When the Letters of the Law Defeat the Spirit of the Law

Once again National Service has become on the hot topics of discussion. Thankfully, nobody had to die to make national service a hot talking point. Ironically, in light of the recent World Cup, the other key driver in making this a hot topic is football, or as the Americans and Australians would prefer – soccer.

The story outline is simple. Ben Davis, a young Singaporean who had been playing for Fulham Under 18s, part of the English Premier league club Fulham, was given a contract to play for Fulham. Unfortunately for Mr. Davis, the Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) refused to grant him a deferment from National Service. Much has been said about the whole saga, so I don’t think I can say more than what has already been said. However, I do argue that the problem here is a question of loving the words of the law too much.

What do I mean by that? The underlying position for the Ministry is that National Service should be for everybody, regardless of how rich, powerful or famous they are. I remember my Dad insisting that I would do my national service to the best of my abilities. My father had placed a bond of $75,000, which would have been forfeit had I not returned to Singapore. To many of my peers in National Service, this was something crazy because as far as the world was concerned, I came from a family with money. Nobody in my family considered my skipping national service as being acceptable. National Service, however unpleasant, was something that I had to do.

Having been through National Service, I believe in the value of the institution. This is the one institution in Singapore that has the ability to bring everyone onto a level playing field, which when you consider the fact that Singapore is one of the most unequal societies on the planet, is a very good thing. If people want to enjoy the privileges of citizenship, I think they should also be willing to pay the price for those privileges.

To be fair to the Ministry, they also have pointed out that they have schemes to accommodate young players so that they can nurture their talents and there is a precedent in the shape of the last Singaporean who had some sort of sporting talent that was recognized on the international stage – Fandhi Ahmad. Mr. Ahmad, who is currently head coach of the Young Lions, was a Singapore superstar who earned a two-years contract playing for the Dutch Club, FC Groningen. You could say that if Mr. Ahmad could serve National Service and go onto play for an international club, why can’t Mr. Davis?

Having said all of that, the Ministry’s argument has a major flaw namely the fact that it does give people deferments to pursue their dreams. This is especially true if you get a government scholarship to study at some university outside of Singapore. The most prominent example is Dr. Patrick Tan, son of the former President, Dr. Tony Tan, who managed to get 12-year deferment to study soil. Nobody questioned why he got this deferment. Nobody asked how this would benefit the nation.

I suppose the Ministry would argue that government scholars pay back the privilege of getting deferments by contributing their brains through their work for the government. The Ministry has even gone on the attack by stating that Mr. Davis has no intention of fulfilling his National Service obligations and is only interested in his career. The full story can be found at: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/ben-davis-has-no-intention-to-fulfil-ns-duties-mindef-10541112

However, there are two key arguments here. Firstly, how does one measure patriotism? Is there any concrete evidence to show that Mr. Davis is any less patriotic or pro-Singaporean than your average Singaporean?

Then, who is to say that Mr. Davis and Singapore’s interest are not inline. How many Singaporeans are good enough to play for a club in the English Premier League? The benefits of having a Singaporean get into the English Premier League are boundless, particularly in soccer obsessed Singapore. It’s easier to list the benefits of having a Singaporean play for the premier league are perhaps easier to list than having Dr. Patrick Tan study soil. Getting into the Premier League as many have observed is no mean feat - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/sport/the-start-of-hard-work-to-come-what-signing-a-professional-10544746

So, here’s what we need to look at. How do we redefine the concept of “service?” Surely it has to be a way where Ben Davis gets to pursue his dreams of sporting glory and to fulfil his national service obligations. Why, for example does the term “service” have to be all about the military variety? There are, as the Europeans found out, ways of getting people to “give back” to society.

Why can we not explore ways of making Mr. Davis use his genius for football, a much-loved game in Singapore to “give back.” Yes, National Service should be universal but should it be a means of crippling people with a certain “genius” from following and developing their genius? I think of Melvin Tan, who is an internationally recognized concert pianist who had to leave Singapore to develop his talents for the rest of the world. We lost an “internationally” recognized concert pianist – do we need to lose a potential soccer star because of the rules.

