that i coach

there's also this idea of either you are

taking on the head of a dictator it's my

way or the highway or this idea of a

coach where you want to bring up the

um

you know that your team has the answers

you don't have all the answers so there

might be that

preconceived carry over that since i am

used to doing it this way in the

military when i go over to

the government link site or different

entities uh there may be such a culture

shock

right yeah so that's one pro one one uh

con um one thing i think um when it

comes to this particular thing or even

when when we talk about smrt or

or sph sigma press holdings um

this idea of context knowledge

so we we talked about that ceos don't

really need to know have that context

knowledge but we actually when we think

about that also um is context knowledge

important

in the first place so

one thing that

any leader would have to do is to really

learn and be exposed to so many

different things

to get up to speed and sometimes when we

thought when we when i think about this

idea of a ceo

and let's say you have

you have a bunch of advisors and your

advisors are the ones that

help you to overcome this lack of

context knowledge

but what if that it's a stalemate where

five advisors say yes and five advisors

say no

your role uh is to actually bring forth

um

the best decision possible yeah but

without any context knowledge it's

almost like you asked me to go into the

war room now

right and you ask me to say that should

we do this or this both we are on we are

um we are on the fence jason what do you

think

so is that kind of thing that if you

don't have context knowledge then how on

earth would you be able to make that

still make kind of decisions

when they all look to you to do it

yeah so that's one thing yeah

so

i think that a lot of institutions will

have institutional knowledge and it's

very difficult to put it down on pen and

paper with pen and paper and say that

well here it is you read the sops and

the danger sometimes is that they do

come in and say western manual let me

read it and then i'll figure out along

the way

which is the way that the militaries

operate the way the militaries have to

operate so that you know you can have a

constant flow of individuals coming in

and then uh learning all these new new

skills new weapons new equipment and

then still being able to function

a lot of institutions outside won't

function that way whether unspoken rules

traditions and customs that you needed

some time to have you know to to have

spent right trying to figure out how

things work and when you don't have that

immediate appreciation then you start

trying to latch on to anything that is

tangible written down to be able to

create those results so for instance um

you look at singapore press holdings you

might be tempted to think what is the

tangible way that i can measure output

and i need to justify

uh me being appointed here as a new boss

i have to show some results

but how do i show results i mean people

are reading more how do i how do i

quantify that and often you might end up

defaulting to things like well how much

money are we making right and so if that

then becomes the the defaults that you

end up going into as well um

that can become a problem so that adds

to the lack of

familiarity right

not just with the objective subject

matter but also with the institutional

culture that you have as well yeah

another problem

yeah yeah but i do feel that like things

like um sph uh smrt these are very much

profit uh the actual business that that

there is uh profit and loss statement at

the end um that linkages to uh

effectiveness of that leader is a little

bit more apparent than things like early

childhood development agency

right or even

other ministries so i do feel that i

think one of the cons that i can think

about is that

if he takes over acta right we never

know whatever the policies he says and

all that we actually don't know whether

or not it is effective for a long time

so he could it could be that he did a

great job but we will never know that or

it could be that he actually messed up

big time

and we will never know that until my

children

will be like yeah why are you this way

right so it could be that that so the

cons is um

that

for agencies like that where there's

really no profit and loss

there's no way of judging whether or not

he's a good he's a great leader

and

after a while as per different things

that happen in the government he'll be

actually kind of like rotated out and

after three years we kind of don't know

somebody else would take over like even

the the existing

um i think uh even the existing uh ceo

uh

jamie ung

should actually be moving out and

usually they move out to

different ministries after that so it's

like

coming back to the idea of singapore in

corporate uh they have these leaders

that actually do a little bit of like

tour of duty

and

yeah so that stint there is could be

short it could be three years could be

five years and then they move on so we

don't know if i were to say that as a

singaporean um or as a person who's

concerned about early childhood i wanna

see i wanna have accountability of

whether or not is he has done positive

impact or negative yeah i really

wouldn't know and

so i'd like to have another built on

this notion of accountability

um yeah

agencies right in singapore

and mo and even more so companies right

even government like ones

will have one particular

um

one particular and working environment

that the saf might not be entirely

familiar with

failure

because

policies would have failed before and i

think that even you know uh even former

minister mentors when you has come out

and said that yeah some policies we did

but were not good right and we needed to

change them

and

companies have run into trouble before

as well

interestingly and i think this is why

some of the critics of this phenomenon

have labeled these generals paper

generals because

they haven't done any real fighting and

in some ways it's just a disparity

though what have you really done but

push papers but there is a kernel of

truth in this which is that

the saf would not have had to go through

what you would consider a point of

failure because we've never gone to war

and in many ways if it has failed we're

in big trouble right

so

right but what does it mean when a

leader who essentially have not

met a critical failure at any point in

