It’s All About Image

About a month ago one of the Bistrot’s customers decided to pay their bill using GrabPay. The process was exceedingly simple. We keyed in the bill amount, chose the GrabPay option and the customer than scanned the QR code and hey presto the bill was paid.

This was an amazing experience. It was watching the “reality” of a “cashless” transaction in action using what we now consider standard technology. One should have had a moment of clarity and a delirious feeling that you were witnessing the future.

It wasn’t. Watching someone use “mobile technology” to pay a bill didn’t feel special and it seems to be the case for quite a few people. In the few months that we’ve installed the option to use “GrabPay,” I’ve witnessed a grand total of two transactions using GrabPay.

By contrast, most of our transactions in the entire restaurant come from credit cards and one of the things that most of us do notice is the type of credit card, especially the shiny metallic ones, which offered to the banks higher end customers. Apparently, you need a couple of million dollars’ worth of assets under management (“AUM” in technical jargon). When someone hands you a shiny card, it’s a sign that you’re in the presence of someone who’s made it.

 
That last sentence is a problem or rather an opportunity, depending on which side of the table you’re on. For the banks, the credit card has been one of the greatest money spinners ever invented. It allows us to borrow money from the bank without having to fill out lots of paper work or put down any collateral. Interest rates on credit cards are high, in fact interest on credit cards are probably the highest legal interest rates available anywhere in the world. On top of that, the credit card issuer takes a fraction of a percentage on every transaction from the merchant (this is what you call being the ideal middle man). 
 

By contrast, GrabPay does not charge the merchant on a transactional basis (every penny charged by the merchant is for him or her to keep) and the system is based on actual money as opposed to borrowings as in the case of the credit card, so using GrabPay or any similar system doesn’t get you into unnecessarily legal issues (I must disclose that I have credit card debt, which while under control, does take a hefty chunk of my salary.) 

If you look at the basics, GrabPay and other similar systems are a better payment system for both business and consumer. The only beneficiary in a credit card transaction is the issuer of the credit card. So, why do we in the so called “Developed” world not rushing to adapt systems like “GrabPay” and sticking stubbornly to old fashioned systems like cheques and most of all credit cards.

I believe that the answer lies in marketing and the way in which old fashioned products like the credit card are marketed. There’s something “magical” about writing a cheque and receiving a cheque and it’s even truer of the credit card. 

The marketing of the credit card has been first rate. That piece of plastic isn’t just a means of making a transaction. It is a symbol of who you are and it announces to people that you have access to the lifestyle that most can only dream off (this is especially true when it comes to air miles promotions – think of Amex Krisflyer – swish credit card that helps you fly on a swish airline).  

I think the metallic credit cards like Citibank’s Ultima, American Express’s Centurion Card or United Overseas Bank (UOB) Reserve Card. Apparently these are “invitation only” and in technical jargon you need to have a few million AUM (assets under management) with the issuing bank. The people who hand me these cards are people who can “Afford it.” 

I must confess that I am very guilty of being a “star-fucker” in this respect. In my casual surfing habits, I like to surf the net for information on what having these credit cards will get me. The thought of “wow, won’t this be nice if I could pull out this card” and “wow, this will help me fly in the new first class cabins” does cross my mind whenever I see these things. 

That’s precisely what the banks are counting on. As long as I’m working, I’m in a position to pay down bills. As long as there are merchants that accept cards, they earn decent fees. By comparison, there’s nothing particularly cool or glamorous about scanning a QR code – doesn’t say very much about me when I scan a code does it?

The only place where mobile payments have really taken off is China, where, as one PRC customer of the Bistrot explains – “Not even the beggars use money – they scan a code from WeChat or AliPay.” Why have these systems worked so well in China but less well elsewhere.

Perhaps the answer lies in necessity. China’s banking system is notoriously slow and SME unfriendly but at the same time there is plenty of technology talent in China. So, for Chinese consumers and businesses find a way to work round officialdom. This isn’t the case in America or dare I say Singapore.

Marketing investment works and over the long run it creates an emotional attachment to doing certain things. Perhaps it’s time for the likes of GrabPay and other systems to start working on branding themselves well.

The Problem with Bum Holes

There seems to be a national obsession with the anus in Singapore. If you want to get a heated discussion going, all you need to do is to mention the fact that in Singapore it remains illegal for two consenting adult men to poke each other up the bum. I am, of course, bringing up the topic of Section 377A, the act that prohibits “unnatural” sex between two men. Singapore’s normally placid population gets incredibly worked up about this and Singapore’s normally very “principled” government discovers an amazing ability to blend laws.

