Let's Get them To Work

I’m generally “pro-immigrant.” Growing up in the UK and living in Singapore for the last decade or so, I noticed that it’s usually the migrants from elsewhere doing the backbreaking work and the down and outs are usually the native born. In London’s Soho district, the tramps were inevitably young, white, native Brits. The “Pakis” were too busy running corner shops and the Nigerian black boys would hustle to get you into a mini-cab. Now, that I live in Singapore, I notice that the construction sites are inevitably staffed by Indians and Bangladeshis, restaurants by Pinoys and Indians and our streets would not be clean were it not for the “Bangla’s” picking up after us.

I have argued time and time again that were it not for migrants who are hungry and willing to do shit jobs that need to get done, many of the great cities of the world would probably collapse. I also don’t see the sense in denying the job to the guy who wants to do it because he’s “not from around here.” I also don’t see the logic in denying the guy who wants the job in name of giving the job to the guy who doesn’t want the job in the first place.

Having said that, I also believe that many societies, particularly in the developing world, need to find a way of creating opportunities for their native-born citizens and as much as we want to encourage people to succeed, we also need to take care of the “losers.” Letting people die on the street doesn’t get anyone anywhere. The social order that allows people to prosper can easily be upset if enough people feel their getting screwed by the system.

If only this chap would learn to be like

In the Western world, they have the welfare state, which works on the premise that the state provides you with a safety net in the event that things turn sour for you. The Nordic Countries are the world’s favourite example of what a good social system can do for you. Losing your job or getting sick in Sweden, Norway, Denmark or Finland isn’t the end of the world because the state will step in.

However, while the intentions behind the welfare state are noble, the system, as many Western Countries have found out, has one intrinsic flaw – the value of work vanishes. Why do you need to go to work if people are giving you money for doing nothing? The system becomes open for abuse and unfortunately the people who should be working find a way of not working. The system becomes even more ridiculous when you have situation where people from elsewhere get the “benefits” without paying into the system. The “anti-migrant” group has moved its pitch from “they take our jobs,” to “they are coming to live off our tax dollars.”

Many Asian countries balk at the thought of implementing a “welfare” system based on the Western model. Singapore, is a good example. Lee Kuan Yew, our founding Prime Minister and the last great Victorian Gentlemen this side of the Suez Cannel felt that the “welfare” system had turned the British from being the most civilized people on earth into a bunch of hooligans. His successor had to disguise the giving out of cash to the citizens by calling them shares.

While the “evils” of the welfare system are known, Asian societies are reaching the stage where some form of “welfare” system needs to be introduced. The richer Asian nations like Singapore and Japan are aging. Modern life is such that old social contracts are no longer viable (In my mother’s words “Can’t expect you to look after me when you can barely look after yourself.) What can be done? It’s a question that needs to be answered quickly as societies age.

These guys

In Singapore, the answer is called “Workfare,” where the government donated cash to low wage earners. I used to enjoy receiving “workfare” every three months. It was like a surprise package and there was the greater thrill of receiving money from the government.

The idea of workfare is right in as much as it gives one the incentive to work. As a former recipient, I can say that I was encouraged to stay in my job as a waiter because I’d get that buzz of having that “government-given” bonus. Workfare, which is assessed on a quarterly basis, meant that I could get a larger bonus from the government if I stayed in the job.

Generally speaking, I like the principle of the system. There is a possibility of abuse in the system but even then, the it is correct to pay people to work not to do nothing. Our problem in Singapore not so much people abusing the system but not wanting to abuse the system. As one of the characters said, “It’s not worth it for a few bucks.”

I have a sentimental attachment to my job as a waiter because it helped me move things along in life. While, the pay was never great, it gave me the stability of income that I needed to settle a few things.

I’m an unusual case in as much as I’ve grown attached to my blue-collar existence. To me, it was a simple case of a low income being better than no income at all.

However, there remains a portion of society that would rather not work a low paying job and live of friends and family. I think of the various characters I know who don’t have an issue being seen to be drinking all day but can’t afford to be seen in public cleaning the streets.

What do you do? Yes, I am for the principle of hiring the guy who wants the job rather than the guy who doesn’t want the job. However, can we really afford a situation where you have lots of people from elsewhere doing the jobs but a load of natives not earning a living?

I’m reminded of a report that I saw on Facebook, which reported that farmers in the US are having to leave fruit to rot ever since Donald started clamping down on migration. A friend of mine who supports the Donald made some comment about time to get people off welfare.

