Above all else

Innovation and creativity are increasingly celebrated in today's knowledge economy, and quite rightly so. But it's getting to the point where some people are even re-characterising the Industrial Age as a time of look-alike factories, mechanical efficiency and rigid specialisation (forgetting that these were all incredible innovations at the time), and painting our own age as one of more enlightened innovation.  For the avoidance of doubt - knowledge, creativity and innovation are critical. But it's somewhat ironic that one manifestation of this current celebration of creativity is that everyone's mostly jumping on the same bandwagons - cryptocurrency, blockchain, artificial intelligence - and hordes of people have suddenly become "passionate advocates for innovation and disruption" on LinkedIn :D Everyone wants to be the high-level conceptual knowledge consultant, no one wants to be the guy doing work in the trenches. So let me sound a slightly different ton...

So here we are again, weeks into Phase 2 (Heightened Alert). The past 1.5 years living amidst the Covid-19 pandemic have been... interesting. I asked my parents if the pandemic was the biggest world/national event in their lives, and both unhesitatingly agreed - bigger than independence in 1965 (which I was somewhat surprised by - according to my dad, everybody then was just struggling to survive and get a job, so the idea of political independence was almost peripheral to many people), and bigger than the race riots of 1969 (which was the next biggest thing according to my mom). I wasn't alive in those days, so to me, the 2nd biggest event after the current pandemic was the September 11 terrorist attacks, not only because of the heightened security measures that are now standard in airports and buildings, but because the disquieting sense of potential physical danger became something that's ingrained in our collective consciousness ever since. The main reason why I think the c...

I was having my regular end-of-day talk with my son yesterday, and we happened to end up discussing tactics for writing good General Paper essays. So he was explaining his thoughts on opening with a counter-thesis, then coming in all guns blazing to dismantle the counter-thesis, thus ensuring that any resistance is futile even before he needs to get to his actual thesis! OK, so I guess that's one way of doing it... but of course Daddy must have a view also right? So I suggested to him that his tactic could make a lot of sense, but perhaps more so in another context. What context is that? I asked. And he thought for a bit, and answered, "A debate". Eureka. The very purpose of a debate is to win the argument. On the other hand, the purpose of a General Paper essay is not to win an argument. It is to demonstrate the writer's ability to understand and communicate the issues. For this reason, having the mindset of utterly destroying the counter-thesis to your proposition c...

So we brought the whole family to the National Gallery yesterday. It's free for Singaporeans, and the place has a lot of memories for me, because it's the old Supreme Court and City Hall, where I spent a fair chunk of time in my first job. It was fun to point out to my kids, hey this is where we used to sit outside the courtroom, waiting for the hearing to start, here's where the accused would sit in the dock, and that's where the judge would come out of his chambers.  Although it's primarily an art museum, the gallery's historical documents were most interesting. I found one particular set of documents especially fascinating. There's a document declaring the parties' intentions for Singapore to separate from Malaysia, and then-PM Lee's signature plus the Malaysian leaders' signatures are on it, but the Singapore Deputy PM's signature is conspicuously missing.  Next to this document, the gallery exhibited a handwritten letter from Tunku Abdul...

One of my favourite books (well, maybe short story is a better description) is "Who Moved My Cheese?" by Dr Spencer Johnson. It's an allegory about two mice and two little people, who are happily enjoying cheese in one corner of a maze, when the cheese disappears. Do they head off into the unknown to find new cheese? Or stay put and hope the cheese gets replenished? I first discovered this book more than ten years ago. I was reasonably comfortable where I was in my career, I knew what I was doing, and I was being recognised for being good at it. It was getting even more comfortable because after a couple of years of exploring new areas and steep learning curves, my role was slowly evolving back towards an area that I was particularly familiar with. Reading "Who Moved My Cheese?" prompted me to find a new adventure, and so I did, promptly moving to try out a different industry and a different role. After a couple of years, I did actually end up going back to my o...

Venture capitalist, businessman and Shark Tank judge Kevin O'Leary was asked by a guy - my fiancee has delivered me an ultimatum - choose me or your crazy hours in your startup business. What do I do? O'Leary first observed that the guy had built a very promising company, with millions in revenue. He then noted that major sacrifices are needed to build a successful business - family dinners, weekend soccer games, time, energy and attention. And O'Leary ended up asking the guy to consider - which is harder to replace - the business or your fiancee? Indra Nooyi, former Pepsico CEO and Chairperson, observed a similar thing, famously observing "I don't think you can have it all. We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all.". Oprah Winfrey put it even more elegantly. "You can have it all. Just not all at once."  I'm not sure that the right question is "Which is harder to replace?" My instinct is that the better question is ...