This was most recently seen at a “Smart Nation Summit” when Singapore’s Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong was asked about what more could be done to attract top tech talent. Mr. Lee made the point that Section 377A would remain for some time but that would not stop Singapore from being able to attract tech talent. Mr. Lee then went onto state that Singapore would not be as open as San Francisco (a city well known for its large homosexual population) but was not as strict as some parts of the Middle East (where the punishment for being a homosexual is death). More on Mr. Lee’s remarks can be read at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/377a-will-be-around-some-time-will-not-inhibit-how-spore-attracts-tech-talent-pm-lee

On the face of things, it’s hard to see what the uproar is about. Mr. Lee has pointed out that although Section 377A is on statute books, it is not enforced. It is possible to be “Gay” in Singapore. Homosexuals in Singapore do not get beaten up or sent to jail for being homosexuals. So, one might ask – what’s all the fuss about? Homosexuals are allowed to live perfectly normal lives in Singapore.

Mr. Lee is also not wrong in suggesting that 377A would be a major deterrent in attracting “tech talent” or any other form of talent.  For the most part, Singapore has many of the elements that make it a conducive place to live and work.  As I keep saying, who does not want to live in a place that is safe, clean, and green? The place has great infrastructure and as they say, nothing beats a place where the toilets flush.

However, Mr. Lee has missed some crucial points in his defense of the status quo. The most important point being, that Singapore’s government has a fairly decent reputation of being honest and trustworthy. Say what you like about the current crop in power, but they have been on balance benign for the population at large (even if life is getting expensive). As of now, you can take the government at its word that certain things won’t happen.

There is, as they say, no reason to doubt the government’s promise that it won’t enforce 377A and thus far homosexuals have not been persecuted for it. Homosexuals from around the world don’t have the fear of moving to Singapore in the same way they may have of moving to some parts of the Middle East.

There’s only one problem with this argument, namely the fact that we’re working on the assumption that the Singapore government will remain as benign as it currently is. There’s nothing to prevent someone with less than benign intentions from coming into power and using and abusing laws to their advantage. If the person in charge can’t get you on a host of other laws, there’s nothing to say that he’ll invoke 377A to persecute the person he or she may not like. Who is to say that this situation won’t happen? So, yes, things may seem nice and dandy for all parties at the moment but who is to say that the situation will not turn and one has to assume that the world’s investors have this thought at the back of their minds.  

All the arguments in favour of keeping 377A have been blown away by logical analysis. Even the emotional argument of “most Singaporeans are conservative and don’t approve of the act” has been blown away by the fact that places like India and Taiwan (one invented the cast system, the other claims to be China) have liberalized laws on homosexual sex.

So, the question remains – who exactly is protected by 377A? It clearly doesn’t exist for public health reasons (since it’s perfectly legal for heterosexual couples to engage in anal sex and there’s no proof to show that heterosexual anal sex is medically safer than the homosexual variety).  It’s clearly not on the statute books to protect the sensitivities of religious people especially when you consider the fact those other vices that religious people get offended by like gambling and prostitution are perfectly legal (who do you explain why two consenting adults having sex is illegal and immoral but it’s perfectly acceptable from a legal and moral standpoint for boys to pay a girl for sex?). I can only think of one group of people who might benefit from keeping this law – namely repressed homosexuals who happen to be filled with self-loathing for being homosexuals.

The Prime Minister may be right in that having a useless law might not detract from our ability to attract tech talent. However, this is something that exists for the moment. The artful compromise is sign that laws can be bent if pressure groups do their job, which is not something foreign investors like (do you really have “rule of law” if you have laws that you have declared that you will not enforce). The adherence to a certain dogma shows an inability to adapt to the times, not something a nation that prides itself in being at the forefront of things should promote.

It’s time we stopped worrying about what people do with their bum holes in the bedroom. Our national and legal obsession with the affairs of the bedroom is likely to clog us up if we don’t unplug ourselves from the need to control other people’s bum holes.

Connecting with a Special Period in Life

I know social media doesn’t always get the best press and as a parent to a teenage girl, I dread the fact that the kid used to spend an unholy amount of time chatting on this or that web application instead of getting out to enjoy life with actual people (the joke being, I was actually looking forward to holding a shotgun at the head of anybody she might bring home).

However, I actually have pretty good reason to be thankful to social media, especially to Facebook, thanks for a few incidents. The first came from a customer who walked into the Bistrot and told me that he had been sent to the Bistrot by someone who was my junior at Churcher’s College.  The second incident was the fact that it was my class reunion’s 25^th anniversary and I’ve been stealing precious moments looking at old photos of the reunion and our final school leavers ball (a night I will never forget thanks for a friend emptying the contents of his drinks onto me). Finally, I also received a text asking for help from a blogger to write about “overseas education.”

 So, it seems only fair that I should try and pen down a few thoughts about the seven years that I spent in Churcher’s College (five of those years were spent as a boarder). Going to boarding school meant that I had a particularly interesting relationship with the school in that it was not so much just a place where I went to study; it was a place where I called home. 