He has a point. We argue that migration is necessary because we need people to do the dangerous and dirty jobs that the natives won’t do. However, we have natives who are physically able to do the jobs but are unemployed and not earning a living. In the Western World, many of these collect welfare checks and lose the incentive to work. In the Asian Societies they live off family and friends until they no longer have family and friends and in which case they end up on the street. Isn’t it correct that you get the natives working so that there’s less need for migrants?

One of the areas to start is to make dirty and dangerous jobs less so. Technology is a big factor in things. At the restaurant I work at, we’ve adapted wireless payment systems, which reduces manpower costs. Instead of hiring a cashier and plonking paper chits around, we take the order on an iPad, which goes straight to the kitchen and the cashier. Instead of relying on a cashier to key in your orders, you merely print out the bill at the end of the meal.

Paying less than slave wages also helps. There is an argument made in Singapore that wages for certain jobs are too low for support a family (even if KNN and Pundeks don’t support their families). But there is a point in that, you cannot keep wages stagnant while increasing costs. Yes, I’d work a job far away from where I live if I had to but I’d also feel pretty resentful of rising transport costs when compared to my stagnant wages. So, to a certain extent, the employers need to do something to reduce costs for their employees. You could grow competitive mini-bus systems and a “night economy” if employers threw in things like transport.

I also wonder if things like a jobs program would get the down and outs to work? While “jobs programs” don’t have a great history of creating real economic value, they are better than the alternative of nothing at all and giving people money for nothing.

Surely, instead of having to rely on people from elsewhere, a nation should squeeze its productivity from its own citizens first. There are of course, barriers to this. Why, for example, should a city dweller (where a good portion of welfare recipients live) go out to work as a farm hand in the country when the investment in time and money might be a disincentive to work?

This is the point where governments need to get creative and figure out how to work with the private sector to share funds and idea on how to get people into work. Perhaps, a national job bank could be created and anyone who wants to register for social assistance, will have to register at the job bank. Businesses can then draw upon the job bank whenever they need labour, paying costs for employing the worker with the government helping subsidise things like transport to the work place and perhaps training schemes to make people employable.

Just letting people die should not be an alternative but giving people money for not working is not good either. The answer lies in making seasonal work in various labour intensive industries accessible to anyone who needs a job. My stepfather once said that if he couldn’t work as a doctor, he’d work in the harbor rather than take the dole. For me, I keep my job as a waiter because it’s a form of social security. Governments and businesses need to ensure that people will want to work and not take handouts.

As has been pointed out, people with jobs, even low paying ones, tend to have dignity, while those who don’t have jobs, tend not to have it. A dignified population is what most societies should aim for.

From Special Forces Warrior to Successful Businessman

I wanted adventure, so I joined the US Special Forces - Little Did I Know it would Train me for an Adventure in Business 

By William Nobrega

Managing Partner of DTNVenture Partners and Former Green Beret Medical Sergeant  

From the age of ten years of age I had a desire to become a ‘Green Beret’ watching the John Wayne movie of the same name over and over again. My uncle who I adored also had served as one in Vietnam being wounded on two separate occasions. So during my senior year in high School I signed up to join a Special Forces reserve unit in my home State of Ohio. At the time the only slot available was ‘Parachute Rigger’ I didn’t care I was in!

That summer I attended basic training after which I began my freshman year at Ohio University. I was scheduled to attend Airborne School over winter break and that fall I trained with a vengeance. I was also pledging Beta Theta Pi which added another element of excitement to that fall quarter. Airborne School was the adventure of a lifetime. I loved the long runs, the adrenalin and the Esprit that I was first beginning to see and understand. After graduating that winter class I headed back to school and over the course of several years I attended as many schools as I could to include Rigger, Jumpmaster, SERE and finally Special Forces Medical Sergeant 18 Delta Q course. Oddly it was Rigger school where I first had my interaction with other members of SOCOM as there were SEAL team and Force Recon members in attendance and we created a common bond.

At the time I was really checking the boxes as I had plans, post-college and in 1990 there was not much going on i.e. globally. That summer I was accepted to Graduate School in Belgium. I had just started school when I received orders that were actually faxed to me for Desert shield/Desert Storm. For me it was the adventure of a lifetime, so I boarded a train and headed for Germany and 10^th Special Forces Group. Our mission was to support the Kurds and I loved every minute of it.  The war and mission were over in six short months and to be honest I have never seen the intensity or made the sacrifices that my brothers have made.

That being said the entire experience taught some very important concepts vis-à-vis business.