his career or her career his career for

now because we you know really haven't

had any sort of like top um all right

it's only starting to happen we now have

uh generals and ladies et cetera as well

and females right into your positions as

well took a while because sapphos was

not available for females for a long

time right but

if you think about it these individuals

probably straight a students yeah

creme de la creme pride of their schools

now they get the top scholarship right

rather the singapore armed forces and

are probably president scholars in some

cases

every single command place they go to

they probably excel did well in bftc or

cs did well enough their commands to be

progressively promoted right and they

are somewhat protected within the system

because they never got that big test in

a week right

but

suddenly when you go up your company

could be in trouble right i mean

whatever you like they're not taking

your trains and they're not buying your

papers

how do you deal with that particular

adversity is could be a big issue

because uh i'll bet that your average

ceo from the outside was coming in

having done they would have had a bunch

of failed enterprises under their belt

they know how to deal with it cope with

it and react calmly to it as well right

and when put under pressure they can

respond um i think the infamous press

conference that you were referring to

may have been somewhat enrollment of an

individual right who not only is being

held uh you know and having the the feet

put put to the fire for the first time

but is being asked to be held

accountable for what is deemed a failure

and when you're new to that you can't

always take it well and that might not

be a good thing for the agencies right

for someone who

refused to recognize failure will always

be framing everything as a success which

is dangerous right at the same time and

may even be

self-deluded into always thinking well

this is fine right as well so those

could also be issues

um

yeah

yeah i think um one more point when it

comes to the cons aspect for this one is

the idea of

if can you actually lead

an organization like uh agda if you

when it comes to the passion for

children

right so so it's almost like um if i

don't really bother about

like um children and um

i don't really have that passion that

means uh um i i don't really think about

it that much i don't i live breathe it

can i really affect that change so it's

the idea

um and it's

and it's something that a lot of people

debate on uh the idea of is it is

passion important that means um

you are so passionate about something

and you're so driven and motivated

because

of your love for kids that you actually

want to push different ideas and all

that so the idea that i can just drop

somebody in and immediately they have um

i don't i don't even know whether we

can't even test that passion for kids

whether or not they have that metal in

them to push for certain things because

i'm just so passionate about it which

actually comes down to this other point

that

the people already in actor

what about them in terms of the

opportunity for them to groom to grow

and to grow upwards where i've been

there for so long and now i have such a

passion for kids and i started as a

teacher

and i started all the way down and now

i'm i i probably want to be able to be

in a position where i can affect huge

amount of change

so this idea that

what about the other people in actor

whether or not

what what what opportunities do they

have when it comes to that it could be

that really it is

not uh the the model uh leadership model

and the leadership rotation of the

singapore government so that might never

happen but when we think about companies

and all that um the people inside um

it's always the if you imagine you're

just the number two or the number three

you've been you've been always wanting

to

um

just

be in that position in the future and

then you're looking forward and suddenly

somebody comes in you'll be like oh i'm

a little bit disheartened

so the idea about the people inside and

either that

um

the passion part whether or not they

even have that passion for

transport do they have that passion for

um newspapers yeah

so that's another pro

that's a fantastic point jason and uh it

made me also recall right um

some of the some of the ways in which um

everything started like shaking out in

agencies as well as in ministries etc

it can often create a divide uh to use

the terms i think these are colloquial

terms that we use even within the

military right

even the offices themselves the regulars

would have terms like oh well those are

the scholar offices i'm just i'm just a

father yes right and they use the term a

lot and it's right

in a way it's meant to be self-effacing

but there's a little bit of pride as

well like i'm going to be tilling the

fields and i am here and i love doing

this you guys are here just because your

grades were good right do you really

care

can i really work with you yeah if in

fact are you my enemy right within the

system but even if you are the enemy

i'll just write you out

right because i'm going to be here i'm

not leaving i care about this this is my

passion you're just here yes you're my

boss but you'll leave and someone new is

going to come in anyways and so why

should i get involved

have that kind of disconnect right

between you know

individuals and departments within any

sort of agency or company is not a good

thing but

um

and sometimes

when people are brought in

from the military

it's a little bit more acute i feel

rather than someone who was uh formerly

just like just from another government

agency and all that if you think about

it the saf is another government agency

as well they just happen to have tanks

okay

and guns but

why why

why we have

an especially acute level right of like

a resentment sometimes against these

people because it is perceived that the

world is just so different right and uh

they are you know

they're almost like aliens coming in and

filling it as well so uh does that

that's another thing that can happen but

the feelings are real right and it can

actually contribute to that and if they

are upset enough that they will never

progress to the top then we lose that

passion and they start to leave right

and

one of the complaints that you often

hear is that wow the singapore civil

service probably pays well but are those