I’m not going to chit-chat about the “great” education that I got from studying overseas. While the academic results I achieved were respectable enough to get me to the next level, they don’t tell the entire story of being educated away from your “motherland” (and as my mother reminds me so often, I lived in England for those crucial years, there is a question of what is my motherland.) The real story of going to school outside your “motherland,” comes from the life experiences that you gain and the people that you meet and develop a human relationship with.

I start with the joke I have with many of my associates that the best thing that came out of those years in England was the appreciation of rugby (union) and cricket. Although I never made the school rugby or cricket teams, I played rugby at house level for three-years and I can talk intelligently about both. I didn’t know it then but a good portion of the people who would pay me in later life would be cricket mad Indian nationals and understanding the laws of cricket was an asset in sealing relationships. I would also end up befriending a large number of Kiwi’s, Australians and South Africans. While it’s often said in jest, understanding these two games from going to school in a small town in England equipped me with the ability to network on a fairly international level.

Incidentally, one of my closer friends from that period of my life was the captain of the rugby team and he was also captain of both senior and junior boarding house, while I was the one who won the award to biggest contribution to both boarding houses.

The second but more profound part of my life came from the friends that I made. In this respect, I am truly grateful to the invention of Facebook, which allowed me to stay in touch and to share lives of the people were part of my life for that crucial period. I mean, it’s been more than 25-years since we left school and I’m a few thousand miles away from them but being able to say hello once in a while is one of the things that make life so much better.

I suppose the main question that people would ask is, how was it for me, obviously an ethnic Chinese, living in Southern England, in a town filled with WASP. My answer remains on two levels:

Firstly, I’m probably not a great test case for East-West communal relations.  My main language is English and the language at home is English (though I speak Cantonese with my aunt and with my new family, the main language of the house remains Vietnamese, though I communicate with Huong in Mandarin and Jenny in English).

Secondly, while my stay in England wasn’t perfect, I never actually had people ganging up on me because I wasn’t the right skin colour. I was probably a disappointment for not being “foreign enough.” I remember writing a piece for “Independent.sg” and thanking the friends I made in Churcher’s for looking at me as a mate rather than as someone from outside the community. The most exotic that I got was the fact that I could order at the local Chinese in a different language (while I had good mates at school, I thought the owner of the local Chinese was a conman –but then again, he had a monopoly on Chinese food in town, which wasn’t that bad).

More often than not, I was an accepted part of the community, where people saw me as either a “good bloke” or a “shit,” and not because I came from elsewhere and each of the people that I met at school in that small town of Petersfield had a role in shaping the way I look at life. I even had a few visits from old school friends.

I’ve pretty much settled in Singapore and the South East Asian region and with the exception of the odd Christmas visit to Mum in Germany, the furthest I’m likely to get is the Middle East. There’s very little reason for me to go back to the UK, other than the fact that it would be nice to say thank you to this group of friends who made a special part of life – special.      

Opportunities Galore in Branding Halal

By Ms. Nurhayati Ghani, Account Executive, Right Hook Communications 

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Halal – it’s that five letter word that constantly sparks debate in the Muslim and non-Muslim community. By definition, ‘halal’ is an Arabic word and refers to what is permissible or lawful in the traditional Islamic law. Many would be quick to associate the term halal with food and drinks, especially meat but little do they know that the halal concept goes just beyond meat, as it also encompasses the overall Islamic lifestyle.

It’s not just about food?

What many people don’t seem to realise is that the halal concept applies to more than just what is being consumed by an individual. According to the Pew Research Center, the Muslim population is projected to grow more than twice as fast as the overall world population between 2015 and 2060, with an expectation to increase by 70% - from 1.8 billion in 2015 to nearly 3 billion in 2060. This could be the very reason why there has been an increase in demand for halal services and products in the Asia Pacific region as well as globally.

Redefining travel

Taking the world by storm is the rapid growth of halal tourism. It has been reported that  spending by the Muslim traveller is set to rise to US$220 billion by 2020, alongside the growing number of Muslim tourists, from 121 million in 2016 to 156 million. While the origins of the halal tourism market stemmed from pilgrimages, this industry has gained popularity due to Muslim tourists having more spending power.

A study from the Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI) 2019 identified four ‘need to have services’ that Muslims require during their travels – halal food, prayer facilities, water-friendly washrooms and no Islamophobia. Many countries such as Thailand and Japan have jumped onto the bandwagon to provide such services for Muslim tourists with both countries opening their very first halal hotel. These hotels provide facilities for practicing Muslims to make them at ease such as halal-certified dining, prayer rooms, and even separate swimming pools for men and women.