The system has helped produced good workers but have we produced anyone brilliant enough to be recognized by the rest of the world? Surely, its time to understand that once in a while, you need cut the talents a bit of slack and know when to be flexible. I’m not saying that laws have to be broken but surely, you have to find a way to let people with the potential to be brilliant a bit of wiggle room.

Bosses Wife Syndrome

When Relatives Get in the Way

I had an exceedingly awkward conversation with a business owner last night. I had to tell him that his employees were grouping themselves into factions and the chief cause of this was simple. His wife, who has the work ethic of a sloth, had appointed herself the boss and decided that she was qualified to actually take operational control of one of the most crucial areas of his operation. Her efforts involved plenty of staring, plenty of chatter and plenty of posing and very little work. In short, the woman displayed every symptom of “bosses wife” syndrome and it was clearly not good for morale. The businessman said that he was aware of his wife’s shortcomings as a worker but did try to defend her staying that she was trying her best to help him out.

I think of this incident because it highlights one of the great dilemmas that small businesses face – the question of reliable labour. Business as they say, is about organizing relationships into something profitable and the best businessmen usually know that they can’t do everything themselves and so they end up hiring people who are better than they are to take care of aspects of the business, so that they can focus on what they’re good at. Unfortunately, this requires money and most people would rather work for an actual salary rather than a promise of a piece of business that may never take off. Small businesses struggle to recruit because they don’t have the resources of compete for talent with the bigger fish.

So, what do you do if you’re a small business? The successful ones are usually the ones that sell a “dream” of building something spectacular. This is especially true for the technology companies, where employees are motivated by the promise of building the future. One thinks of the numerous stories about how Steve Jobs was a jerk of the highest order but still managed to keep employees who were all driven by the prospect of creating future-making products.

The other solution is to get your relatives to help out. When my Dad started making it big, he coopted his fourth, fifth and sixth brothers to work for him. My fifth uncle left his employment but my fourth and sixth uncle’s cut their teeth working for him.

One of the things about relatives is that they are often willing to help in the name of wanting a relative succeed. If the relative is a shareholder in the business, the incentive to do well becomes even stronger. When well-managed, family relationships can be an asset. You can’t argue that the Walton’s who run WalMart, the biggest retailer in the world have screwed up.

Unfortunately, not every relative performs and history is filled with examples of relatives who screwed up the show because they forgot that doing well at a particular job requires something more than who you are related to. One only has to look at the history of monarchies to see how mediocre and incompetent kings screwed up and lost the kingdom – hence the former King of Bhutan’s insistence on imposing democracy on his population.

The problem with family businesses lies in the fact that the business is usually only as strong as the family that runs it. In Singapore, we had the perfect example of our first Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, who ran a tight ship of a government and ensured that his family behaved – as one reservist colonel said, “Both Lee brothers went through OCS and nobody gave them questionable deferments.” Unfortunately, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew had one problem – he was human and like all good human’s he got old and died and when the glue of the family went, ugly insinuations started flying around and the image of the Lee in power took a serious hit when his siblings started saying things the opposition didn’t dare to say.

What can family businesses do? Perhaps the most obvious point is that they need to recognize that work and family relationships need to be kept separate. One needs to realise that families are essentially human and eventually, human frailties will creep in.

I go back to Bhutan’s King-Father, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who gave up absolute power and imposed democracy on his population. His argument was simple – he knew he was a competent king, he could do something to ensure his son and successor was somewhat competent but he couldn’t ensure that the generations after that would be able to do a decent job and so he moved his people onto a system of government that would not be dependent on the head of his family to do a decent job.

In a strange way, the King-Father’s move to give up absolute power enhanced the monarchy. Likewise, a family business can depend on relatives to start with, especially when lines of authority are clear within the family. However, smart families will realise that there comes a time when the business needs to be about more than a single family.