really the people who wanted to serve

society right and who actually wanted to

contribute to society and are we losing

those people due to our system as well

yeah yeah so i like the um i i hear that

so often last time i'm a it's almost

that the idea of farmer and scholar it's

almost that when you're in the military

the farmers are respected more than the

scholars

and if you are a farmer you can climb to

that level of maybe three um colonel

level or

um the the sentiments on the ground is

like this guy really got it

he is the guy that went through war came

back and kind of like uh yeah i'm i'm

with you i got my hands dirty well um

the notion that we usually have you know

doing canteen breaks and all that oh

that guy's a scholar it's almost like um

he's um he's an academic

yeah he's really bright

but um

he's just a scholar you know it's just

given so yeah there is that disconnect

and i like what you said that

sometimes um the people in the on the

ground might have so much more passion

and they might just want a chance and

they may not be given that because the

singapore government system of

leadership is really this whole idea of

rotation we have a general uh now as the

ministry

ministry of education right exactly

right and also speaker of the house

this is a tantrum jin as well so we do

have a lot of this and

if we're going to land on this sam

to just make this a close i just want to

hear from you um as the singapore

government

and this is their leadership

this is the style of how the groom

leaders and all that

anything we can talk about um

is this a a great system uh a negative

system what can we talk about in terms

of the singapore government as a whole

that means scf is part of everything uh

well we've always wanted to have

saf and

all the other government agencies are

meant to be and they use this term whole

of government right and everyone is

supposed to be together and one of the

justifications with you just

with

do merit to their system as well is that

we need people to be moving from place

to place so that's where they pick up

you know these institutional norms and

understandings as well

so that when

we have these people going all the way

to the top

they actually have a much better idea of

what every other agency is trying to do

so that you don't end up in silos so

that you don't become very parochial and

just protect your turf

because

i've seen those sort of turf battles

before um in my in my work in other

countries it's actually very acute

because you can have

two different branches of the same

military fighting tooth and nail to get

equipment to get resources right and

there is active animosity between those

branches you can have two different

ministries and ministers which is

refusing to talk to each other and i

think that at a very broad you know

general level singapore has less of that

because there is so much movement and we

don't have that sort of like animosity

and tension coming in right

we do kind of take it for granted but um

when you consider the fact that even

within the saf right

as part of our conditioning we always

start to compete because that helps our

mindset of soldiers you know to be able

to always be on the edge be the best

unit but in a way like platoon a is

always fighting with the two b you know

to be the best uh and then which section

is fighting with which section but that

goes all the way to the top is where we

give our best combat units and all that

and the fact that it's still a very

united system

it's something that they may want um

even if it came at the cost of being

able to have specialists in place all

the time and uh so that's uh something

right that we have to consider and my

understanding is that all these generals

as they are

progressing through their military path

and especially scholars

some of them are actually rotated into

doing ministry work as much as possible

so that they get to interact with

civilians and see how they function as

well so either within the ministry of

defense itself or actually seconded to

other ministries or even doing uh some

comments to the government-linked

companies as well

yeah

right yeah

so

um when when i was thinking about this

idea of uh

how much

if singapore government is uh we call it

singapore inc right how much

money

have i invested in that one person

when it comes to leadership development

so that's one thing also when we think

about you know every um for

organizations if i bring you to a course

especially for small medium enterprises

if you go for a course i invest money

into you i bond you right so my hope is

that bond is that my hope is that

actually you live out that bond you

don't you don't exercise that one you

carry on so

throughout the years these generals have

gone through so many so many different

kinds of um

command and staff college for example

they might have been a scholarship to

harvard and oxford which caused a bomb

um

uh they might have uh maybe even gone to

the top military schools of leadership

in like west point in the in the states

so the idea is that i've invested so

much of it um

if i can spread out that if i can carry

on and move that retirement from 40 over

to 50 right then it's a increase in roi

for me

the worst thing i wanted to do our worst

thing

to hear if i'm singapore in corporate is

that this general goes and joins a

private firm

and all the things all the investment i

have on that person just goes to the

private side so i think this one

retention strategy as well

so that they can actually carry on and

serve the nation

and i think this is where we have to

look at

where they have been sent i mean

sometimes uh we have in uh you know

people on the interwebs right

complaining that oh they're ruining our

companies and all that

we got to remember well they're usually

sent either to statutory boards

ministries but even the companies

they're sent to would be you know

government government-linked uh

companies uh under to master building

etc and

i think we've always had

this appreciation which is not always uh

top of our minds but

those companies were never meant to

function like purely private actors with

profit and shareholders you know as the

only thing that they have to care about

in the end they are considered national

assets and they're supposed to help the

whole singapore project along because um

like it or not let's see if we needed to

evacuate people from some country