Breaking the norms in fashion

Besides halal tourism, the halal fashion industry has been breaking new ground over the past few years. Halal fashion refers to clothes that are modest and Shariah-compliant, where clothes are generally loose-fitting and cover the awrat (Arabic for intimate parts). The rise of hijab-wearing influencers and models have also turned a handful of well-known designers into designing modest collections. The traditional ladies head scarf has been re-designed for the modern Muslim woman who seeks to live life to fullest by engaging in fashion related activities and sports. Italian luxury fashion house, Dolce & Gabbana released a collection of hijabs and abayas, targeted to Muslim customers in the Middle East in 2016. Popular Japanese fashion retail brand, Uniqlo has also collaborated with designer and internet personality, Hana Tajima, to embrace the modest fashion scene back in 2015. Sports apparel brand, Nike, became the first major brand to launch the ‘sporting hijab’ for women in 2017. Further going against the norm in the industry, was Somali-American beauty who appeared as the first model to wear a hijab and burkini in the coveted Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Such examples show how the western and non-Muslim community are more open to embrace the halal market.

Similar to the fashion industry, halal beauty products are paving their way into the hearts and minds of consumers from all over the world, not just the Muslims. Halal beauty products must not contain materials that are forbidden by Islamic law, such as alcohol and any animal by-products. Water-soluble or breathable nail polishes are also gaining popularity among many Muslim women worldwide with brands such as Wardah Beauty and American-based Amara Cosmetics and Orly, making it easier for ladies to look beautiful while embracing an Islamic lifestyle.

Creating more awareness for halal brands

It is without a doubt that the halal industry has become a phenomenon over the past few years. What used to only be limited in the Middle East, is now gaining a strong footing in other parts of the world such as the Asia Pacific, Europe and even Singapore. The upcoming Halal Hub that is set to open in our tiny red dot in 2021 will be “the most advanced of its kind in Southeast Asia” and this will boast Singapore’s halal landscape into the eyes of the world.

With so much potential to capture a larger international audience for the halal industry, more effort needs to be taken by these brands to market their products more effectively. Furthermore, younger Muslims play large part in how halal centric products are too be marketed given that they have more spending power and influence over social media channels.

Ignorance can only be fought with education and that’s where content marketing comes into play.

The shifting perceptions and spending power of non-Muslim consumers worldwide are also a key aspect in helping the halal industry to grow. Through education and more media exposure, these consumers will be more aware of the halal industry and how halal products and services are not just for Muslims but for everyone. 

Firing People

Getting a job is probably one of the key milestones in anyone’s life. A job, for the most of us, is the main way in which we generate the income that sustains us and helps us to raise a family and to ensure that our old age is somewhat comfortable.

Jobs are not only the way in which we sustain ourselves; they are for the most part, the means in which we identify ourselves in society. What we do for a living and where we work provide us with a certain sense of purpose. I think of the number of old people who take so much pride in the fact that their offspring have made it to law or medical school. One of the most prominent examples of “professional” pride came from the way my former brother-in-law who became an engineer at Defense Science Organisation or “DSO.” You can blame this on the ancient Indians, who created as caste system where you were literally born into a certain job and your name was supposed to be a reflection of what you did for a living.

So, as you can imagine, one of the most emotionally charged acts in the modern capitalist system is the termination of employment. When you fire someone, you are not only taking away their means of making a living, you are, in fact, taking a portion of their life. The act of sacking people can be painful, especially if you’re not ruthless by nature (which I am admittedly not).

Since I’ve worked in liquidations, I have had to sack people on various occasions. Company is in liquidation, which means there’s no money to pay anyone. A liquidator has to turn off the taps to ensure what little money there is, is actually preserved. Hence, sacking people without pay is actually a necessity. Terminating former directors is usually a simple formality. Sacking a group of Indian and Bangladeshi workers who have not been paid and have probably borrowed significant sums of money from nasty people is probably one of the most heart breaking experiences anyone can go through. I’ve done it twice and it doesn’t get easier. I feel like a shit when I have to look at the faces of innocent, decent people I’ve crushed.

Yet, we live in a capitalist system and firing people is part and parcel of that system. Businesses are in the business of making money and not creating social welfare. Employees are hired to do task and if those task can be done cheaper and better by someone (with the advent of AI, someone is usually something too) else, why shouldn’t the business go for the cheaper and more effective method?

There are also times when employees should be fired. I think of the little political shits who hang around office cubicles thinking of ways to mess up their colleagues (This is the group that every management guru advises you to sack even if the person in question is a star performer). There are also employees whose personal lives are such that their performance at work is affected (One of the reasons why Gina was never really accepted into my family was the fact that she had a habit of calling me up at work and screwing me up. Huong by contrast doesn’t).

I work on the principle that that sacking people should always be done swiftly, honestly and humanely. If the employee in question is problematic, you should sack them on the spot. The disruption caused by a “poisonous” apple is worse than the disruption to the work process.

If it’s a case of dealing with an employee who is not performing to his or her potential, the answer is probably to counsel the said employee and to provide a chance or two before sacking the said employee.

Generally speaking, one should also be honest. If you really can’t keep people, you should let them know. The days where the relationship between employer and employee being like a marriage have long gone. In the last sacking I did, the Indian workers actually told me, “Don’t worry Sir, we know you’re just doing your job.”