• ·       Keep focused on the mission/summit, you may need to alter the route and approach but do not lose sight of the summit
• ·       The right team is critical, my biggest mistake was believing that all individuals had the drive and passion of those in Special Forces, they do not!
• ·       Failure is part of life, the question is what do we learn from failure and how quickly do we get back up
• ·       Creating a new venture is not a sprint, it is a long hard slog and anyone that tells you otherwise is full of BS
• ·       Quitting is not an option, and that there is a big difference between quitting and failing! 

From the Battlefield to the Boardroom

Experience in the Military is the Best Training an Entrepreneur can have.

By, Mr. Christopher Lo, Founder and Executive Director of iAdD Pte Ltd and Former Senior Lieutenant Colonel Singapore Army and Graduate from the Class of 1995 from the United States Military at West Point 

After serving almost 24 years, I chose to retire early from the military in August of 2013.  That decision was the culmination of my journey recovering from the decompression following my tour of duty in Afghanistan.  During this one particular bout of internal combat when I questioned my own mortality again (some call these episodes, the “Survivor’s Guilt”), the dots just connected. 

In that defining moment, I learned two things about myself. 

First, things always happen for a reason! From that day on, I shifted from asking myself “Why?!” to “Why not?!”.  By embracing this new mindset, I learned to go with the energy of “Yes!”, in the belief that my choice will take me where I need to go or receive the experience I need to feel.  The reason for the choice will appear when I am ready to receive. In a way, you can say, entrepreneurship is about having faith.

Second, there is an inexplicable push propelling me to be an entrepreneur.  It took over 20 years for me to realise how the West Point Experience and the ideals of Duty, Honor, Country, had suppressed who I was.  With this acknowledgement, I made the hard decision to walk away from the soldiering, the only profession that I had ever known.  Having survived at least two near-death experiences in Afghanistan, I thought what could be as challenging or worse, right?!

I am into my fourth year as an entrepreneur.  I realise now how wrong I was. Combat stress and business stress are simply two different worlds.  Yet, upon reflection, this Monday morning, I am clearer that the military experience has given me the best preparation to succeed as an entrepreneur.  Allow me to share the four attributes through the acronym FIST.

FIST stands for Focus, Initiative, Service, and Trust.

All startup entrepreneurs go through similar phases of experiences.  We first learn to work in the business. This initial phase teaches us to handle all aspects of operations to survive the business.  Next, we learn to work on the business. This second phase teaches us to put in place the business system and the management team to sustain the business.  We finally learn to apply strategic planning to scale the business for growth.  I now elaborate how FIST works for you.

In those early days of starting up, you are extremely resource poor.  Survival consumes all of your energy. Naturally, your military training instinctively Focuses you on the mission (to survive), which channels your efforts to take actions that generates revenue, and to ruthlessly shutout everything else.  In your hunger to generate revenue, you seize the Initiative to create opportunities and make things happen instead of standing still and waiting for things to happen.  It is here that you take calculated risks to experiment, test, and innovate.  Yet, you know these actions alone do not create the outcome you seek.  Your military training to perform actions in service of a higher intent, now kicks-in to sharpen what you do in Service of the customer.  Relentlessly, you ask: “What else can I do for you?” Because you have served, you epitomise trust and teamwork. Honed from years of daily practice in leading soldiers, your leadership by example eventually instils that Trust in those we serve.  Ultimately, your success is predicated on you being – who you are. “Never settle!”

The only thing that limits you in your transition is your military mindset.  The business world operates on the extreme opposite of what you have been conditioned to operate under. Hence, the crucial first step required of you is to unlearn to relearn, rearm, and reset your mindset. 

I want to encourage my fellow veterans, regardless of race, language, or religion: “Fear not, when you transit. Your military experience has given you the best startup preparation to step-out and step-up to the entrepreneurship challenge.  You already paid it forward when you served your country to now succeed as an entrepreneur. FIST will guide you to deliver on your dream to make the Positive Difference in service of others, beyond the military.”

So here’s my FIST pump to you, military veterans.  Thank you for your service.

3 business lessons I learned from running my own firm for 24 years

By Mark Goh, 

Managing Director of VanillaLaw LLC

First Published by techinasia.com

I have been a lawyer for nearly a quarter of a century and have spent most of those years running my own firm. Like any small-to-medium enterprise (SME), I struggled through the very basics of building and operating a business—figuring out and building my firm’s corporate structure, defining my value proposition, identifying my customer segment, and planning my finances. (For these basic lessons, I recommend using Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas.)

I realized pretty early on that I was in a very unique position where I straddled two different worlds:

1. The world of a lawyer
2. The world of an SME business owner

I have been blessed with many insights over the years, and I wanted to share three of the most important ones.