um si is going to have to do it even if

as a private company they don't really

want to do it but they're going to have

to do this as well and

and you can almost understand why if

this is the way that we're going to have

to consider some of our big national

companies as national asset and an

extension of the state

but not nationalized because you know

that's not where they want to be so

they're trying to have their cake and

eat it as well but this probably

provides some assurance right that these

um entities still commercial still doing

everything possible to drive the economy

but still available right as an asset to

the state dependable reliable um

probably gives a lot of comfort

to

the powers that be but in turn benefits

these companies as well because when you

are assured of the fact that these

companies right are in good hands and

the state needs them the state's not

going to let them fail either right so

in a way so is that the way to go in

terms of you know having our uh these

companies function always having this

gigantic safety net right is that wave

above our pay grade but i it to me at

least it looks like that's the way that

uh we were designed to function as well

yeah so really the whole idea of

all the chess pieces together are still

under the same control

and hopefully if the anything happens we

need as many people

who we can

on our side and uh who we've worked with

so so much and we we know that

background and that trust is there and

we can move this whole singapore i like

the idea of singapore approaching

forward so

yeah

i got one one interesting thing so if

i'm thinking about this idea like if if

the general is able to go and go to take

over

right early childhood development as

agency

right if we say that the general um

can take over

i just want to figure out whether or not

would somebody i know it's a bit

ridiculous right will somebody from acta

be able to take over the journals

if we believe that

like context knowledge is is not the

most important thing and let's say that

person has all the skills all the

clearance required to actually be there

um

would that be even uh something i mean

it's just a playful thing would that be

even something that anybody in the sf

would consider and i don't know actually

i'm actually going to disagree a little

bit there right not to the degree where

the

our next uh

chief of army will be mr jason ho you

know like has come in and be the general

right right

i was pleasantly surprised to find that

the military partly because of the

constraints that they may have but

they've been willing right to

bring people from the outside in for

rules which were traditionally performed

within the military itself right and

there's more commercialization than we

would think uh even we'll talk like

mundane stuff like the food we eat yeah

used to be prepared by the guys

themselves and like now everything is

essentially

yeah sf5 sfi government yeah right but

it's still the private director um

like psychologists and psychiatrists you

know and individuals who are able to uh

provide commentary on these things which

you know we on the way that we structure

our systems

um

well even our physical training a lot of

it is actually done by individuals who

are coming from the outside into the

camps to provide the training they're

not actually

saf regulars but they're actually

vendors that they're willing to do so as

well so at least at that level right um

there is a little bit more that i think

there is comfort in getting expertise

from the outside

partly due to the way that the military

is funded i think right that helps with

that because we don't have the like 200

years of worth of history like like the

united states marine corps where you

know uh when we were founded that

like to to and to have been fighting

wars constantly

a relatively new military still in the

grand scheme of things and it was

founded with a great deal of help from

other militaries and so therefore we're

very used to getting help and expertise

from the outside and i think that makes

us

just that little bit more comfortable in

terms of uh getting advice right and

being able to listen to others as well

but whether they're going to be happy to

have someone come in probably not right

you say that here's three stars yeah

right we can yeah i don't think so

yeah because there's some traditions

which are wrapped up as well but

uh what i understand was that the

military was flexible enough to have

come up with what i understand to be a

fairly unique

um rig structure which is called the

military expert system me system

and

essentially the military expert system

is sort of like somewhere in between

commission officers and non-commissioned

officers and the warrant officer types

as well right but they are willing to

bring in individuals who

as who have been operating outside let's

say you're you're a lawyer right and

you've only been a lawyer this whole

time but if they want to bring you in

into the

into the military legal system

then you know then they're really not

going to be asking you to go to office

at school and go to ocs it's a giant

waste of time

in fact if you recall

when we wanted to bring doctors into the

military

we just gave them we just give like yeah

right and you get it straight away so we

were comfortable with doing these sort

of things you see it's the expertise

that matters more we're willing to

accommodate you with ranks et cetera and

now people can just come in at a fairly

high

me level right with uh appropriate level

of pace and and and even though they

would have had very little background

within the military itself as well so

interesting developments right and i'm

at least glad to see that we're able to

change in some of these circumstances

and are very adaptable as well yeah

yeah that's really refreshing very

refreshing all right so we're gonna

uh come to the close and um we have

talked about um and debated and and

discussed about the pros and cons uh uh

for you guys listening or watching what

do you think what is your take on that

uh comment uh about this whole idea of

um generals whether or not they should

be hitting government agencies what's

the pro what's the what is your stand

so thank you so much sam uh for your

time and um

yeah i'll see you guys in the next

episode thank you jason thank you thanks

everyone

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