On the flip side, employees should also understand that the concept of “iron rice bowl or iron bread basket (for Western readers)”is not necessarily a good thing. Nature did not intend for things to be comfortable and just as employers have the opportunity to choose someone younger and cheaper, employees also have options to change to employers who appreciate them or industries that are growing.

I was sacked by an Uncle of mine. I think the poor guy must have received a lot of flak from the family. I never gave it to him. We had lunch a year or so after he sacked me and I actually thanked him for teaching me many things. Likewise, when I was effectively “banged out of BANG PR,” I actually felt that my life became better. I did the “Saudi Embassy Job” and later on got the IIT and IIM jobs. Sure, I might not have had the financial stability or the “experience” that big corporation lust after with years of being in an agency. However, I’ve had the privilege of doing “G2G” work as a lone individual. Instead of being AVP at Webber Shandwick, I’ve had someone say, “You did more for us than Webber Shandwick USA.” These are the experiences I can take to my grave with a certain matter of pride. I saw my sackings as a chance to do something else and it’s something we should allow workers to have.

I’m of the view that what we need is greater mobility of labour. Jobs are important but they shouldn’t define us. Why do we insist of an immigration policy that ties a worker to a particular company. Surely, we’d be doing the world a greater service if we created conditions that encouraged workers to move around more. 

The Best Welfare is Tough Training

My national service batch was what you could call an interesting one. We were an “experimental” batch – the one caught in between the “brute force” thinking of the 60s and 70s and the “tech-wizz” army of the 90s and 2000s. Our batch is best summed up by the howitzer that we used – the FH88 and the FH 2000. The FH 2000, the pride of the Singapore artillery at the time, had wonderful hydraulics that allowed us to get the howitzer rounds into the barrel without developing a hernia (I’m told that Singapore’s 155 gunners have our current Prime Minister to thank for developing the flick rammer), which wasn’t the case with the old M71 and M71S.  However, when compared to the Primus, our towed howitzer, the “FH” guns are relics. I remember asking a young gun commander about his gun drill and he stared at me as if I was speaking an alien language. At that point, the S3 (Operations officer) sheepishly explained to me that “gun drill” was called “push buttons.”  

What is true of our equipment was even more so of our people. We were considered “spoilt” because MP’s actually pretended to listen when parents complained about army camps and we slept on foam mattresses. However, unlike today’s recruits, we did have a lap top issued to us upon enlistment. We were a bit more polished than our predecessors and a little more rugged than our successors.

One of the reasons for that was because the army decided that it was time to introduce this thing called “Welfare for Soldiers.” What did this mean? Officially, it meant that the organization had to look like it was pretending to care about the grunts on the ground and superiors were not allowed to get physical with you.

However, while “welfare” was the new buzzword in those days, one of my senior instructors always made the point of telling us that, “The Best Welfare is Tough Training.” While this sounded like a cliché at the time, I’ve come to realize that phrase contains great wisdom, especially when you look at the modern political landscape and the fact that despite all the advances that we’ve made, life seems tougher than it was many years ago.

On one hand you have people who complain that despite working harder than ever before, they seem to be getting less, while on the other hand you have the crowd that complain about the yobs from elsewhere stealing jobs and scrounging off social welfare. The solution for both camps is inevitably the government. So, what is it exactly that we want from the government? Unfortunately, the answer is either more spending on social services or (it’s usually an addition) banning people from certain other groups from having a bite at the cherry.

Both sides seem to have lost the plot. Government plays a vital role in ensuring that things function relatively smoothly. Government also plays a key role in balancing the needs of business and society. However, government in many cases is a bit of a self-serving entity and you have to ask how government can get better for everyone.

I believe that governments should go back to basics, namely understanding the role of government in society. This is best explained by the analogy of a sports match. The government is the provider of the pitch and the referee.  When you look at this way, you will understand that the government is there to provide certain services like infrastructure, defense and sanitation. The government ensures that businesses can flourish but at the same time do not exploit workers. The government should under no circumstances be business.

One of the key roles of government is in providing infrastructure and one of the most important forms of infrastructure is the educational infrastructure. People with skills get jobs and better paying jobs than the people without. I live in Singapore, which is obsessed with education and training. Buying knowledge is big business in Singapore and the government’s continuous mantra is that our entire success is based on the fact that our people have skills that large multinational corporations want. The key driver used to be semi-conductors because our small population used to have the right skills. Now, we’re focusing on other industries.

You could say that the Singapore government has understood that the best welfare for its people is in training and ensuring that people can get good jobs. Better to have a nation of well-trained people that can get decent paying jobs than have a bunch of unemployable people who will expect handouts.

