I got an unsolicited response in my Linkedin box today
about my Dad from a former creative director of a large multinational agency
who once worked with him. He said that he liked my old man because he treated his
film crew well. He made the point that my dad trained his crew and ate with
them instead just hobnobbing with the clients and creative directors from the
agency.
This former creative director’s comments brought me two
months back when I met with two of his old crew. Called them “Uncle,” and realized
that I wasn’t being polite to older people but stating a fact. My father’s crew
had been with him for nearly thirty years. They had seen me grow up and he saw
to it that they were there at family events and he was at theirs. The only
thing that didn’t make them family was biology. My dad took care of his team
and I he took it personally when the government preferred to let a White Australian
director of photography leading a Hong Kong based crew into shoot military ads
over him because he had a predominantly Malay crew.
I bring up these instances because they are fundamental
to the heart of social dynamics, particularly in a place Singapore, which
places so much emphasis on things like economic growth and attracting the world’s
rich. I’ve argued that we are the Wet Dream of Confucianism – a place where
bureaucrats who did well at school, run the show.
In fairness, there is plenty going right with
Singapore and as every foreign friend I have says “What are you complaining
about?” I agree that much of Singapore does work and the there are parts of
Singapore that are really nice and I get that even the not so nice parts of
Singapore compare very well – or as an American navy boy I took to Geyland says,
“If this is your worst neighbourhood, come to America and I’ll show you a bad
neighbourhood.”
However, whilst much may seem right, a place run on elitist
principles, has one dangerous flaw, which is the fact that the myth that
everything good about society is due to the top. Hence, anyone with a brain
cell or two starts sucking up to the top in order to get to the resources there
and anyone who isn’t in the race is left to die. At the same time, the top
develops a belief that it’s the top because of some divine right.
Let’s remember that we are the place where a daughter
of an elected member of parliament took to social media to tell someone talking
about job insecurity to “get out of my elite uncaring face.” The father actually
tried to defend his daughter by telling people they didn’t want to hear harsh
truths and only apologized after a public backlash.
Whilst these things are not criminal per se, they do
reflect a rather sad mentality or a confusion between elitism and meritocracy.
The elite believes it is the elite based on merit because that’s what it has
been conditioned to think. Being “uncaring” is associated with being “elite.”
As a matter of disclosure, I am not from “humble” beginnings.
I have never known a day of hunger in my life. I’ve always had shelter. I
belong to a very privileged minority and having a PMET job has always been
understood. Yet, I have always been weary as seeing myself as being “better”
because I can use the letter “BA II” behind my name. Whenever I hear people
talk about “Oh but you are a graduate,” or “You know so and so,” I am inclined
to question why these things matter.
I’ve grown up understanding that to get to the top,
you need to know how to work. Part of it does require ego stroking but I’ve
also grown up with the idea that people at the top know that you will
inevitably suck up to them because they have the power and money over you and
so you have no choice but to be nice to them.
If anything, people at the top of reputable organizations
should inevitably be more interested in your character, which is revealed by
how you treat people with nothing to offer you and so, at a certain level, the
job interview is being taken out to dinner. You get what they call the “waiter
test,” because how you treat the waiters says everything about you. One of the
most famous quotes on this comes from Mohammed Ali:
Which if I look at the things that have been said to me
about my father into perspective. My father remains a very talented photographer
and advertising film director. He studied techniques of the great photographers
of the day intensely and he did well. He treated his people well (I mean who in
the private sector works for a single employer for nearly 30-years) and they
worked well for him.
What has struck me is the fact that one of the
creative directors mentioned this aspect of my father as a key point for liking
him. Given that the ad agency creative directors have a say in who becomes
director of photography, it struck me that the people who are giving you work
are taking note of your character.
Functional organizations will value character in the
people and contractors they work with. They will look out for it and no matter
how clever or talented you are, they will test your character and if you fail
character test you will not be hired. Dysfunctional organisations on the other
hand forget that character counts. They tolerate your talents to suck up to the
top rather than your character because that’s all that really matters. If an organization
doesn’t test your character, you should ask yourself whether that’s an organization
you really want to work for.
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