Founder’s myopia

In Bill Gates’ book, Business @ the Speed of Thought, he references an old business joke that goes, “If railroads had understood they were in the transportation business instead of the steel-rail business, we’d all be flying on Union Pacific Airlines.”

As business owners, we sometimes become too focused or protective of our “babies;” we hang on to that first successful iteration of our business and refuse to innovate, expand, and keep up with market trends. We need to keep our minds open to be able to see the possibilities.

Earlier in my career, I invested in a company that conducted boat rides for wakeboarders (this was when the sport was gaining popularity in the country). The demand was so high from wakeboarding enthusiasts that the owners were not able to cater to other types of customers.

No one ever thought about attempting to capture the waterskiing market even though there was obvious demand. In the end, the wakeboarding craze died down, and the company folded.

Perhaps if the business owners looked beyond wakeboarding and recognized that their business was about supporting various water activities instead, they could have planned and executed a more flexible and sustainable business strategy.

My own product, VanillaLaw Docs, was designed as a legal document assembly software to help SMEs reduce legal costs and streamline the legal process. However, I have come to realize that the software can also be effective in industries outside of the legal industry. One such example is in the field of publishing, where companies that need to quickly assemble and print annual reports or assessment books can possibly use the software to organize and customize their print jobs.

These types of realizations are important because without them, we would continually operate in a limited space, unable to break out of the “trap” we created for ourselves. A simple way to avoid this trap is to always keep updated with the developments in your chosen and related industries and dedicate time (e.g. quarterly/biannual meetings) to review your business processes and strategies with your team.

Reexamining relationships

I used to be quite wary of the notion guanxi (roughly translated as relationships or connections) and have even written about the subject in relation to how SMEs conduct business. In essence, the culture of guanxi leads people to ink deals based on verbal agreements and trust instead of proper legal procedures. I’ve had several clients who’ve come to me with problems as a result of this.

I now believe that it is important we take the time to constantly assess and evaluate the way we interact with our business partners and clients and learn to integrate styles that combine both guanxi and proper legal procedures.

The current business environment demands that we communicate and relate to others in multiple fashions across multiple platforms. Engaging with our customers (and with business partners as well) requires a mix of technology and a distinct “human touch.”

We have to be able to attend networking sessions and genuinely make the effort to connect but also not shy away from platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Instagram, if that is where our target markets congregate. With our clients, we have to be dauntless and learn to be graceful in bringing up the need for proper documentation even if the client might not see the need for it.

Of course, necessary investments should be made to acquire sound multi-channel capabilities. If it means enrolling in a course to learn how to integrate social media platforms with your business, do it; if it means investing in a customer relationship management software to organize all your client information, do it; if it means calling a meeting to get everyone’s input on how you are as a manager, do it.

These are some examples of how we can reexamine ourselves in order to redesign our relationships with our clients, partners, and employees.

Investing in your future and future-proofing your investments

What’s usually discussed on this topic are things like incorporating technology into your business, making strategic financial decisions, and getting the necessary legal protections. While these are fine, something supersedes all of them: talent. Finding the right business partner, employee, or investor who understands and aligns with your vision and mission is a future-proof investment.

The key thing you’d want to look for is the quality of self-awareness. According to an article on Harvard Business Review, self-awareness leads to “more effective leadership, more satisfied employees, and in turn, a more profitable business.” People who are self-aware are more likely to be open-minded, communicative, and willing to learn and improve.

Recently, I have begun to incubate a business team in a sister company. I’m fortunate that those in my team are self-aware enough to seek out answers when they are lost, look for help when they cannot do things on their own, and most importantly, have the courage to share with me their honest opinions. While some will attribute this to their domain experience, I think it is their self-awareness that makes all the difference.

How about you? What lessons have you learned from your business journey? How can these lessons help you improve your business in the coming year?

Thank God for Shitholes!

You got to thank Donald Trump for having a unique ability for coming up with delicious sound bites for journalist. The occupant of the Oval Office set of a storm of protest and howls of anguish when he allegedly complained that the US was constantly getting migrants from “Shithole” countries like Haiti and much of Africa. He is alleged to have added salt to the wound by asking why the US couldn’t get migrants from Norway.

The left wing complained that the Donald was being a racist crack pot by insulting countries that are predominantly inhabited by black people and wishing that migrants were whiter. The fact that Donald has some racist tendencies should surprise nobody and the fact that he’s willing to exploit the inner racist in everyone should be no surprise either. The Trump supporters took the opposite view that Donald was merely expressing what every White American feels, namely the fact that America needs to get a grip on its immigration.