However, as one former journalist said, “Every minister of education we’ve had should be shot – we need so many foreigners every year to do the jobs that the economy creates and it appears the locals can’t do the jobs created by the economy. Then, you got ask, why can’t the locals to the jobs created by the local economy? You look at the one thing they have in common, which happens to be the education system.”

So, what is it about the local system, which is very good at instilling basic skills, not creating the people that are needed for the jobs that are currently being created?

OK, I’m not an expert on the system (in fact, I failed so badly in the system that my mother gave up her career in journalism for me) but I suspect that while our system is good, its good at producing people who can work within the system but not people who can deal with changing circumstances, which, in the age of disruption is a vital skill in order to survive.

While the Singapore government is right to focus on things like “retraining” and “lifelong” learning  so that people can jobs in new industries being created, the question is – is this really what the government wants in its people?

I’m a little unusual because I spent the better part of my working life as a freelancer. I think of the “Gig” economy as the world’s greatest blessing. Things like “Uber” and ‘Airbnb” are empowering. Why can’t I rent out my spare room for a few days a month if it brings me extra money or supplements my income? While nine to six is stable, it cannot be the only form of earning money.

However, its people like me, whom the government looks at with suspicion because we, in the “Gig” economy have a mindset that our survival is self-made. We don’t see a job from a multinational or the government as a gift from a benevolent power. A job is merely that – a means of exchanging time for money. We understand that you, the giver of the job can take it away as you have given it. So, we need to find something else.

On the other hand, someone who has grown used to stability will think differently. You develop a dependent mindset when you have one single source of income that makes it illegal for you not to be dependent on that one employer. For someone raised on that system, the “gig” economy is hell on earth.

Governments should understand that the best form of welfare is to train people for the future. Better to have people who can make their own jobs rather than people who expect welfare handouts. While governments like Singapore’s have been very good at training people to have basic skills in doing things, how many of them have trained their people to think laterally? If governments are serious about providing social welfare, it’s time they trained people to think laterally.  

Letting Birds Fly

Father’s Day has come and gone. It was a time when we all try out best to be nice about the men who contributed a tinny cell that made us into something living. My experiences of fatherhood have been pretty good. You could say I struck it lucky when God decided to give me parents who couldn’t stay married forever. My dad did an awesome job of keeping in style. My stepdads, Lee and Thomas ensured that I understood that the qualification for being a father wasn’t necessarily biological.

When it comes to my natural father, I’m often wax lyrical about the fact that he provided the funds for a pretty cushy lifestyle and  I am an  “educated man” because of him. As my mother used to say, “No matter how bad his business situation, he’s seen to it that your school fees were paid.”

However, what I can’t thank my dad enough for was his ability to let me grow. It was just after the tragedy in New Zealand, when Ronnie and Yin Tit had been blown away by that terrible tragedy. I had pushed for the army to cancel the exercise for my battery and expressed my unwillingness to go for a living firing that had sent my good friend to an early grave. I spoke to my mother, who called my father, who then proceeded to make life hell for the SAF. He told me, “If they want you to fire a live round, tell them, you won’t and I’ll see to it that they won’t court martial you.” He also told my battery commander that as a father, he kept looking at Ronnie’s obituary picture and kept seeing my picture in his place and explained to the battery commander that it was an exercise that every parent was going through (my battery commander ended up becoming a father to three girls).

Well, after fighting tooth and nail to get me out of the exercise, I decided to join the live demo in Thailand. The powers that be in the army insisted I speak to my parents. Dad looked at me, told me his reservations and then told me to speak to my mother and then said that if I insisted on doing the live firing. In that moment, I really felt I had the coolest Dad around. It was this simple, I was telling him that I wanted to do something that could kill me (and remember the evidence that this was potentially lethal had just hit home) and his words were “I will respect your decision, no matter what.”

I look back at this incident because it reflects one of the things many of us forget to do in our roles as people with responsibilities – namely to let go and to let our charges fly or sink according to their merits. In a way, our first experience of leadership comes from our parents, who are programmed to look out for us and if you read through enough job sites, you’re always told that “good bosses” are the bosses who “mentor” and “nurture” you. In short, a good boss is like a parent.

There is however, a point when parents and other “leadership” figures stumble and fail the ones they are supposed to “look after.” That point of failure is usually when they forget to let go. At best, that analogy is annoying – I think of my ex-girlfriend, who, in her early thirties needed her mother’s approval to be with me (Needless to say, her mother loathed me  even if I was and am the only man she’s been involved with who works for a living.) This is silly.

In businesses, the inability to “let go” or “bossitities” has probably been a leading cause of business failures. The worst cases of this come from “entrepreneurs” particularly the very successful ones who built businesses from scratch. The “founder” forgets that his (most are usually men) somehow ends up committing the sin of not grooming a capable successor (hence leaving the business to vulnerabilities to human frailty) and/ or not really leaving their successors to get on with it, thus making it nearly impossible for the man in charge to be really in charge.

