I had an early morning breakfast with a friend of mine, who had left the security of a career in the SAF to become an entrepreneur. During this meeting, he mentioned that he felt that the problem in Singapore wasn’t so much the lack of talent but the fact that many people were simply ignored because they didn’t meet the official criteria of talent or were talented but unrecognized as such because they didn’t fit into the system.
This
conversation got me thinking about our rather complex relationship with the
word talent. Singapore claims that it built its great economic miracle by
making the most of its “human resources.” At the same time, the government
consistently tells us that we need to be open to “foreign talent,” if we are to
continue to be prosperous and that Singapore has to “import” talent because we
simply don’t have the domestic talent to drive the economy of the future.
I personally
don’t have anything against the “importation of talent.” An important part of
my life story is based on the fact that my mother married an American expat,
who brought me around the world. If I look at back at my “career highlights,” I’m
blessed because of the Indian expat community. I would have starved a long time
ago if it wasn’t got the “expat” community.
Having said
that, I question if Singapore really lacks talent and if we do, why do we lack
talent? Our education system is often blamed for this in as much as while our
system produces “educated” workers, we don’t produce “leaders” in anything. To
be fair, our universities are trying to change and have been running programs
aimed at fostering a more “entrepreneurial” culture.
However, whilst
our universities are trying to get things moving, I’m inclined to agree with my
friend. There are talented Singaporeans who were somehow squished out and were only
able to achieve things outside of Singapore. Then, once they achieved outside
of Singapore, they were either made to feel so unwelcome because had to break a
rule to leave to pursue their talents or they are held up as examples of
glorious government guidance (which is more often than not – untrue) to an
extent that they end up loosing the edge that made them great in the first
place. Think of Kevin Kwan of Crazy Rich Asians fame in the first group and Sim
Wong Hoo and Joseph Schooling in the second group.
Let’s look at
the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics as an example. Let’s be
honest, the Olympics were a disappointment and our “golden” boy didn’t even
come close to being able to defend his title. By contrast, our Paralympics team
did very well. We managed to get a gold medal thanks to Ms. Yip Pin Xiu. This
wasn’t the first gold medal for Ms. Yip. She had claimed the gold in the 2012
Rio Games and in the 2008 Beijing Games. If you look at success at the
international level over a period of time as a yard stick, Ms. Yip is probably
the most successful athlete that Singapore has ever produced.
Let’s Applaud
the fact that a girl in a wheelchair is probably our most successful athlete.
Yet, despite
her success at three of the largest tournaments for disabled athletes, Ms. Yip remains
a relative unknown in Singapore. It’s only in this Paralympic Games where politicians
have mentioned Ms. Yip, which is contrasted with the way everyone rushed to
have their photos taken with Mr. Schooling after the Rio Games. Why is that so?
Could it be because Ms. Yip is “disabled” and therefore not looked upon in the
same way as her more “abled” counterparts?
Let’s look things
this way. Singapore has far more successful at the Paralympics than in the
Olympics. Every medal winner in the Paralympics has been a “home-grown” talent.
There’s been a need to “import” talent for the Paralympics in the same way
there has been for the Olympics.
Medal Count for
the Olympics – Taken from Wikipedia
Medal Count for
the Paralympics – Taken from Wikipedia.
Who Won Our
Olympic Medals? – Taken from Wikipedia
Who Won Our Paralympic
Medals – Taken from Wikipedia.
Whilst our
Paralympic athletes have been more successful than our Olympic ones, nobody
talks about the Paralympic ones. You could argue that this isn’t limited to
Singapore in as much as the world focuses on the Olympics rather than the
Paralympics.
However, we
have to question why we aren’t doing more to support disabled athletes. Why, for
example do we think we need to award an Olympic Gold Medalist S$1,000,000 but value
to the Gold of a Paralympian at only S$400,000. Sure, TV ratings may be greater
for the Olympics but hey, let’s look at what we’ve gained there and what we do gain
in the Paralympics. Why does Singapore focus so much on “able-bodied” athletes
when it’s our disabled one who give us the real glory. Shouldn’t Singapore be
focusing on its strengths and hey, becoming a “hub” for disabled sports would
really put us on a map. Let’s be the guys who support those who go through
greater challenges (Yes, Mr. Schooling’s story is amazing, when you think of
the sacrifice his parents made so he could follow his dreams and develop his
talents. However, Ms. Yip’s story is equally if not more amazing in that it’s miracle
that a girl in a wheelchair can be a world class swimmer.)
This “wrong”
focus is not just limited to athletics. I recently got involved in a discussion
with a former BBC reporter who posted something about how she was not hired
when she moved back to Singapore because MediaCorp felt that viewers did not
like “dark skinned” presenters. It goes without saying that MediaCorp have denied
it, saying that they hire purely based on merit. Her comments can be found below:
Leaving aside the
merits of her claim, what is obvious is that it became very clear that
MediaCorp had missed out on hiring some talented home-grown presenters. I
noticed this back in 2013, when I had to arrange interviews for Raghuram Rajan,
who was then Chief Economic Adviser to the Indian Government. Both BBC and
Bloomberg chased me for the interview and it was a local born Sikh girl who
interviewed him from the BBC and a local Malay girl who interviewed him for
Bloomberg. Our local press felt it was beneath them to interview this highly acclaimed
and internationally recognised economist on a Sunday because …. Their bureaus
were shut. Luckily for the local news, I managed to speak to an Australian who
then sent a lovely American girl down to interview him.
It’s sad. We
throw money at certain groups of people we consider to be good. We thrown money
to get people from elsewhere. Yet we ignore some of our own people who don’t
fit into our “idea” and “preconceived” notion of what is good. Sometimes it’s a
boon for these people in that they end up at better places and go onto better
things. However, it us a tragedy that we’re searching all over the world for
people to suit our criteria of good when the talents were right under our
noses.
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