Both sides miss the key point. Donald is not incorrect when he describes certain countries as “Shitholes.” If the countries that he mentioned were not “shitholes,” they wouldn’t be producing people who are obsessed about leaving. It’s common sense – people do not leave countries which they believe offer them opportunities to prosper – they leave countries that they believe are screwing them merely for committing the simple sin of getting up in the morning. Haiti and much of the African continent produces immigrants who are desperate to leave because life for the majority is pretty shitty and the leaving is considered an opportunity for a better life. Norway does not produce migrants because the people are so well taken care of, there’s simply no need to try and make a life elsewhere.

Having said that, the talented businessman called the Donald has failed to see an obvious point about people from “Shithole” countries – namely the fact that they make the best type of citizen. When people leave “Shitholes,” they achieved a mindset where they believe that the country they are running to is inevitably better than the one they are leaving and so they are inevitably psychologically inclined to do more for the country that they are trying to get into.

Hence, you find that migrants will gladly work the jobs that the locals won’t do and they will do the jobs at lower rates and longer hours. The “Shit” jobs in the US are inevitably done by people from “Shithole” countries like Mexico, in the UK it’s the “Pakis” and the “Poles,” and here in Singapore, I guarantee you, you will not see a native-born Singaporean on a construction site. In the restaurant I work at, we have people from other parts of the world begging for a job and that the poorest Singaporean won’t do.

It's a blessing to work here when .........

It’s not just the doing to shitty jobs that make people from Shithole countries an asset. They’re also more likely to be well behaved because they know they’re rights in the host country aren’t great and they have an innate sense of gratitude to the country that provided them with salvation. I cannot keep stressing the fact that till date, there has been no terrorist attack committed by migrants from Shithole countries. The bombings in London were committed by second generation British citizens who had spent their entire life in the UK.

This is where you came from.......

I think of my wife, who has a Vietnamese passport. To her, Singapore is heaven. It’s “MY COUNTRY.” During the last election, she told me that I was NOT TO VOTE ANYONE ELSE OTHER THAN THIS GOVERNMENT. As a native Singaporean who has a legal obligation to die for his country, I don’t think Singapore is as great as the tour guides make it out to be. While I respect successive Singapore governments for doing a relatively good job, I think my vote does get taken for granted.

Whenever I look at the different classes from elsewhere, I realise that it’s the people from “Shithole” countries that love Singapore for being Singapore. The people from “Non-Shitholes,” countries or the people “with skills we need,” tend to love Singapore for the good life that they have. The love for the country is in proportion to the size of the expat package.

The Donald was well aware of the fact that people from “Shithole” countries make the best workers when he was a businessman. He’s smart enough to realise that they also make the best scapegoats when you’re a politician. If only he’d actually pretend to be half as smart as he claims to be by quietly encouraging people from Shithole countries to come into America despite what he tells his supporters. He should even hire them to make life difficult for their former fellow countrymen knocking the door at the border (Just ask anyone of Indian decent who compare the treatment they get from White immigration officials and officials of Indian decent in the UK).

The other point that seems lost on the Donald is the fact that if you want to stop people from “Shithole” countries from coming in, you need to have a foreign policy that makes these countries less shitty. Let’s look at the Middle East, which is home to brutal dictators who have crushed their people. Think of the likes of “Saddam Hussein,” or “Hosni Mubarak,” who were happily brutalizing their own people with the blessings of the US Government. As one writer in the Financial Times said during the Arab Spring, “They don’t hate us because we’re free; they hate us because we supported the people who crushed their freedoms.” Haiti would be considerably less of a shithole if the US stopped backing the likes of the Duvalier’s.

Leaving aside the support for bad leaders in other places (a sin not limited to the US), one of the best ways to ensure that countries become shitholes, is by promoting protectionist trade policies. Basic economic theory shows that free trade and the free movement of money is beneficial to everyone. Yes, there are losers in globalization but on the whole, people win. While parts of the US have suffered with the moving of heavy industry to places like China, the US has remained the world power by moving into newer industries that pay better wages than the industries that were lost. Contrary to popular belief, China’s rise has helped the US – just ask the small college towns that are fighting to get students from China.

While Donald is complaining about people from Shithole countries, President Xi is trying to make his neighbourhood less of a shithole by pumping money into places like Cambodia, Sri Lanka and so on. As one South African I sat next to on plane said, “They are building infrastructure in Africa and the people are getting fed.”

Countries that don’t like “Shithole” countries around them shouldn’t focus on Shitholes. When you become obsessed with a shithole, you become a shit. Better to focus on exploiting the people from Shithole countries for your benefit and making the Shithole countries less shitty.