I live in Singapore, a country where the founding father was imminently brilliant in so many ways. He even made a song and dance about wanting to step down while he had his marbles around him and then stepped down. Well, he didn’t quite do that. Instead of stepping down, he stepped aside. Both his successors (one of them being his son) couldn’t escape his shadow. I was at a seminar where a prominent journalist said “We’re in the era of Lee Kuan Yew. Lee Hsien Loong may be the Prime Minister and Goh Chok Tong may have been the Prime Minister for 14-years but it is still Lee Kuan Yew’s era.” While, we’ve been materially OK since his demise, you can’t help but feel that Old Mr. Lee’s inability to let go has created a sense that there is a lack of direction in Singapore now that he is no longer around.

My mum used to say that as a mother, she had a duty to ensure we could live without her (a point that I try to make to Jenny). She reminds me that we had a handy man in England (Mr. Cook) who could do all sorts of things and trained his boys to do housework – the cause of this was simple – Mrs. Cook died. Mrs. Cook ensured that her boys could get on without her.

What is true of parenthood should also be true of other forms of leadership. A leader who makes him or herself indispensable is doing his or her followers a disservice. PN Balji, the former founding editor of the Today Newspaper, takes pride in the fact that the paper started making profits once he left. His argument was simple – he a duty to ensure that the paper would be better without him. If only more “leaders” around the world understood that.

Idealism is Exceedingly Practical

One of the things that Singaporeans take great pride in, is the fact that we’re an exceedingly “practical” people. We like to think of ourselves as a people who live in “reality” and we tend to “poo-poo” those whom we deem as “dreamers.” This is very obvious when you look at our voting choices. We may bitch and moan about the PAP but when push comes to shove, we keep them snuggly where they are because by and large they’ve kept life comfortable. I think of one of our former presidents who reminded us that we need to look at the “office as it is.”

In a way, I am exceedingly grateful that Singaporeans have this mindset. I like to think that part of our prosperity has been down to the fact that our people have a tremendous amount of common sense, which drives us to do things like to go to work and to send our kids to school. We are a people with an uncanny ability to know the things are good for us no matter how much initial pain that might cause us.

However, there are two key problems with that mindset. The most obvious is the fact that we’ve been blessed with semi-decent political leadership. Say what you like about our late founding Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his successors, but they managed to get most things right. I never tire of saying this but Singapore is so many ways is what a country should be – rich, clean, green and safe. I, for example, don’t worry about things happening to my 20-year old daughter when she comes home late at night. As an Englishman once said to me, “I find Singapore exceedingly free because it’s safe – safety is freedom.”

The people running Singapore have on the whole been benevolent and competent and the reality they have created is once again, likewise. A “practical” person in this respect merely has to fit into the system to do relatively well. Go to school, go get a job and hey, before you know it, you’ll have a valuable property.

However, what happens when the people in charge have become less competent or less benevolent. What happens is that they create a reality that suites them and them alone. A practical person adapts to it and he or she keeps adapting to the reality that is created by the people in charge, who don’t give a shit about anything else except about creating a reality that suites only them.

In Singapore, we have the perfect example of that across the causeway. They had a political party and political system that worked on a system of patronage and a system where it was understood that only people of a certain ethnic group where supposed to benefit from the system. Everyone excepted it until the people in charge decided to get a little bit greedy and exploited the weaknesses in the system until the reality became such that it was unbearable for the majority of people.  Many of my Malaysian friends have stated that one of the greatest things about the 2018 election was the fact that people came together as “Malaysians” rather than Malay, Chinese and Indian.
This leads to the second point – there is no progress, be it political, scientific or economic without some sort of idealism or rather the ability to see the world as it “could” be rather than what it is.

I got to admit; I was a horrible Singaporean when I was in university. I thought my more idealistic brethren in the halls of college. I mean, I couldn’t understand why people complained about capitalism, a system that had benefited my little nation. I’m told that this is a phase that Western university students go through and they change once the reality of the working world sets in.


After nearly two-decades of living in a prosperous, practical East Asian society, I’m inclined to relook at that. While, there’s lots to be said for accepting reality as it is, there is a danger in that you become so accepting of reality that you forget that it can be changed for the better. 

I think of my former client, General Electric Commercial Finance, part of General Electric, which was founded by Thomas Edison, the man who invented the light bulb. Perhaps Edison was not the idealist in the sense of my fellow Goldsmith’s students. However, he had the ability to see the world with lighting that that wasn’t dependent on individual fires – hence the electric light bulb and many other such products.

The two richest men in the world, namely Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates didn’t except life as it is. Bill Gates could see a world where there would be a computer on every desk – hence Microsoft. I’m old enough to remember failing computer studies miserably because to turn on a computer required some scientific knowledge. Now, I push a few buttons and the computer is an essential part of modern living. Bill Gates saw the world as it could be and changed our reality and so made a fortune. 

The same is true of Jeff Bezos, who saw us being able to buy and sell things without having to leave our bedrooms, when the reality at the time was shopping meant getting out of the house to visit a physical store. 

Blind idealism without reality isn’t good. The world is filled with great dreams that never get turned into reality or people who are visionary but can’t even walk of the house dressed. However, there’s another extreme, people who are so focused on living in the world as it is that they get trapped by it and never progress. I like advertising great, Bill Bernbach who called “creativity – the most practical tool a businessman can employ.” I would argue that “Idealism” a greater tool. 

You need the people who can execute but you also need the people who can dream. Dreamers who have their feet on the ground, do exceedingly well (I think of the guys at Polaris, who revered Arun Jain for this ability to dream and yet is a humble and down to earth person). There are also people who are great dreamers and recognize they’re no good at the execution part, so they team up with the people who are (Richard Branson comes to mind). Idealism needs practicality to be turned into reality – but practicality without idealism can be unpractical.

‘Working mums’ and the do-it-all delusion

By Ms. Neela McGilton

Director - International (Strategic Partnership)

Deakin University 

“Working mothers, how do you do it? Not only do you hold down a job, you cook, clean, garden, nurse, chauffeur, tutor and launder – all while looking amazing.”

This gushing portrayal of modern motherhood is as common as it is crazy.

Celebrities are getting in on the act, with social media posts that combine to give the impression that working, doing the school run, cooking nutritious meals, being a “mindful” parent while still looking picture perfect is a piece of (gluten-free) cake.

So how does the modern mum do it all?

Easy. We have help. (And if we don’t, we’re suffering.)

I’m a “working mum” of two — funny how my husband never gets called a “working dad” — and a champion delegator. I unashamedly DO NOT do it all.

Instead, we surround ourselves with nannies, cleaners, gardeners and handymen. Not to mention grandparents. We use every possible service to make life easier – from child care to grocery delivery, Airtasker and party caterers. We choose to do what we enjoy, what is important for the family and outsource everything else.

My job, though demanding, is flexible, and I enjoy regular international work assignments. (Opening the door to a clean hotel room after a long day working is sheer bliss.)

I’m under no illusions about how privileged I am. I recognise that boasting about the catering at my child’s birthday party will not win me friends. But nor do I pretend as though I whipped up the vol-au-vent myself. 

I know many women do fulfil all the roles mentioned above – carer, worker, cleaner, laundress – and that paying for help is not an option. Many of these women are suffering considerably. Official figures in the UK show women are 70 per cent more likely to suffer workplace stress, and researchers have warned of a generation of “do-it-all women” on the cusp of breakdown.  

Australian figures are equally dismal: research shows women work considerably more hours than men (at home and in paid work), easily outstrip men when it comes to chores, and are almost always responsible for sick children and elderly parents, even when both parents work full-time.

No doubt, for the mum who is forced to do it all, gender inequality is a major problem. (Workplace demands and economic realities contribute to the dilemma.)

All the more reason that we stop peddling the myth of the (happy, healthy) do-it-all mother. Making things look easy when they’re not, releases men from domestic responsibility (The wife’s doing well — no need for me here!); undermines stay-at-home mums, who work just as many hours as the rest of us (I do everything you do, and I’ve got a ‘proper’ job!); and excuses employers from flexibility (What do you mean you’re not coping – how hard can mixing work and family life be?)

I’m not perfect, but I am happy. Without help, I wouldn’t have survived these past eight years of motherhood. So why don’t other mothers in my position get help – or admit they have help?

It boils down, perhaps, to a bigger problem – women are here to be looked at, adored, admired and categorised. Image remains everything, and Instagram posts featuring perfect Paleo cupcakes makes us entirely complicit.

I love this quote from British author Caitlin Moran: ““When a woman says, ‘I have nothing to wear!’, what she really means is, ‘There’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today.”

The perfect modern mother is the result of focusing on who we are, not what we do – or want to – in our short time on earth. Stop worrying about who’s watching – get help, or be honest how tough it is.

Don't Lose Hope No Matter How Hard Your Circumstances

By Ms. Vee

It can be said that the most frightening thing in our life is to lose faith

The uneven life always contains events, unhappiness in life, including sad-happy chains - happiness - suffering, we never stop growing because we all nourish a soul, the will of a persistent faith

My life is a broken story of happiness, my parents divorced when I was only 10 months old, the age was not aware of how badly my father had treated my mother.

 Perhaps living in my father's lack of affection, I appear to be strong on the outside so that I can grow up more, which now makes me believe the most is my future, really trying to make money successful to be able to repay my mother who has kept me in the hard years ... there is a saying that reminds me of a relative in my family that "don't trust anyone because they have can change face any time ”

In a personal sense, when you have faith, you will be happier and life will be more meaningful. I believe that the beliefs I put into them are correct, because the beliefs that are not given by us are created by ourselves.